Bogg, 9 January 1873

In this letter, we can feel the problems building for the Glencrosses and Scotts in Sanquhar: "there is a good deal of trouble about here just now" refers to illness, but it also applies to the broader questions of sustenance. Marion conveys uncle William Glencross's request for money to his American brother; Marion's also doubtful about the longterm wisdom of keeping cows that don't produce enough milk to pay their keep. Tam Scott, Aunt Agnes's son, would also like to be done with cows, but "it is just her nature to work among them," and so they stay for now.

The Bogg
January 9th, 1873

My Dear Uncle,

As this is the first time I have wrote to you this year I wish you all a happy new year and I hope this will find you all in moderate health when it reaches you. I am glad to be able to tell you that we are all in a moderate state of health in the meantime Aunt was very bad with the cold for two weeks but she is getting better again. We have had a great deal of wet weather and very cold to so there is scarcly anyone missing the cold there is a good deal of trouble around here just now the doctor says that it is owing to so much wet weather.

Uncle Williams wife has been very bad and does not feel very strong yet but is able to get up an hour or two every day now. Uncle bids me ask a favour from you the way things has been with him this summer he is very hard up for money and he would be very much obliged to you if you would send him six or seven pounds for some time and if you do send it if you would send it here it is more convenient to get it as at the Whitecleugh. Uncle has had a very hard summer to begin with I dont know how he may get on if he stops on.

I am very glad to be able to tell you that our cows is all healthy but Tam is beginning to think they will be scarce of hay. Tam is fairly tired of the cows but Aunt will not hear of leaving them but the cows here is not near paying themselves now and Aunt is daft to keep on as she does but it is just her nature to work among them and we cannot get her to give them up but if the cows is no better for the coming summer as they have been the last one I know they will not near clear themselves.

I have to give you Aunts kind love and say that she is wearing very much to hear from you all. What is James Bryden doing we have had a great time dreaming about him give all our friends my kind love and tell Marion to write soon and let us know how you are all getting on Aunt thinks Uncle Joseph is turning very lazy at writting and when you do write you are to send word about all the boys now I must come to a close with kind love to you all and may God be your guide is the sincere desire of your affectionate neice Marion Brown

be sure and write soon

Bogg, 31 October 1872

The last letter surviving from 1872, a fall report delayed until news of the next year's rent was known. Aunt's cheese production has suffered from sick cows, and the landlord says he won't raise their rent this year in light of that--but the threat of future rent increases remains.

The weather is wet and an uncle's hay isn't up. And a neighbor has died suddenly. "Mr. Hyslop Cleneries" probably means "Mr. Hyslop who lives at Clenries," a nearby house. There was a John Hyslop living at Clenries who won an award from the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland in 1872, for a "cheviot tup" (a kind of breeding ram)--maybe it was him? "Ten hours illness" seems to be a phrase that often refers to cholera, and there were cholera epidemics about this time (1873 in the US, 1872 in India).

This letter includes a rare reference to Marion's own siblings (her sister Sarah is marrying in London soon). And a not-so-rare reference to Marion's dreams of seeing James Bryden back in Sanquhar, offering to take Marion away to America.

The Bogg
October 31st 1872

My Dear Cousin

You will be thinking I am not a woman to my word at all when I am so long in writing after sending you word that I would write last week. I would have written but Aunt would not let me till once we got our first lot of cheese away and then I could send you word whither Mr. Kennedy was going to make the rent more this year or not so he was here yesterday and he said seeing as the cows had the disease last spring he would not ask any more rent for another year. we got 115 cheese away last week but they were not near so heavy as they were last year. There is a want of thirty stone and that is a good deal. Aunt thinks she will can make up a few stones yet but we had no turnips and the cows are greatly failed. Uncle William has had a very bad time the weather has been so wet that he could not get his hay up and I don't know if it is all up yet and it is past the time of the year for hay wining[?]

