Castle Mains, 11 February 1878

A new year and a new return address for Marion Brown, Aunt and Tam Scott:  Castle Mains by Sanquhar.  This is the only surviving 1878 letter, but it's a long chatty one that shows how precarious the health of all three Sanquhar family members has been--Tam Scott with his ongoing lung issues, Aunt with her bad chest cold, and Marion unable to walk, barely able to speak.  Perhaps in response to the financial straits that prompted their move, James Bryden has sent the household a gift of (presumably) money.   The spurs a reflection on dependence and gratitude from Marion, and lavish thanks and well wishes for the American kin.  There's still mention of trying to get Aunt to emigrate; and further mention of Aunt's cheesemaking skills.  The Americans are instructed to get photos taken, so that Aunt can consider who young John Bryden resembles most. 

Castle Mains

By Sanquhar

Feb 11th 1878

Dear Friends

We was all very glad to see your kind and very welcome letter for we was wearing very much to hear from you.  I hope this will find you all well when it reaches you and I am glad to be able to say that Aunt is just about her useal way again she got a bad cold when we flitted but I think has got clear of it now  Tam was off work for a fortnight with a bad cold to his chest is not very strong and when he has a cold it always takes hold of his lungs but he is a good deal better and able to work but he is drinking cod liver oil and the doctor says he has to drink it always to keep his lungs soft.

I am glad to be able to tell you that I feel no worse this two or three weeks I can speak a little but not much I have to do the most of my talking in writting yet and I am very bad at walking but it is my back  that makes me so bad at walking it takes the power from my legs altogether at times.

Now James you must give uncle our very best thanks for his kindness in sending us such a present.  The truth is this if it was not the kindness of my friends to me I dont know how I would do for I have never been able to work for myself and seems to be as unfit for work as ever but our heavenly Father is always kind to us and gives us far more than we deserve and I ought to be very thankful that I have always had kind friends to take care of me for Aunt has been a Mother to me and I have to tell you from her that she hopes you will always have plenty and she would be very glad to see you come steping in.  in summer and perhaps she would not be so hard to advise to go over with you this time and she thinks altho the cows is not her own she could get you some curds when you come and she says you are to be sure and get your son's likeness taken uncle Marion you and John altogether  and then she will see who he is like.

Uncle William and all his family is well in the meantime my Brother and his wife and family is all well but the youngest one that is my namesake Marion she has had a very bad turn with Bronchitis but is a little better if she continues and I hope she will.  You must give uncle Joseph and them all our best respects we have had a very mild winter and I hope the spring will continue as mild.  

Now I have to tell you from Aunt you are not to be so long in writting for she says if you had not been so far away she would have tried to have gone to see what was keeping you from writting now I will stop hopping this will find you all well and also hopping you will writing sooner and with kind love to you all and all friends I am your affectionate Cousin Marion Brown

Tower Cottages, 5 November 1877

This is one of my favorite letters by Marion Brown. Why? Well, it's quite detailed about her physical health (or lack of health, speech, and mobility) in the first section; and it mentions bigger events (hard times in America), which is rare for Marion Brown; but mainly, I love this letter because she mentions sending a photo.... and we have that photo (left). Seated is Marion Brown, with her cousin Nellie Glencross (standing), in Thornhill, 1877, on Marion's way back from visiting an aunt in Carronbridge. It's unusual to ever find Marion outside of Sanquhar in the correspondence, so this letter is also interesting for that fact. She also mentions that she and Aunt will be moving at the end of their lease, to a house near the Castle at the townfoot of Sanquhar--significantly closer to town than Tower Cottages.

The unquiet that Marion Brown refers to in America might be the general poor economy in 1877; but it might more likely refer to the Shamokin Uprising, which could well have affected James Bryden and John Glencross's work as Pennsylvania miners in the summer of that year.

The quarries where Tam has gone to work in Gatelawbridge were red sandstone--much of what was quarried there in the 1870s would have been shipped to New York to make the famous "brownstones" there.

