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Title: John Anderson, New Orleans, to Fanny [Frances?], Donegal
ID60
CollectionIrish Emigration Database
FileAnderson, John/23(2)
Year1858
SenderAnderson, John
Sender Gendermale
Sender Occupationfarmer
Sender Religionunknown
OriginNew Orleans, Louisiana, USA
DestinationCo. Donegal, Ireland
RecipientFanny
Recipient Genderfemale
Relationshipsiblings
SourceCopyright Reserved by Andrew S Anderson, 9 Ashford Drive, Bangor, Co Down, Ireland. Formerly from The Diamond, Donegal, Co Donegal, Ireland. E-mail andydonegal@aol.com
ArchiveAndrew S Anderson
Doc. No.212206
Date12/09/1858
Partial Date
Doc. TypeEMG
LogDocument added by LT, 17:12:02.
Word Count1113
Genre
Note
Transcript$$H170 Part of the Andrew S Anderson Collection$$H

New Orleans
12th Sept. 1858

My Dear Fanny
I got your letter and also one from Jane a
few days since. I am very sorry to find you entertain so
unfavourable an opinion of Miss Hamilton, you do her a great
injustice when you accuse her of deceit. I know her better than
any one else and if there is any deceit in her I would not
believe any woman on the face of the earth. At the time she
wrote to you I am quite sure she had no intention of getting
married nor do I believe she had ever seen the man until she
went to Captain McKellars and I also know she would not be
married yet if she had had the shadow of a hope of ever seeing
me back in Ireland. I told that only on one condition should I
ever return and that was not likely to be realised. I know how
she has been treated by her relations, she was glad to leave
them on any terms. I never had a high opinion of any one and it
is still unchanged. If I could do her any good I would go from
here home willingly and back again to do it, perhaps she may
have thought I did not treat her well but if I did not it was
not in my power to have done otherwise at the time. I hope she
will be as happy as she deserves to be, there is not a more
affectionate nor a more noble hearted woman ever lived than she
is, but I should rather have heard of her being married to some
other than a sea Captain as a general rule they are a hard set
of men.
Yellow fever has been in the City in an epidemic form for three
months. It is much worse than it has been any year since 1847,
with the exception of 1853 (which was the worst ever New-Orleans
saw in one day in August of that year there died 315 men) Since
it broke out this year there have been from 40 to 90 deaths per
day of y. [yellow?] fever. It has never been known to be so
fatal as it is this year the majority (I should say more than
half) of those who have taken it have died, one cannot pass
through a street without meeting a funeral or perhaps four or
five. I have seen funerals with only two people at them,
generally speaking it is nearly all young persons who are dying,
young and desperate Adventurers like myself when I came here who
would join a forlorn hope or any other enterprise at any peril
to life or limb with the hope of bettering their condition.
Other years it was altogether foreigners who died and when there
would be 80 or 100 deaths reported daily they would say they
were only a lot of damned Dutch and Irish but the whole beauty
of it this year is that there is nearly as many Americans dying
as there is of foreigners. I have been in the very midst of it
since it broke out and there is not a man in N- [New?] Orleans
has been more in the way of getting it than I have, being out in
the night Air and in the hot Sun during the day, two of the most
powerful auxiliaries that Yellow Jack has got. I have no fear in
the evil of it nor has it ever occurred to my mind that I shall
have it this summer, you need not be anxious about me or think
that I am going to die, people at a distance hearing of it think
more of it than those that are here. I suppose they get used to
it like the Eels being skinned. If I should be sick I would not
want for any care or attention that I could receive at home. Mrs
Wilson is a very good woman, any day that I don't happen to be
at their house she always comes over to see me, she is a sister
of Robert Caldwell of Castlederg. I knew him when he was at
school with Dr Niblock about 11 years since he lived at the time
in John Scotts he is now a Presbyterian minister in Connaught,
the servant we have is an Irishwoman and one of the best I have
seen, there is nothing she things [thinks?] I would like to have
but what she has of it is to be had and it is not from any
mercenary motive that she does it. I have on several occasions
offered her five or ten dollars but she would not take a cent.
In spite of the great heat (such heat as you can have no
conception of) although I have grown thin I have not been so
strong nor have I had so good health for the last five years as
I have had this Summer. At the same time if I can help it I
shall [never?] spend another Summer in the Crescent City. In
spite of all the boasted hospitality of the South it is the most
exclusive place I ever lived in, a young man of the best
character may live here for 10 years and not know 1/2 dozen
respectable families that he can visit consequently New Orleans
is the most dissipated place in the United states. The Creole
familys here seem to look upon all foreigners as adventurers and
perhaps it is well that they think so, from what I know of the
Southern Ladies no man that was not a fool would marry one of
them on any terms whatever, before I came here I was led to
believe and the same opinion is very general in the North that
the Creoles were persons of colour having african blood in them.
The Creoles are the natives born and raised here and the thing I
have been astonished at instead of the people here being dark
skinned as I would expect in this Southern clime they are as a
general rule fairer than any europeans I have ever seen any
where. The Ladies almost without a single exception powder and
paint their faces, you will not see any person here with a shade
of colour in their face unless it is some new arrival from some
foreign country. I have often seen people in the French market
and in the streets point me out and have heard them saying to
one another that I was painted, you now can form some opinion of
the far-famed Beauties of the South.


[remainder of letter missing]

Transcribed by Andrew S Anderson