I am going on and writting and never asking how you are. I hope you and all friends beside you are well how is your Jeamie getting on I was dreaming about him the other night I thought he was come to take me away to America but when I wakened it was but a dream but I must say I was quite disapointed when I wakened and did not see him many a time we talk over the fun we had when he was here and you can tell him that I could dance a polka with him now I have to tell you from Cousin John Glencross that he is wearing very much for the card you said you would send him he is not getting very strong yet but is better as he has been.

We had a very sudden death beside us last week you can tell uncle Joseph he knows who it is. his name is Mr. Hyslop Cleneries he died in the ten hours illness this is his funeral day. I have some thing more to tell you my sister Sarah is going to be married in about a fortnight after this but she will be married in London so I will not be at her marriage her intended husband is a Jewler I have never seen him so I dont know what he will be like.

Aunt sends her kind love to you and you are to be sure and write and let us know how you are all getting on there was a spree at Brandleys last night and I suppose it was a very merry night there was above forty at it and Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy danced till the last I had a busy day getting them all dressed for it but I was not there I waited at home and was housekeeper. now I must come to a close and give uncle Joseph and aunt Marion my kind love remember me kindly to John Johnstone and Sarah and also your father and Jeamie Bryden not forgetting your own dear self from your affectionate friend Marion Brown

PS be sure and write soon M. B

Bogg, 10 October 1872

This is a long, eight-sided letter, full of interest, to James Bryden in Dunmore. Marion mentions her burnt hand (three times) and a toothache, but also says that she can walk a distance with minimal assistance, which is a big improvement from past letters. The weather is wet and the crops are bad; the cows aren't producing quite as much milk as they had in the spring; Tam Scott isn't home much, and uncle William's hay still isn't got up. Prices are high and getting higher, so much that Marion worried about keeping a supply of coals for the fire.

It's a busy, hard fall at the Bogg. Marion Brown, however, has her mind on other things--Halloween, marriage, dreams, a ring, apples, and the fervent, repeated hope that James will visit Sanquhar again soon. Her joking about her own romantic prospects here is more blatant than in most letters--she says she's in no hurry (at age 29), that she'll maybe come to America first, that one young man had even offered to give her a glass of brandy and put her to bed. It says something about the intimacy of the friendship between James Bryden and Marion Brown that she'd feel comfortable writing such things to a man not yet kin.

The Bogg
October 10th 1872

My Dear Friend

It is with much pleasure that I take my pen to try & write you a few lines altho I have not written to you I have had you many a time in my mind. but I am glad that my hand is better for it was in the way of many a thing as well as writting. I hope you will forgive me for this time for if I could have wrote to you I would before this time.

I was very glad to see from your letter that you was all well and I hope when this reaches you that you will still be enjoying the same precious blessing. We have had a very busy time for it has been such wet weather here they could not get on with the work and every thing has just been kept in a turmoil but we got in all our hay the other day and now they are going to commence to raise the potatoes there is not many diseased potatoes but they are very thin in the ground and for tunips Aunt has none this year they are all rotton with what they call finger & toe I don't know whither the master will allow her anything for the bad crop or not. the cows is all very healthy now but they have never given the same quantity of milk the whole summer as they did before they had the trouble. Mr. Kennedy was here the other day and sold our cheese to a Mr. Crow[?] he lives at Kirkconnel he gets thirteen and six pens a stone for them.

everything is very dear here I think we will soon get no fire the coals is so dear and there is a talk of them rising yet and everything else is as high you say in your letter that uncle John has had a great quantity of fruit this year I wish I had been beside you to get some for I have scarcly ever seen an apple or pear this summer they seem to be scarce in this country.

you want to know if there is any lads coming to see me now it was with pouring out tea to lads that I got my hand burned and Halbert came in last night and asked me when I was going to be married for some one asked him when I was to be cried if it was first Sunday but Jeamie they will have to wait awhile before they hear me cried yet I am not in a hurry to get married I think I will come to America first there is a young man going to be here at Halloween that says he will make me drink a glass of Brandy and then he will have the pleasure of puting me to my bed but I don't think I will give him that pleasure if he thinks it one, you might come over at Halloween and bring Marion alone with you to see the fun. I think by that time I will can dance a jig with you if I keep well.

