| Title: | Stewart, Frances to Browne, Catherine, 1823 |
|---|---|
| ID | 4731 |
| Collection | Revisiting Our Forest Home_The immigrant letters of Frances Stewart [J. L. Aoki] |
| File | stewart/13 |
| Year | 1823 |
| Sender | Stewart, Frances |
| Sender Gender | female |
| Sender Occupation | housewife |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Douro Township, Newcsatle District, Upper Canada |
| Destination | Clongill Rectory, Ireland |
| Recipient | Browne, Catherine |
| Recipient Gender | female |
| Relationship | sisters |
| Source | |
| Archive | |
| Doc. No. | |
| Date | |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | |
| Log | unknown |
| Word Count | 2978 |
| Genre | family life, description of the land |
| Note | |
| Transcript | 1823: March 11 To Catherine Browne [et al], Clongill Rectory DouroCottage!! 11th March 1823 My beloved Sisters & Aunts of Clongill Yesterday morning we had the delightful [feast] of 2 mails from England, 2 sets of letters from Clongill, 2 sets from Cheltenham & 2 from dear Mrs. Stewart, the first we have yet secured from [ ]. You may guess how we felt at this most unexpected & wonderful account of our dear Aunt Bess's Accouchement for I can call it nothing else. I had formed very gloomy presentiments from the former letters & had been preparing myself & trying to arm my mind, feeling sure of much worse accounts. You may then judge of the delightful sensation I felt at reading so many accounts of her amendment from different quarters & finding that all agreed. I read the letters over & over & never closed my eyes all last night with thinking over all their contents. Our letters from our much loved Mother were not so cheering as they contained the news of the death of poor dear Anna Mathias, who we all loved extremely & little Lucy Bellingham, who has been a favourite of mine ever since the time of our beloved Elizas death when this little girl shewed such strong affection for her Mother. Besides all these letters Tom received Uncle Suttons enclosure of a Bill of Exchange for £55.7s.ld British which George Kirkpatrick enclosed to us & mentioned in his letter the safe arrival of the poor old Montreal letter which indeed my dears was not worth wishing & watching for so long. I wrote it in hasty moments & when my mind was in a state of [ ] about poor weeny Bessy who I thought at the time was [in] a very hopeless state. She continued very delicate all summer & all the time we lived at York but grew better in a miraculous manner from the time we left that vile place. The Garrisson indeed is healthy but York is an odious place tho' not at all dark or gloomy for we saw it in hot sunny August & Sept'r when gloomy would have been refreshing. My beloved Catharine you never before your last letter told me of that pain in your side. I hope that [those] all powerful waters of Cheltenham have been of permanent service to you [ ] now my dear dear child always tell me the truth about your health & every body that I love for it is indeed mistaken kindness to put off mentioning illness or to deceive a friend at a distance. Your two letters were dated Oct'r & Nov'r. Mrs. Stewarts Ditto, Harriets latest was 4th Dec'r so you may circulate this news to the different houses. I wrote to you last 18th Jan'y & to Harriet from this house on 28th Feb'y which letter I directed to E'Town as I knew they could have it forwarded to her in [ ] to any part of England & I was not sure of its arriving at Cheltenham before May. I think I will pursue the same plan till I think I may direct to Merrion St. again for her letters are so long coming & mine going that I never feel sure of their reaching her safe. Your list of marriages amused us very much, none of the parties mentioned more than poor little "Skinny." I dislike calling names & saying anything severe but I cannot resist in the present instance for it puts me in mind of our little snug suppers in the [ ] at Wilmont, that time when the rest of our time was passed rather unpleasantly. Oh dear Catharine, the happy gay time I passed at Wilmont before I was married & for nearly a year after is now like a dream. It was very delightful but it was a useless time. I was indeed living like a butterfly then. Then came the very very unhappy time which I try never to think of. Then came dear Lakefield where we lived so peaceably & comfortably with that kindest & best of Mothers. I like thinking of Lakefield. We lived there nearly two years & indeed it was a happy time. Then came White Abbey where we were with dear good friends too, but it was not like Lakefield & all the time of our abiding there our minds were harassed by that nasty old Thomson & besides my own mind & heart were agonized with the constant dread of our taking this great leap. I did suffer more about this than about any other thing that ever happened, for who could help dreading such a step, so very doubtful in its consequences, besides the idea of leaving so many I loved so tenderly & knowing how much the step was disapproved of by those 1 valued & respected most. But I could not help feeling that Tom was right & I plainly saw where "Duty" pointed so I tryed to smother every other feeling but no one can tell the pangs I suffered. Oh the bitter pang when I last parted from you all so dear & from dear dear