| Title: | James A Smyth, Ontario to “Dear Father and Mother” |
|---|---|
| ID | 2786 |
| Collection | Irish Emigration Database |
| File | Smyth, James Alexander/50 |
| Year | 1891 |
| Sender | Smyth, James Alexander |
| Sender Gender | male |
| Sender Occupation | farm labourer |
| Sender Religion | Protestant (Methodist) |
| Origin | Essex Co., Ontario, Canada |
| Destination | Co. Tyrone, N.Ireland |
| Recipient | Smyth, John J. and wife |
| Recipient Gender | male-female |
| Relationship | son-parents |
| Source | Copyright Retained by Mr & Mrs J Smyth, Castledamph, Plumbridge, Co Tyrone, Castledamph@btinternet.com |
| Archive | Mr & Mrs J Smyth |
| Doc. No. | 0604104 |
| Date | 09/08/1891 |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | EMG |
| Log | |
| Word Count | 408 |
| Genre | |
| Note | |
| Transcript | [no envelope] South Woodslee August 9 / 91 Dear Father and Mother I got your letters on the 29[th?] and I see yous [you?] have some trouble with Mc Connell it has cost them as much money as would buy a good piece of land but I would not pay none [any?] of it Uncle thinks it strange to hear of so much law he says he never was at law since he come [came?] to Canada Nor drinks no whisky the [they?] are worse against it here nor they are there [Page 2] They dont like to hear of the Friends having public houses There is a Chapter read in the bible every morning and a prayer and a blessing always before meals. We have hot weather here slice[?] [since?] it is the length of a hundred degrees we have [had?] no rain the last month We have cut our oat [oats?] on Monday and Tuesday we cut 5 acres with the Self Binder and the other 5 with the reaper and bound them by hand The [There?] are men here [that?] can bind 3 acre a day by hand but I could not do the half of it and I could do [Page 3] as much as any of them over there We threshed all the wheat on Wednesday by steam power 20 acres The [there?] are men [that?] has [have?] these steam thresher [threshers?] and threshes it for 3 cents a bushel[?] uncle had 525 bushel [bushels?] of his it [it’s?] worth at least about 1 dollar a bushel it took 15 men to attend to it as hard as you could work The manure is all drawed out this time of the year a [and?] put on the fields and spread before ploughing and all the straw is built in the yard and the cows eat it or tramp it down whatever they like you may be sure [Page 4] 20 acres makes a good stack of straw and has the oats all to thresh yet it would not keep this machine to thrash all a man grows there The most of all the ploughing is done now we commenced on Friday but we had to stop it was too hard we well have to wait to [till?] it rains some The wheat is all sown in September I send you some of my pictures now you will give one of these to Willie Gilkison I think you should be getting enough of letters No more at present J A Smyth South Woodslee Box 23 Essex County Transcribed by Greg Floyd |