I have been over at James Hunters two or three times since you was here I can walk over to Brandleys with a very little asistance and not be very tired so you see I am greatly improved in walking I have been very bad with the toothach this last fortnight so you will can understand that my patience will not be very good.

What did you send me the 15 sents for was it to pay the postage of my letter when I saw it I just said that makes my dream true for I dreamed the night before I got your letter that I got a registered letter and a nice ring in it and my name inside so you see I am still going on with my dreaming yet. do you ever talk any through your sleep now. I hope you will not tell them any queer stories about love at my rate.

Katty Hunter bids me tell you that you are to be sure and come over and bring Marion with you and a lot of apples and we will have a Halloween when you come Aunt sends her kind love to you and she is very proud to see your letter to let us know how you are all getting on and you are to remember her to them all and she thinks you may give us another visit if once you was married and let Marion see this country before she leaves it.

uncle William and family is all well but he has not got up all his hay yet and I think it will be in a queer state now Tam has been at Brandleys for a long time and will be for some time yet tell uncle John he will just have to come and take us all across for I don't think Tam & me will ever get Aunt to start. give Marion my kind love and say I will write a letter to her this day week if well give my kind love to uncle Joseph & Marion and you will likely get some fun when the young one comes home or she will not be her useal.

Anthony sends his kind love to you and he says it is high time you was here to look after me I am turning bad enough give my kind love to all that ask for me and execpt of the same to your own dear self. now I will stop my nonsense and hopping this will find you all well I remain your affectionate friend Marion Brown

PS be sure and write soon and not take example by me but perhaps you will have got your hand burned to. MB

Bogg, 12 September 1872

This short note was enclosed with the previous letter to John Glencross, and deals mainly with practical advice about taking "cresses" (creases) out of velvet--to be specific, out of a piece of velvet that James brought over to America, from one Marion to the other. Marion Brown's burnt hand is mentioned again--twice. And, as Marion will express more and more in the 1870s and onward, "I only wish I was beside you."

The Bogg
September 12th 1872

My Dear Cousin

I have had a burned hand or I would have written to both you & James before this I am not good at holding the pen yet but I will try and scrawl a few lines to send with your father you want to know what will take cresses out of velvet well if you damp it on the wrong side and then take a hot iron and draw the wrong side of the velvet across it ought to take the cresses out of it but do not put the iron on the right side of it or it will spoil it altogether I am sorry James got it all cressed for it was a piece of nice velvet I only wish I was beside you if it is not all the worse I think I could put it right for you I will write a long letter to you & James soon but my hand is very stif so I will write you no more news just now your father will tell you who the things is for that Johnstone has we would have sent more but we thought by the way he spoke he had not much room. now I will say goodbye with kind love to your own dear self and some one else I will not name from your loving & affectionate cousin Marion Brown

To Marion

PS be sure & write soon

Bogg, 11 September 1872

A chatty letter from the Bogg to John Glencross, mostly on the subjects of crops and cows. Turnips, potatoes, corn, and the haying are covered, as well as the cow disease hitting Brandley's. There's a list of what the Bogg folks recently sent to Dunmore--two pairs of men's drawers, two men's shirts, a boy's shirt and cravat, an apron and a bow of ribbon for various relations, old and young.

Dear Uncle

You will be thinking me long in answering your very welcome letter for we are always glad to see a letter from you. I hope this will find you & Marion and all the rest of our friends beside you in moderate good health when it reaches you and I am glad to be able to tell you that this leaves us all wonderful well Aunt has not been so strong this last week but I think it is just with working to hard in the hay time when she had none of the girls in the house to help her However I hope she will soon gain her useal strength again.

We have got all our hay up a good while since but it has been such wet weather this some time that we have got none in yet we had it all in ricks before Thornhill fair this year so I don't think we was far behind. We have a fair crop of potatoes and not many diseased yet but the turnips crop is very bad they tell me the turnips is so bad they are not worth pulling so I don't know what Aunt will do this back end for she will have nothing for her cows at all. they are failing sooner this year I think it is oweing to them having the disease in the spring. The same kind of disease is at old Brandleys just now but I hope it will not come to ours again or it will be a bad job.