Tower Cottages

Novr 5th 1877

Dear Cousin

It is now a long time since I got your very welcome letter but you must excuse me this time I was not at home when it came and it is just a week since I came home. I went away to CarronBridge to see my Aunt and turned ill there and was away for three months before I could come back I cannot speak a word I have to do all my talking by writting and I am very bad at walking it is all I can do to walk across the floor my back is so sore and my right leg is sometimes quite powerless. Human nature is hard to mend and sometimes I think my lot is very hard but there is no doubt but it is all for my good in some way that I have been afflicted and we have no right to grumble at our heavenly Fathers dealings with us.

I hope when this reaches you that it will find you all in good health I see by your last letter that you have had very bad times in America this sometime but I hope by this time you are started to work again and has more quiteness around you as when you wrote. I may let you know that we are going to leave Tower Cottages at the term and is going to the Castle at Sanquhar town foot Aunt is not going to have any cows but she has to see if the woman gives the cows their meat right Mr. Colvin does not mean her to work any but I know she will always be at some thing if she is able to crawl.

Tam went away this morning to work at Gatelawbridge quarry and will not be home till the term he means to work there all winter if spared and well. There is no work going on about Sanquhar that he could have come home at night. Aunt and me will feel it very lonely if spared to go to the Castle in a house by ourselves and nobody near us it is not so bad here my brother and his family is just next door. However we must cheer up there is no use looking at the dark side of the cloud

Aunt is wonderful she had a turn with her stomach but she says she is beginning to feel about her useal again. you told me in your letter [damage here prevents reading full sentence] you was thinking [more damage here] your little boy's cards taken you must be sure and send me one to let us see what he is like many a time Aunt says she would like to see him

Uncle William's eldest daughter came to CarronBridge to bring me home and when we was at Thornhill she would have our cards taken so I will send one and I think it is like me but they have made me squinting and I am sure I do not squint I tell Nelly that she tries to make herself to prim when she gets her card taken you may ask uncle John if he thinks I am anything like what I was when he made me walk through the house with a prim mouth now I must stop all friends here is well as far as I know give my kind love to all friends and execpt of the same to yourselves in which Aunt joins I remain your affectionate cousin Marion Brown

I mean to write to uncle Joseph next week

Bogg, 26 June 1872

James Bryden has left Scotland, and Marion is bereft. This letter, written just after he has sailed for America, has no news of the farm, no mention of her health problems, just negotiations about past and future correspondence between Marion Brown and James Bryden, and anxious words about her "duity" and how she wishes she had left for America with him--and how she still wishes to go soon. She is lonely--she can go hours without seeing another person at the Bogg--and in those hours "you may guess where my thoughts is when I am so much alone."

This letter is on blue stationery that bears a poem and sketch printed on the front side. The title of the poem is "Woman's Love," and the sketch is of a bride (or at least, a young woman in a veil). Here's the verse:

Oh! not when hopes are brightest
Is Love's enchantment known.
Oh! not when hearts are lightest
Is woman's fervour shown;
But when life's clouds o'ertake us,
And earth is clothed in gloom--
When summer friends forsake us--
Then Love is best in bloom.

Love is no wandering vapour
That lures with treacherous spark,
Love is no transient taper
That lives and leaves us dark;
But, like the lamp that lightens
The hut beneath the snow,
The bosom's home it brightens
When all is chill below.

The poem isn't credited, but a quick google finds it's by Scottish poet and abolitionist Thomas Pringle (1789-1834), and frequently appeared in anthologies of sentimental poems, under various titles including "Love" and "The Natural Effects of Love." (Pringle was also disabled from a childhood accident, and used crutches through his life, a detail which Marion may or may not have known.) Some enterprising soul printed Pringle's words onto bridal stationery, and Marion chose that stationery for this letter to her departed friend.

