To: Eleanor [McIlwrath?] [nee Wallace?]
[Newtownards?]
[County Down?]
[Ireland?]
From: Jane White
Goderich
[Ontario?]
[Canada?]
June 8 1865
Goderich June 8th 1865
My dear Eleanor
I have been long
in answering your kind letter, it
was not want of thought I assure
you, I am daily thinking of you, and
anxious to know of your welfare, I
kept putting off in a procrastinating
manner, nor has there been wanting
a certain share of wordly [worldly?] trouble
to damp the mind to a certain
carelessness, but of that you do
not have a share I am happy to
know, this War on the other
side has affected this side too
very much, but it is over now,
so I suppose we may look for
good prospects now, Goderich was
so much deserted, there was no
letting property for anything like
value, this town was troubled greatly
the shipping interest is so knocked
up, but still the town will recover,
in the midst of difficulties we do not
owe one penny, so that is fortunate.
I suppose you are surprised at the
Assassination of President Lincoln, the
news arrived here next day, he should
not have entered a theatre on the
night of Good Friday, but he
was a person greatly respected and
regretted, Booth was surely a very
outlandish brutal character.
We had a steady cold winter, but
not such cold as the winter before,
the weather is warm and pleasant now
the Queen's Birthday was rather
#PAGE 2
a failure, it rained from about
11 o'clock in the forenoon until the
evening, it cleared up then, and the
people came driving in from the country
and making a stir, some fireworks
were let off, the -allithumpians [Callithumpians?]
enlivened the scene in the forenoon
before the rain came.
There was a great panic here
about Christmas last the time the
raiders came across, it was supposed
all or nearly all the able-bodied
men would be marched off to
the frontier to meet the American
invasion, this would not have suited
their wives and families, but none
were taken from this town for that
purpose, the Volunteers are still
drilling yet, I never care for looking
at them, as I do not understand
military movements, but my father
knows every movement. This is still
a Southern place, there was
no public sympathy for the assassination
of the President, but a number of
other towns sympathised greatly, the
new President seems to be harder,
stiffer character not so aimiable [amiable?]
as Lincoln, but a firm, honest man,
I am afraid they will hang Jeff
Davis. the Fenians are making
a fuss now-a-days, the Canadians
are afraid of them last winter I,
[Remainder of letter is missing]