Merrion St. But why am I going over it all. I am a fool. I must come to the present time & tell you about our nice territory here. You will have learnt from Harriet that we arrived here the 11th Feb'y. I believe I forgot to describe the place as it is now. Our clearing is at present very small as the snow prevents much from being done at this time of year. Our opening around this house is about as large as FitzWilliam Square. You may imagine the houses of that little square, all very tall trees. Our little clearing is in this shape. I find I have turned this very nice drawing upside down. So you must turn it. The trees are very high, higher than any trees I ever saw in Ireland but in general they are not surprisingly thick for they grow so close that they have a drawup look. The river runs at that front of the house from which it is about as far from the house as the road is from Clongill [ ]. The bank is a rapid declivity but not so much as to be ugly. At present there is a thick border of wood between us & the river through which we have made some openings & we can see the rushing water in two or three places from the window. The river here has a strong current & it rages away carrying huge masses of ice down from the Lake about 20 miles above us, called Mud Lake. The Otonobee river is a very winding one which adds much to its beauty. Here it is nearly twice as broad as the Boyne is at Naven. Altogether as to beauty of situation & fertility of soil, we could not have been fixed more completely to our satisfaction. The house is in an inconveniently unfinished & unfurnished state but as we are to be our own carpenters &c this will reconcile us to the inconvenience of waiting sometime longer than we should otherwise do. The frost interrupted the building of our chimnies & we have had them put up in a temporary way just to do till Spring when we must have the present chimney taken down & another built. The floors are also to be laid in summer as at present the boards are only loosly laid down to season so that we can't do any thing to the inside of the house till Autumn or next Spring then (probably in Autumn we shall plaister our walls neatly & make them fit for papering). We shall also plaister & whitewash the outside but now we have the rough Logs outside & the Logs smoothed down at the inside of our house. Our kitchen is 24 feet by 18, our sitting room 17 by 15, little bedroom inside 12 by 8 & a tiny storeroom within it or rather between it & the kitchen. At present we sleep in our sitting room, & the maid & children in the inside room, but in summer they are to move upstairs where we shall have two good rooms & a closet & then we shall take possession of the room next [to] this. The Reids house is the same size as this but the inside division will I believe be differently arranged. They have the hall door at one end. Their clearing is twice as large as ours which gives their place a more chearful appearance but ours will be opened more as soon as the snow is off the ground when Tom will hire men & get it done quickly. He intends to have ten acres cleared this spring. Tom is busy all day making shelves & tables. We have got a bedstead but it is only a temporary one as he has not any seasoned timber yet. March 13.1 have just [ ] [ ] that our neighbour Mr. Scott the Miller is going to Cobourg tomorrow so I must [finish this] letter [forthwith] to send by him to the post office. (Pussy has walked [ ] my paper & dirtied it all). Thank dear Bessy for her letter & Aunt Sutton for her note & tho' last not least darling Aunt Sue for her Scrap which is very precious to me. I lay by all my letters from home by themselves & read them over & over again. You all managed very nicely, not one of your party told the same news so that each contribution seemed as if they had come from different houses instead of different parts of a room. I pictured you all to myself. Aunt Sutton on the sofa with her writing desk before her, [Bessy at hers] in the corner, you at yours opposite [ ], & the dear Mamsey at her table in the window next the Piano. Now is this right? Oh these were lovely letters & I felt so happy reading them. I just then forgot that 3,500 miles separates us!! One cannot have everything & I really do think that we only want our friends & church here to make our happiness complete. The latter I think we shall have in a year or two as there is a village plot laid out at Scotts Mills 2 % miles from this & I think there will soon be a church, for the township just at the other side of the river is thickly inhabited at this end & every month increasing in Settlers. [ ] township will be settled immediately as already numbers of [ ] [have] fixed on it & are only waiting till it is surveyed to come & built & clear. [Last week] [ ] just at breakfast time by two sleighs full of Strangers driving up to our door. One of them, a very nice gentlemanlike elderly man, handed a letter to Tom & the 5 others (who were not very like gentlemen) set about helping us to make up a good fire for they were very cold. This elderly man was introduced to us by our friend Mr. Falkener of whom I told you before & he wishes to take land here & came to see what "The Bush" looked like. He had never been really in the woods before. He seemed delighted with the beauty of