| Title: | Mary Cumming, Baltimore, USA, to Her Sisters [Lisburn?] |
|---|---|
| ID | 795 |
| Collection | Irish Emigration Database |
| File | Cumming, Mary/49 |
| Year | 1815 |
| Sender | Cumming (n. Craig), Mary |
| Sender Gender | female |
| Sender Occupation | middle class housewife |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Baltimore, Maryland, USA |
| Destination | Lisburn, Co. Antrim, N.Ireland |
| Recipient | unknown |
| Recipient Gender | female |
| Relationship | sisters |
| Source | T 1475/3/6: Copied by Permission of Miss A. McKissack, 9 Mount Pleasant, Belfast. #TYPE EMG Mary Cumming, Baltimore, [U.S.A.?], to Her Sisters, [Craig Family, Lisburn, County Antrim?]. 15 March 1815. |
| Archive | Public Record Office, Northern Ireland |
| Doc. No. | 9006240 |
| Date | 15/03/1815 |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | EMG |
| Log | 05:07:1990 NHL created 23:10:1991 PKS input 24:10: |
| Word Count | 1022 |
| Genre | |
| Note | |
| Transcript | What appears to be the original though the letter bears neither seal or addres[s?]. (The hand is very similar to Mary Craig's.) Baltimore. 15 March, 1815. My ever beloved and darling Sisters, As I have been getting weaker every day since I wrote to my dear Margaret, I again take up my pen to try and write a few lines. Thank God that I feel a little stronger today than I have done for some time past. Oh my beloved Sisters, I too well know* what you will all feel when this letter reaches you, but I hope and trust the Providence will enable you to bear the mournful news with composure. I hope I shall be quite so before Providence thinks fit to remove me out of this world of care and sorrow. I do all I can to be so. I find it a hard trial to think of leaving this world with all the prospects of felicity which I thought I had to find in it. These are now all over and I must try and prepare myself for another and better state where I believe I am now soon going My dear dear friends I have a great deal to say to you. I wish I had strength sufficent to write to you all but that I have not at present. It is possible that this letter will be given you by my beloved darling William. Oh my friends, if ever you loved your poor Mary, show it in your attention to one that was nearer to her than life. Try to cheer and comfort his poor dear heart which I know will oppress him for the loss of one whom he always treated the the [with the?] most unremitting affection, kindness and regard, but I know you will do this with the greatest pleasure. His own worth will secure his [him?] the regard of all who have the happiness of knowing him. Talk to him of me for this will please him. He has been my comfort and support during all the sickness ans [and?] sorrow which I have had and he [?] the [?] of every moment of my life. I hope and trust we may be united in a better world, never more to part. I cannot speak of the happiness I promised myself on my return this Spring to my native country and to the beloved friends I left, that is over now. William will take you a few seeds and roots. My dear Rachel will show him what I once called my garden where I want them to be planted. Let him have it to cultivate when he is with you. He is fond of flowers and this will help to amuse him. Try and keep him with you in Ireland, I think he would be much happier than here. I know my ever dear and beloved Father will do all in his power to comfort and amuse one so every way deserving of his kindness and affection. My illness has not been a severe one. I hardly suffer any pain as yet. It seems to be a kind of gradual decline. For this I am, I hope, very thankful and it will be a consolation to all my friends to know that I have had the very best advice that America could give. I have met with every attention from this family that I could have even at home and if an All Wise Providence now thinks fit to take me, I trust to a better world, I must endeavour to be resigned to his Will. My attachment to this world was very great, it is so still, but my dear friends I look forward to a blessed reunion. Any and every circumstance you may wish to hear, my dear William will take pleasure in telling you, if you ask him. There are few little trifles which it is my wish should go to you to be divided between you in any way you think right. It is not for their value but that there is a good deal of your poor Mary's work on them. X X X X X X X X I send back my dear James's brooch which I have always kept with great regard. Give him now a sister's blessing who always adored him. Tell him I hope he will prove an ornament to his family and name. Give him some of my hair which you will receive by my love. But what shall I send to my adored Father, that father who took such pains with me? Oh that I could think of something He will require nothing, nothing to remind him of me. I hope all his good instructions have not been bestowed on me in vain. I can leave him nothing but my blessing, and may every blessing this world can bestow light on his beloved head. God bless him. You would wonder if you saw how thin I am, that I could write with such a steady hand, but so it is. You will give my most affectionate love to my dear and [?] kind friends in Armagh, to my ever kind and most attentive relation Miss McCully, and to my once lively and dear early companion and friend Margaret Bury(??). I think with great affection and regard on the many many friends I have left in Lisburn, please remember me to them all. Do not you remember, my beloved Sisters, some kind of Spring Evenings I used to be particularly fond of? They were in the latter end or beginning of April. On some such evening as I shall attempt to describe take a walk to Charles Grove with my dear William and talk of me. Soft, mild and calm, the twilight stealing on, the Bats flittering about and the Beetle humming through the air. You will think then of me. I gratify myself writing these lines and this moment. I feel quite composed and perhaps I am more fanciful than usual. May God bless, protect, help and support you all through this transient world and grant us all a happy meeting in a better beyond the grave is, and will be, the last prayer of M. Cumming. |
