Courtesy: American Textile History Museum
Transcribed: University of Massachusetts Lowell, Center for Lowell
History
Lowell [Sunday] April 3, 1836
Respected Friend1 it
is with pleasure I now employ a few
moments in writing to inform you of my health which is very good
at present and I hope this will find you in the enjoyment of the same
they are a having a general turning out here now the girls in
the narrow Weave Room went out at once on account of
their lowering their wages they took off two shillings2
on
a beam but Lawrence3
raised them again and sent for
them to come back and they did Saturday the Spinners all
stoped their work at once and run up around Putman4
he grumped and says be oh the Devil how shall I get out
of this go to work and I will make the report tomorrow
unless they raise the wages they are all going out at 12 o'clo
for good the [work?] is very bad and they are raising the Board to
nine
shillings and Jobhands cannot not much more than bear their
Board so i think you are better off where you are for there is
more girls than you can shake a stick at the Lawrence
corporation5 say they
can spare an hundred girls and not
miss them they are running over Holly Thompson has
gone to doing house work at Doct Hubbard's6
she could not
get in the factory nowhere in Lowell I saw Wilson7
Sunday he sends his respects to you and wants you should
come back and court up David his Cousin he is a real
pretty fellow you must come in the Fall when they get
settled down again Mr. Webb8
& Wegewood9 has left
Elkins10 has taken Weges
place & Lumis11 Webbs
they get
along pretty well there has been quite a rel a revival
here
1Mary S. Fraser
2Shillings: 1 shilling = about
16 cents, or 6 shillings = $1
3Lawrence: Lawrence Mills or Samuel
Lawrence, Agent
Belvidere Mills
4Adam Putnam, manufacturer b:
16 July 1799 Stow, MA; house
Hurd St.; son
of Asa Putnam and his 2nd wife Catherine Evelith;
married Dec
1823 Nancy Puffer
5Lawrence Mills
6Charles Hubbard, physician, house
Church St., business Central St.
7Clifron Wilson b: 11 Apr 1811,
Pelham, NH d: 19 July 1887;
son of Eliab
Wilson b: Pelham, NH and Damaris Fox b: [Dracut?]
MA; married
Hannah I. Williamson b: 6 July 1836, Pomfret, VT
8Edward A. Webb, overseer Middlesex
Mills, house Lawrence St.
9Joshua Wedgewood, overseer Middlesex
Mills, house near corner
Hurd and Warren
Sts
10James Elkins, overseer
Middlesex Mills, boards Miss Eliza
Manning Lawrence
St.
11Warner S. Loomis, overseer Middlesex
Mills, house corner
George and Warren
Sts
among the Methodist12
Louis Dufer has become pious and
Serene Buchnam & Clarissa Blake13
quite a change at Mrs.
Coburns14 and I hope
their will continue to be there and every-
where else give my respects to all who may enquire
for me
Hannah Parkhurst15 wants
to come up their to work16
she wants you should ask Mr. Bingham what
he will give her and she will come I shall expect
you to write as soon as you get this write all about
the folks about your Moses and how much he will give
her per week it is almost night I cannot write very mor
write as soon as you get this without fail besure and
ask Mr. Bingham so goodby Hannah I. Williamson17
[on cover]
Miss Mary S. Fraser18
Stockbridge, VT19
12First Methodist Episcopal Church
Chapel Hill - Revs Ira M.
Bidwell and Charles Noble
13Dufer, Buchnam, and Blake: operatives
Middlesex Mills
14Mrs. Clarissa Coburn, boardinghouse
keeper, Warren St.
15Hannah Parkhurst, operative
Middlesex Mills, bds at Mrs.
Clarissa Coburn, Warren St.
16Woolen Mill built in Gaysville
section of Stockbridge, VT
17Hannah Irenine Williamson b:
21 Apr 1816 Pomfret,
Windsor, VT d: 14 July 1901 Pelham, NH; daughter of Caleb
Bates Williamson d: 1822 and Hannah Tupper d: 1832;
orphaned at 16; married Clifron Wilson b: 11 Apr 1811,
Pelham, NH d: 19 July 1887
18Mary S. Fraser b: 29 Nov 1814
Pomfret, VT d: 20 Mar 1885;
married Mar 1841 Issacher Adams
19Stockbridge, VT Population 1,419
[1840]
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