The Bogg
June 26th 1872

Dear Friend

I received your very welcome letter on the 22nd of June. I hope when this reaches you that you will be safe landed and all right. you said in your letter that you expected a letter from me before you left home, and you would have written to me before you left home, if you did not get a letter from me before the one you got with the paper you ought to have got one, for I wrote by return of post to you in answer to the first letter I got from you after you left here. However I hope you will get this one all right.

I was sorry to see by your letter that your Father was so poorly it would be harder on you both to part by Jemmie we are not sure of a day whither we part in health of sickness and what is God's will we must submit to it although we may feel our natures hard to bend when we are first tried.

many a time I have felt how hard my nature is to bend when I feel how often my mind rebels against what I know to be my duity, no doubt but you would think me a very foolish girl that day you left me but my mind has been so much set on America for a long time that willingly I could have gone with you I only wish I had a guide like you to take me over, if ever I am there as I expect to be if spared and well, altho you are on the water when I am writting this I often wish I had been with you.

I have had no company since you left some days I sit for two or three hours and never see a face and I think you may guess where my thoughts is when I am so much alone I am wearing very much to get a letter from Marion but if she has not wrote before you land surely you will tell her how much I weary to hear from her and you must be sure to write as soon as you can if spared to land and let me know how you have got on with the things you took away and how Marion is pleased with them I only wish I had been along with you to [page ends]

Bogg, 1 December 1870

This letter is addressed to a Sanquhar friend now living in the Scranton area: Mr. Williamson greeted Joseph Glencross and his family at the train station as they arrived, and wrote to the Sanquhar family that they were well on arrival. Marion Brown thanks him for this intelligence, and encourages him to write more, because the Glencrosses are "very slow at writting." She also encourages Williamson to join her in imagining the day when she herself arrives in Scranton, "altho I cannot walk a step."

Note that this letter landed among the other letters sent to the Glencrosses and Brydens on Helen Street, so Mr. Williamson or his heirs must have added it to the cache.

Mr. Williamson
Dear Friend

We were all very glad to see your kind letter for we were wearing to hear how uncle Joseph had got through his journey. I was very glad to see by your letter that you was at Scranton station to met them. I must say you are a very useful person for you are always ready to welcome the Greenhorns as you are pleased to call them and I hope you may have long good health to welcome them for a face that one knows must be very cheering in a strange country. As you said Dunmore will scarcly be like a strange place now there is so many Scotch people in it. however I suppose it would be a very happy group that night while you was writting my letter at uncle Johns there would be many an old Scotch story told.

You may think it a very strange idea to me to think I will be in America altho I cannot walk a step I have had a great notion of it for a long time and some how I always think I will be there yet and no saying but you may welcome me among the rest of the greenhorns if God sees fit to spare us both.

Tom Scott sends his kind love to uncle Joseph and you are to tell him he is at the dancing school just now and he has as great a notion of America as ever he had. Aunt Nannie sends her kind regards to you with many thanks for your kindness to uncle Joseph and his family when they landed and tell them to be sure and write soon and let her know how all the children is and what rife [?] is saying about America now

there is very little new going on here just now all is very quite. All our friends here are in a moderate state of health in the meantime for which we cannot be to thankful for I am scarcly so well as when uncle Joseph left I am taking the ill turns oftener now the cold weather takes a great effect on me so I ought to be very glad as long as I can sit up most of the day. with kind regards to you and all friends in America I will say goodbye at this time,

Yours sincerely,

Marion Brown

PS I will be glad to see a letter from you at any time convenient. I always think they are very slow at writting M. B.

Bogg, 14 July 1870

[Image: A portrait of Marion Glencross, seated, with her friend Jane Law, standing, c.1870; both women are wearing elaborate hairstyles and white lacy dresses with dark sashes at the waist.]

