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Title: Edward Hanlon to Brother Bernard
ID6200
CollectionUlster Migration to America. Letters from three Irish Families [R.A. Wells]
Fileulsterm/3
Year1870
SenderHanlon, Edward
Sender Gendermale
Sender Occupationfarmer
Sender Religionunknown
OriginNebraska City, Nebraska, USA
DestinationBallymote, Co. Down, Northern Ireland
RecipientHanlon, Bernard
Recipient Gendermale
Relationshipbrothers
Source
Archive
Doc. No.
Date
Partial Date
Doc. Type
Logunknown
Word Count564
Genreemigration prospects
Note
TranscriptFrom: Nebraska City
Date: 11 December 1870

Dear Brother,

I received your letter of April 18th 70 returned, and 19th November on last
evening. Contents noted. It was unfortunate the going astray of the letter that was
registered. Our postmaster claims it never came to this country and cannot account
Dear brother, taking into consideration your present position and feelings, I have
no hesitation in advising immediate action so that you will lose nothing by
precipitency. Go about the disposing of the premises and your effects as calmly and
coolly as if you were going to an ordinary days work, so that you may make the best
out of it and husband every shilling of the proceeds until you are again settled in this country.
I would rather your daughter Mary had not preceeded you. It is probably all for
the better. I have received no word from her yet. I will write a few lines of advice to her, by this mail, until she sees you.
If it was not for the going astray of that letter, I might have made more positive
calculations, as I had calculated to rent part of my farm and the shares of the crop this season. This month and the next is the usual time of renting. I will not rent or hire to the last moment till I hear from you and see if it be possible you could get here by the commencement of the farming season, which would be me first or latter part of March at farthest. I have all the land under cultivation. You and I both could cultivate, and you unused to the manner of farming in this country could not take hold of a strange place the first season. And your family being large would be a drain on your principle which must be economized until you can invest. It must be arranged that your income the first season will be self-sustaining. To invest at first sight, it might be imprudent I cannot see the propriety of your remaining longer there under the circumstances. To remain I could not expect to add much to your present circumstance. Your children would be advancing in years and your children would be becoming more restive. The younger that are launched on the manners and habits of this country under parents eye the more sure their race with their competitors for a competency and the less risk of a division of the family. That you will have a feeling of regret betimes I have no doubt. This country or any other is not a bed or roses. Self experience has fully taught me, owing some to my own I suppose fretful disposition, although I have no right to be unthankful.
Dear Brother, be assured, what I can give you by assistance, by advice or
otherwise won't be withheld. It was die desire of dear Father, and enters largely into my own disposition, to have union of action between us brothers. Poor, Mick, I
think, was and still is the kindest of brothers, but the peculiar disposition of his family precluded a union of action which would have been better for us both. As
for poor Patt, his stability of character failed him. Write a week after you send the first so that one may arrive.

Your fond Brother, Edward