Bagillt
March 17,
1865
Dear John,
I now after
a week delay going to try to write a few lines to you in answer to yours as we
duly received the week before last, and very glad we was to hear from you and
also glad to hear that you and family was all well in health as this leaves us
very indifferent indeed, for I was in bed when I received your letter and I have
been very bad for nearly three months, but think am getting a little better in these
days. I get up about noon every day now
in hopes to get better still for a while yet, if God pleases it to be so. And
your sister Harriet was very bad for about five or six weeks at the same time
as me at first, but thank God she has gotten round pretty well by this. I don’t know what we should of done if we was
ill all at once, for your mother had only just gotten round after being ill about
six or seven weeks before that, but it was all through cold as we was all bad,
and a power of people in the neighborhood was the same, for I can assure you we
have had the coldest winter this winter as nobody can hardly recollect for what
weather and frost & snow. They say
that the snow was on the Welsh mountains in some parts was about fifteen yards
deep, and several poor fellows they say has lost their lives by crossing the mountains. I shall send you the Liverpool Mercury with
this letter where you can see a little account of them as was lost and that
they have only found one as yet. I have sent
to you different newspapers lately but I cannot tell whether you received them or
not. I have received different papers
from you lately.
You was
sending in your letter for us to send you all the news as possible we could. I can assure you we have no particular news
at all to send, but the news I can send to you is about ourselves, and that is
no good news at all for you, I am sure, for I can tell you as this and that for
the truth that it never was so low on us as it is at the present time. They allow us three shillings per week out of
the parish and that is all, and you can judge for yourself how it is upon us
with that little trifle in a week. But
we should wish very much if you and your brother Edwin could write to one another
and try to arrange things together and send some little small some to help us
on these hard times, for we shall not be here long on this old earth to trouble
none of you, for it is as I have stated above, that it is very low and hard
upon us in these days and not a word of untruth in the matter. Therefore you may see that some trifle would
be very acceptable at the present time.
And about
your brother James you was sending in your letter, he has been in Liverpool
working for some time and lived there and all.
He worked with the circle saw there and he turned himself out to be the
best man amongst about seven hundred men.
It was all government construct, and the contract came up there was
about four or five hundred men turned out of the concern before him, but at
last he was discharged at just at last, and he was out of employ about a
fortnight at Liverpool. But there came a
man to enquire after him. He was wanted
in Galway in Ireland to manage a saw mill there, and was there something like
two years, and it seems that this second wife he got in Galway. And your sister Harriet heard a letter as he
pulled out of his pocket at Flint Station and stating at New York there was six
pounds a week waiting for him that was to manage a saw and turning mill there,
and we have never heard anything of him since your sister saw him at Flint Station
fetching his children then to go to America.
Two nice little girls they were too, but it seems that his wife is an
Irish woman out of a good family. That
is all we have heard about her.
PS – You must
excuse me for what I have said above that I was sending the Liverpool Mercury along with this letter, but I thought of
posting the letter and all on Tuesday last, and on Monday I sent your sister to
Holywell to Mr. Gardner to see if he had anything to send, and he begged of me
for not to post until Tuesday next and that is the way that we have delayed a
week longer without sending, for he showed your sister that he had the shop full
of spring goods just come in and he wanted to decide them and mark them and all,
but I sent the newspaper on Tuesday last and one for your brother Edwin at the same
time, and am in hopes you shall receive them ere you receive this. Your sister called with Mr. Jones the
watchmaker to tell them you was sending your best respects to them and he was
very glad to hear you was all well, and he was complaining very much saying that
his youngest brother was very ill and he had to keep him and family and that his
sister at Liverpool was very bad, and that his sister as is with him at home had
gone to Liverpool to see her. I was quite
surprised to hear that how he was grumbling and he is worth some thousands of pounds
and only himself and his sister that way together. He has all that river as he lives in from the
Block House down to the Swan Court, and the Court and all he has taken all the gardens
as has belonged to them houses all to himself, and they say there is not even a
garden in Wales as it is. He invited
your mother one time she was in Holywell so see the garden. Your mother never saw such a place in her
life, it was so grand. I have nothing to
say about Mr. Gardner but your sister must say that he and family were all well
in health and I suppose he will explain for himself in his own letter.
PS – I am in
hopes you will think on about what I have stated above, that is about sending
to your brother Edwin to see if you could do something between you for us in our
old days, for I have told you the truth about
ourselves, for we shall not be here long again to trouble none of you, for we
cannot expect to be, for if God sends that I should live until the thirtieth
day of June next, I shall be seventy years of age, and your mother, if she
lives to the twentieth of May, she shall be sixty nine. Therefore you can judge for yourself that we
are not granted to be in this world much longer. And I have sent to your brother the same but
I did not tell him to write to you on the subject. Only I beg of you to write to him, for
Richard could tell him when he got there and am almost sure that he did tell
him to, for Richard was a very keen little boy though being so young. He could tell him that it was very low upon
us in the latter days of ours.
I must
conclude for the present with our kind regard to you and family. And this from your dutyful father &
mother,
Robert &
Sarah Benjamin
PS – All your
brothers and sisters send their kind regards to you all as a family and was
glad to hear that you was all well in health.
Send soon again and let us know a little what Richard sends to you. He was a very clever little fellow was
Richard, and he wanted to get to America this last three years, only I was
persuading him to stop until he would be fourteen years of age. He was on the first of May last.
PS – You can
imagine by my letter that it has been written on different times, but
howsomever I will tell you how it has been as you can see above that I sent
your sister to Holywell a week last Monday to see if Mr. Gardner had anything
to send with us. Your sister told him that
I meant to post on the Tuesday night, but as I have told above, that he begged
me to stop for another week. I did, expecting
to post last Tuesday night, and I sent three newspapers thereafter, and he promising
to send down every day, and yesterday sent down for me to send this time and he
would send again, for he was so busy that he did not have time to write and for
me to send that they were all very well in health. You must excuse my writing for you can see my
hand is trembling this morning, for the others has been written before, only I
am writing these few lines to let you know the delay that I did not answer
yours sooner.
PS –
Your mother desires me to ask for a few lines from Elizabeth and also from your
youngsters also in your next, and we were very glad to hear you say in your
letter that Richard was writing toyou often.
We should wish for you very much, that is when you do write to him again,
for to encourage him to keep his learning as much as ever he can. I have sent to him different times about that
for he has at present plenty of it, for he has been over his tutor five six or
seven times, and am in great hopes that he will make good practice of it . And he thought so much of America that he was
not afraid at all on the Atlantic though they encountered very rough weather
all the way, and there was about nine hundred passengers of them. They took five hundred and fifty passengers
in in Queenstown there. Must be a great
lot of them by the city of Baltimore first class vessel.
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