Marion Brown writes in better health, but she can still "walk none" in the summer of 1870. She's writing to Marion Glencross, who is nearly 18 at the time. Maybe the woman-to-woman dynamic is becoming especially noticeable in this letter, as Marion Brown writes lightly about young men they know, hairstyles in fashion in America and Scotland, gardening, and cheese. I've speculated in other places that Marion Brown's choice of topics with young Marion Glencross is no accident. She knows her younger cousin has no mother or older sister or nearby aunt, and by addressing feminine culture, she may be making a claim to unique usefulness, as a kinswoman and a female mentor.

The image of Tam taking Marion on a ride in a cart is charming, and emphasizes how little she gets out of the house at The Bogg. "I was just like a bird out of a cage every thing was like new to me."

There's a discussion of "waterfalls" in this letter--she means the elaborate (in this case curly) hairpieces some women wore to augment their coiffures. From Betty J. Mills, Calico Chronicle: Texas Women and their Fashions 1830-1910 (Texas Tech UP 1985; on Google Books): "Available by mail were fake curls, buns, and waterfalls that could be pinned in place. Many women kept such hair pieces on hand for the sake of style." (132)

Finally, sixty-pound cheeses? Yup. The 1823 Encyclopedia Brittanica (also on Google Books) entry on Agriculture quotes an agricultural expert as saying "The process of making Cheshire cheese is as follows, viz. on a farm capable of keeping 25 cows, a cheese of about sixty pounds weight may be daily made in the months of May, June, and July." The entry goes on to explain how to get enough milk together to make that much cheese daily... let's just say, Aunt was very busy in the summertime.

"The Bogg" Thursday July 14th 1870

Dear Cousin

You will be thinking by the time this reaches you that I have been very careless in not writting you sooner. I am here at last and I hope this will find you both in good Health as good Health is the greatest blessing we can enjoy in this world. Aunt Nanny has not been so well this summer she had a bad turn with her head and stomach about the middle of May and she has never got the better of it but we ought to be very thankful when she is able to go about for it is a queer house when Aunt has to be in bed I am a great deal better as when I wrote you last I can sit up all day and altho I can walk none I just think I am well when I am able to sit up.

I was very glad to see by your letter that your garden was looking so well and if I was well and able to walk I would take the advantage of your invitation for I should come over and help you to pull your fruit and very likely I would be eating all the time I was pulling. I think you are quite right in wanting your father to get a cow for you will not like to want milk I dont know what your fields are like in America but I have never mind of seeing so much grass as is this year Cousin Tom just got one of Brandley carts and took me out one day and I was greatly delighted for I was just like a bird out of a cage every thing was like new to me. our cows has been very good this year but they have plenty of grass and that helps them to give more milk.

I have to give you Aunt Nannys compliments and say she is making a cheese sixty pounds and some times more every day just now and if you would come over and learn cheese making she thinks she would go home with you when you went away but if all goes well she has sent you a little cheese with a young man that is going to leave Wanlockhead today and if he gets it safe to you, you are to send her word if it is a good one They young mans name is James Weir he used to come and help Aunt at the hay stakings

you speak of John White being a Greenhorn I suppose you will think all the old country folk Greenhorns for they speak so much different from the Yankees but altho the scotch folk is slow they are sure and I hope all that has gone to America will do well there is one John Nicol gone to Pittstown brave young man and is a good fiddler. there was one Robert Watson went with him and we sent a parcle with him to you and I hope by this time you will have got it. you say that David Williamson has given up buisness in Dunmore and I am sure you will miss him very much for he is a fine lad and would be very good company, but you must tell him from me he is not to think the lasses here does not wear waterfalls for some has a waterfall nearly as big as their own head but the hair is worn in a nicer fashion now for it is mostly in curls and I like to see hair in curls

give Mrs. Moffat my kind regards and say saying how soon she will have to make me my tea and give my kind regards to all enquiring friends not forgetting your own self I am your loving Cousin Marion Brown

PS Please write soon and let us know how all goes with you MB