48
Reference
This margin
not to be
used
T 2680/2/
Date
Description
15
6 February 187/1,
Letter from Edward Parks, St. Sylvestre,
Quebec, Canada, to his brother.
we have great reason to thank God
for his maney mercies to us both temporal
and spiritual which he has conferred upon us
We had a very fine
crop last year and verry favourable weather for saving it and we
had a good sale for our farm produce we sold about 35 pounds worth
of corn last year, and £12.10 worth of sheep and lambs and £25.
worth of butter. We have got two good horses as good as there is
in the country and we keep eight or nine COWS besides a lot of
young cattle and eighteen or twenty sheep we make the most of our
own clothing from their wool it costs us nothing only the carding
of the wool as we spin it and weave it ourselves I also weave a
good deal for other folks in the winter season Our eldest son
William has got married they have two children he bought a farm
about seven miles from here for 150 pounds and we have to help
him to pay for it he has 100 pounds paid on it we also bought ninety
acres of land convenient to our own place it is situated near a
river and is well adapted for hay we paid 116 pounds for it and
have it all paid for I suppose you will think that we have
land enough for all our family but young folk in this country like
to ramble about and John has been away a few days ago about 60
miles from here, and bought 100 acres of new bush land at three
dollars 15 per acre he says it is splendent land and that there
is plenty more of it at the same price I offerred him a share
of the place at home but he prefered to take the other there was
land enough here for us all and plenty of work too for he is all
the boy we have that is able to work much Thomas is not able to
work aney but he is teaching school and Robert James is too young
yet to do much But John will not leave us for a year, or too yet
Maria our eldest daughter is in the States she has been away about
two years and a half she gets $ 10 per week she is working in a hotel
and she seems to like it verry well
We have a very fine minister
here and we are going to build a new church next summer it is to
cost 1,000 dollars and one third of the money has been paid to the
builder The prices of provisions are as follows pork from 41/2 to
612 beef 3 to 5 per lb. butter 10 to ls. tea 3s. per lb. sugar 6d.
to 7d. oatmeal 16s. per /cwt/ and flower have lately gone up to
£2 per barl on account of the war In to days paper we see that
Paris has surrendered and we hope that the war is at an end it has
been a terrible war and I believe that it is good for protestants
that the prussians are victorious as it seems otherwise it might
not have been easy to deal with the catholics,
16
2 September 1874
Letter from Robert Williamson, Watsonville,
California U.S.A., to 'My brave Uncle
Robert and John', concerning his father's
interest in the Lompoc ranch [near Santa Cruz7
1
I have asked several persons that are well acquainted with the
land and climate they all speak verry highly of it.
Judd has a
new well one hundred and forty seven feet deep. The water is verry
soft and nice. I have been busy the last week or two /hauling sand
and gravel preparing for winter. I think it will be better under foot
I have three hundred and fifty five sacks of what off of [ten] acres
of land. My summer crop looks splendid and Judds crop is looking well
NI DL 76573
Edward Parks, St. Sylvestre, Quebec, to his brother, (County Armagh?), 6 February [1871].
Description
Writer is a farmer; he also weaves wool for his own family and for his neighbors. Describes his crops and livestock; his family makes all their own (woolen) clothing. Family news: his oldest son is farming in "the bush"; one of his daughters works in a hotel in the U.S. for $10 per week. They are building a new church . Remarks on the news that Paris has surrendered to the Prussians; writes that a Prussian victory is good for Protestants, because otherwise the Catholics (in Quebec or in lreland?-or both?) might have gotten uppity. [Paris surrendured to the Prussians on 25 January 1871, thus the letter is of that year].