the spot here even at this dreary looking season & will probably draw his land in this township. He is a Quaker & has eleven children. He is an Englishman & Mullet is his name. The other yahoos (for indeed they were very uncouth animals) said "they could not see what enducement any gentleman could find in such a place." So I am in hopes they will not return tho' of course we need not visit them if we don't like them. Mr. Reid thinks some of his family will come here next year & perhaps some of ours. I believe I mentioned before that Gov't have promised that ten thousand acres should be reserved for 2 years in case our friends should join us. I do wish greatly that some of our friends who have small incomes & large families were here for it is the best place in the world for them, but I will never advise any one to come. It is like matrimony. We have been most prosperous in every thing. Our voyage & journey were performed most astonishingly when the number of little children are thought of & the dangers & hardships they were exposed to & Maria Reid & Nancy Bailey so near being confined & yet no accident or unpleasant circumstance occurred. When I look back & think of all we have "gone through" since we left home I cannot help feeling surprise & gratitude to that Merciful Being who has watched over us & protected us all. Twenty families might come & not one so prosperous as we have been. I had no idea of the arduous undertaking. Even at the time I did not perceive the trials nearly so much as I now do when we coolly talk over & when I think over every part of our voyage from Ireland to York & from thence to Cobourg, for We were in some danger in that short passage of 70 miles. You ask how high your three nieces are. Anna Maria is 3 feet 7 inches. Ellen is 3 feet 1 inch, & Bessheen 2 feet 4 inches & a quarter. I found your present of the nice greenstuff frocks most useful, dear Kate, for washing is so troublesome at this frosty time when every thing must be dried within doors & then the danger of burning is so great when children or old people either wear muslin clothes, besides which the coldness of the weather makes stuff the pleasantest & best material for winter gowns & frocks. I have worn a black stuff gown all this winter & the chicks their little greeny's. In summer cambric muslin or English fine ginghams will be the pleasantest & coolest every day coloured gowns, & calico for frocks. I have not worn any additional clothing this winter more than I did in Ireland. The only difference I made was wearing a flannel chemise instead of a flannel petticoat & then my other chemise over the flannel & one upper petticoat & ray gown. The great secret is wearing flannel next the skin & I have found this quite enough. Out walking at Cobourg I never wore more than my old grey cloak. Sleighing, my dear Plaid & my [-coat] over it, was the greatest muffling I ever found necessary even at night. Here I seldom put on either cloak or bonnet when I go out to take a race which I do every day two or three times. The cold is sometimes very extreme but I have never found it disagreeable. On the 4th of March at 5 in the morning the thermometer was 18 below zero & for three days was always 5 or 6 below zero at seven in the morning but we had good fires & when I went out I ran & never felt cold. Pray remember me to all my friends & tell Mrs. Stewart we got her letters & thank her & the rest of the writers from our hearts for them. Tell her she did not tell us her present direction. So you must tell us soon. Tell her I am going to write by this post to Mrs. Mitchell but do you write dear for fear the other letter sh'd be lost. Reids all well. Bessy's extract from Mrs. O'Barnes letter was indeed gratifying tho' my conscience told me at the time that I ought to feel ashamed for I know how little I deserve such praise. I don't accuse dear Mrs. OB of being a flatterer but I think her warmth leads her to think too highly of people or at least of me. Pray give my affectionate love to her in which I am joined by Tom, & Mr. Reid who is just come in desires his kindest regards may be added & pray to her you write to her tell her to forward our kind remembrances to Enniskillen. I have a great respect & esteem for Doctor OBeirne, not much for his wife, entre nous — but you need not tell this. I am glad you have got the Montreal letter. I believe I told you in it of the great kindness of the Mountain family. Indeed I never can forget the interest both the Bishop & Mrs. Mountain expressed about us nor the affectionate manner in which they took leave of us. I have been waiting till we came to our land to write to Mrs. M. for I think I ow£ her that slight attention & my letter shall go tomorrow I think if I can possibly make time to write tonight. Pray thank Miss Wren for having introduced us to such a very friendly & agreeable a family. Remember me to the [ ] family & particularly to dear Mrs. Montray. You are very welcome indeed to send my letters to darling Aunt Waller & my beloved Maria who is in deed & in heart my sister. [A line that follows has been heavily crossed out]. Pray give my tender love to Aunts Sutton & Sue & Uncle & Bessy & ditto to my dear Allenstown Aunt & Uncle & sisters & brothers, & ever love your doating & etcetera sister & brother. Fra.S. & TAS |
