Letter of George Anderson, 1898

Letter of George Anderson to his family concerning the progress of his farm, Cape Watchman, 8 September 1898. Reproduced with kind permission of Mr George Anderson:

I received your welcome letter […] by it that you were all well. I suppose [..] pretty long winded in answering it, but I wanted to get out to my new abode before I wrote, to see how I got on.

I have settled here about four months now & am doing fairly well. I have got a bit of a house erected which serves for carpenters shop, sleeping room, kitchen, dining room parlour, store room & library all in one. I have also got a dipper erected & some pends I am busy at the present time making more pends for working the sheep.

This is the laming season here & the sheep are busy lambing, the weather is fairly good only a bit frosty at night, but it promises to be a pretty fair lambing if it continues the same as what it is at present.

We have had a very foggy wet winter with very little snow so it promises to be a pretty fair season for water & grass which is pretty scarce in this locality sometimes.

I have no neighbours (excepting the people I have here working) nearer than about 50 miles so I am not to much troubled with company, altough I am so far away from neighbours I get my stores landed within five miles from where I have the settlement & am to get the wool lifted from same place so I have the port pretty convenient. The worst thing is getting letters & getting them away, they may sometimes lie 3 or four months before I get them as it is rather far to go often on the chance of finding any, so you musnt wonder if I am long in answering your letters sometimes altough I have not been a very regular correspondent.

I am going up to Puerto Deseado, I am starting tomorrow & it will take me two days to get there, I am going purposely to see if there is any letters for me & to get some sent away.

Now that I have got out all by myself I am going to study economy as much as possible to see if in about two or three years more if I cannot come home & see you all, if everything goes well & spaired untill that time I may manage it but it will be hard scraping.

I am getting along fairly well here only I have had to sink a little in debt to get material to put up the necessary conveniences for working & it will take some time to pull out of it again but I think if things go smoothly & the puma or lion (as he is called) dosent kill to many sheep I may be able to drag out of it in a couple of years more, then that will make things a great deal easier.

I havent much more news to give you about this part of the world at present so I will return to home.

I was happy to see by your letter that that you had communication with all the family & that they were all in fair health. I hope father is still keeping in good health […] ever he must be getting very old & not very able to do much now […] I wish I could come home to see him but I must have patience & if we are all spaired for another two or three years we may be able to meet again.

I am verry sorry to hear about poor Janet being in a weakly condition, it is a good job that Adam & her get along together so well.

I will have to be drawing to a close, hoping this will find you all enjoying good health as it leaves me in wonderful good spirits. So with best respects & best love to everybody I will remain dear sister & brother your loving brother

George Anderson

Cape Watchman
Via Puerto Deseado
Republica Argentina

PS. Write soon
Good bye

: George Anderson letter, 1898: full image >; [NLS reference: Acc. 9002/15]