UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL
ROBERT C. AND ARLEEN STYKERMAN
COLLECTION1
WRITTEN TO ORILLA VARNEY 2
BY CHARLOTTE ANN VARNEY3
Miss Orilla Varney
Upper Jay
NY
Lowell4 August 1st 1847
After being absent from each other
for more than two years, and under present existing circumstances
I hardly know how to address you: but I feel as though I
could not have things go on in this way much longer
for me not to know where you are or whether you are
dead or alive or any the rest of my friends there in Jay
it seems most to bad. I have written to you and as I have
received no answer I do not know whether you ever got my
letter or not. When I wrote to you I believe I told you I was
going to York State and should visit you. I went to York
State last September. [unclear] and Caroline, John Varney
and Maria Briggs and myself all of us visited Orra
in Sept. but we could not go to Jay5
for [unclear] was in
such a hurry that he would hardly stay long enough to make
Orra a visit. When we went back to Vermont Harriett [B----]
went back with us and stard four weeks. I then went back with
her to [unclear]. Harriet and I went to school six months
to a select school in [unclear] village and calculated to teach
this summer and Harriet is teaching but I could not
get only one dollar and a quarter per week and thought I had
spent much to much time and money through the winter
1Photocopies donated by Robert
C. and Arlene Stykerman;
Transcribed by University
of Massachusetts Lowell,
Center for Lowell
History.
2Orilla Varney b: 1828, NY d:
1861, OH; parents: Ezra G.
Varney and Charlotte
Slater; married 1850: James M. Owen.
3Sister – Charlotte Ann Varney
b: 1825, Peru, NY d: 8 Feb 1848,
Lowell, MA –
Typhoid Fever; parents: Ezra G. Varney and
Charlotte Slater;
employed: Lowell woolen mill.
4Lowell, Massachusetts.
5Jay, New York.
to teach for that so I resolved to show them a yankee
trick and accordingly went to Lowell. Me thinks I hear you
say now I guess you showed yourself as much of a trick
as any body but be that as it may I am in Lowell to work
in a woolen factory. I am well suited here and am
doing first rate. I can make more than two or three
of us in Peru6 or Jay
at any business that I have
ever followed yet and I like weaving very much.
but let any one have told me three weeks before I came
here that I should ever work in a Lowell Factory I
should have ridiculed the idea at once but they
are building new factorys here and they sent out
a man to get girls to work in them. He came to york
State and picked up girls a least seventy two in
number they did not all come at the same time that
I came. There were only eighteen that came then but
they all came this spring and who wonders if I did
get the Lowell fever but I do not regret that I came but
I should like it very much if you and Harriett
Slater7 were here with
me but I do not expect you will
ever come to Lowell for I should not wonder if you
were both of you married by this time but whether that
is the case or not if you ever get this do write don’t stop
to wash the dishes for I want to hear from you and grand
Father and grand Mother and all the rest of our folks
very much indeed.. Jasper and Caroline8
are here
in Lowell it is Sunday and I am with her today
and we are both of us writing and we are going out for
a walk. I am in such a hurry that I hardly know
what I am writing. They were all well in Vermont when
Caroline left in May. John Varney is married to
Mary Ann Bush. Elisha Briggs is married again
to Elvira Bush so she has married her uncle.
I will tell you a little about Ezra’s9
affairs he has built a house
on his farm a pretty little cottage house they have
a little daughter they call her Charlotte Ann though
I suppose you have heard of that he thinks they take lots
of comfort. when you write don’t leave out any of the
news tell me every thing that you can think of.
I wish you would tell me what has become of aunt
6Peru, New York.
7Cousin – Harriet Slater b: 1827,
NY; parents: Lyman
Slater and Mary
Hamilton; married 1847, NY:
Robert B. Gilmore.
8Cousin – Caroline Maria Varney
b: 15 May 1828, Lincoln,
VT d: probably,
Lawrence, MA; parents: Moses Varney
and Eleanor
Dow Gore; married: Jasper Richardson
b: 26
Nov 1822, Woodstock, VT d: 1904, Lawrence, MA;
children:
Edgar Eugene Richardson.
9Ezra Varney b: 1812, VT; married:
Artenesia; residence
1850: Lewis, NY.
Martia. I have never heard any thing about
her since you wrote that she was going to start
to go to her friends. I shall write again soon if you
answer this. I should tell you a little more parti-
culers about how much I can make in the Factory
but I guess you and Harriett had better come to
Lowell and get rich with the rest of the sixteen
thousand girls here. I can not write much more
this with the best wishes of your affectionate Sister
Charlotte Ann Varney
To Orilla Varney
done in a hurry but I guess
you wont read it in a hurry
don’t believe you can read it at all
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