There is a great deal of repairs going on about Brandleys and they tell me they have not near done yet we have got up a good big hay shed and that will be a great help our byre is all to be repaired to before the cows begins to lie in again so they will not have to be long till they are at it.

Tom is going to be at Brandleys in the harvest time so we will not have him much for some time. Uncle William gave us a call today as he was going down to Sanquhar and he has a good deal of his hay to put up yet and some of it has been lying cut for three weeks and it will not be in good order now he has a very bad turnip crop they are mostly rotten but his potatoes and corn is a wonderful good crop he is wearing very much to have his hay finished for it has been a long hay time for his first year.

Aunt sends her kind love to you all and she sent a pair of drawers to you and uncle Joseph with John Johnstone your ones is the pair with no top band and he has a shirt to you & uncle Joseph and a shirt for Tom and a cravat for little James & Nannie as they got none before and a apron for Aunt Marion and I sent a bow of ribbon for Cousin Marion's hair we would have sent more but Johnstone had not much room.

I dont know what Mr Kennedy is going to do about the cows yet Aunt thinks he will say nothing till the first lift[?] of cheese goes and then he will say what he means to do. Give all our friends my kind regards and except of the same to your self not forgetting James Bryden tell him he must excuse me for being so long in writting to him as I have had a burned hand and has not been good at writting say to him he might write and let me know if his thumb is better now I will say goodbye expecting to hear from you soon I remain your loving neice Marion Brown

PS be sure to write soon MB

Bogg, 25 July 1872

[Image at left: My hand holding this letter, in front of my iMac screen and keyboard]

A letter to James Bryden, now safely landed in America, after a seasick twelve days crossing the Atlantic. Aunt dreams and chides, and laughs at Marion's anxious searching for news of his ship in the newspapers (apparently they didn't always get a newspaper--but when James was at sea, they got one "almost every day"). Aunt even jokes that maybe Marion Glencross won't want James for a husband, and he can come back to Scotland and to Sanquhar to help with the haying. The sending of a verbena plant is discussed, but Marion thinks it would be a "torment" to the folks who had to carry it to America.

This letter seems to be incomplete.

The Bogg
Thursday July 25th 1872

Dear Friend,

I received your very welcome letter on Monday and we was all very glad to see from it that you arrived all safe altho you got a heave going across Aunt always told us that you would be getting a heave after you went away for she dreamed about you so often but you had not a very long voyage when you got there in twelve days. I got a paper almost every day and I could never see the arrival of your boat and Aunt used to laugh and say his is sure to be at the bottom of the sea I am sure your ears might ring for many a time you have been talked about since you went away.

We was very glad to see from your letter that all friends was well when you landed and I know one that would be so glad to see you. We have had a visit of John Johnstone two or three times since you went away and Sarah is a fine strong healthy like girl I think she is very like her Mother in some ways she wants me to set her a verbena plant to take over to Marion she is sure she would be so proud over it. I could plant one with right good will but it would do nothing but torment them going across.

We are started our hay but it has been very wet weather as yet and Tam says if it does not dry up he will run off the field but I think he will not run away so quick Aunt bids me say that you are to come over and give us a hand to get our hay put up and brought into the stackyard now when you have seen Marion and Aunt says if she does not want you to come away and leave her again you are just to bring her with you and she can help to make hay along with you for Aunt is sure she would be the better of a smell of the Scotch hills. Aunt says when so many Scotchmen has come to see there old native country uncle John might come and see his friends to, she is just working as hard as she can now since the hay began she is just running about as hard as she can.

All our cows is better now and that is a good thing she can keep her mind easy over them. I have to tell you if you was here now you could get better swine curds as you got the last time you was here and she is sure she would give you as many as she could sup;

I am very glad you gto all the things safe and I hope they will please her now when you have got them there you must send me word when you write next and I have to tell you from Aunt that you are to mind and not forget what you said that you would write every month Aunt is sure you cannot think that to often

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]