| Title: | John Anderson, New Orleans, to Fanny [Frances?], Donegal |
|---|---|
| ID | 60 |
| Collection | Irish Emigration Database |
| File | Anderson, John/23(2) |
| Year | 1858 |
| Sender | Anderson, John |
| Sender Gender | male |
| Sender Occupation | farmer |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | New Orleans, Louisiana, USA |
| Destination | Co. Donegal, Ireland |
| Recipient | Fanny |
| Recipient Gender | female |
| Relationship | siblings |
| Source | Copyright 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 |
| Archive | Andrew S Anderson |
| Doc. No. | 212206 |
| Date | 12/09/1858 |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | EMG |
| Log | Document added by LT, 17:12:02. |
| Word Count | 1113 |
| 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 |
