Lowell Mill Girl Letters

  
[Lowell, Mass] 
Dear mother

I take this oppertunity to write to you to informe you that I have gone into the mill and like very well. I was here one week and three days before I went into the mill to work for my board. We boord tgether. I like my boording place very well. I enjoy my health very well. I do not enjoy my mind so well as it is my desire to. I cant go to any meetings except I hire a seat therefore I have to stay home on that account.   I desire you pay that it may not be said of me when I come home that I have sold my soul for the gay vanitys of this world. Give my love to my father and tell him not to forget me and to my dear sister and to my brothers and to my grammother tell her I do not forget her and to my Aunts and to all my enquiring friends. I want that you should write to me as soon as you can and when you write to me I want that you should write to me the particulars about sister and Aunt Betsy. Dont fail writing. I bege you not to let this scrabling be seen.

Sarah Hodgdon

Mary Hodgdon 
Rochester, New Hampshire. 
  
  ^{1Sarah D. Hodgdon b: 1814, NH; parents Abner and Mary  
     Hodgdon; her occupation 1830: Merrimack Company,  
     weaver and later Great Falls Company, Great Falls, NH  
     now Somersworth, NH; married Dec 1845 Rochester, NH;  
     William S. Jenness b: 1815, Rochester, NH; his occupation:  
     shoemaker; residence 1850-1870: Rchester, NH. 
  2Mary ---- b: 1788, NH; married Abner Hodgdon b: 1785, NH;  
     occupation farmer; residence 1850: Rochester, NH.}

[Lowell, Mass.] 
Dear Farther

We gladly received a letter (or not worthy to be called a letter it was so small) from Elizabeth and likewise from Benjamin and mother. I was plesed to here that you was well and get along so well in your business. When you write again I want you to write a whole letter. If you cant find words enough to fill a sheet of paper get some of your neighbors to healp you. As you have given your concent beloved father for me to come to this place I hope you will have no cause to be sory. I want you to write me as soon as you can afford time to.

Don’t let this be seen.

Dearly beloved mother

I do not want this letter to trouble you that I wrote to you but I want Wrtite to me what to do wether it is best to go to the Baptist or To the Methodist. I feel well contented much better that I thoug That I should. Give my love to all my friends. Tell little Johnny that I Have got his juiceharp and tell georgegy that I will bring him home Something when I come home

                                                      Your &c 
                                                      Sarah H 
  
  ^{1Sarah D. Hodgdon b: 1814, NH; parents Abner and Mary  
     Hodgdon; her occupation 1830: Merrimack Company,  
     weaver and later Great Falls Company, Great Falls, NH  
     now Somersworth, NH; married Dec 1845 Rochester, NH;  
     William S. Jenness b: 1815, Rochester, NH; his occupation:  
     shoemaker; residence 1850-1870: Rchester, NH.  
  2Abner Hodgdon b: 1785, NH; occupation farmer; married:  
     Mary ---- b: 1788, NH; residence 1850: Rochester, NH. 
  3Mary ---- b: 1788, NH; married Abner Hodgdon b: 1785, NH;  
     occupation farmer; residence 1850: Rochester, NH.} 
   
 

To my deare father an mother an sister and all the rest 
   
I want to se you more I think 
Than I can write with pen an ink. 
But when I shall I canot tell 
But from my heart I wish you well. 
I wish you well from all my heart 
Although we are so far apart. 
If you die there and I die here, 
Before one God we shall appear^{4 
   
  4Also appears in Lowell Offering, Series I, No. 2, 1841,  
     p. 125; “Familiar Sketches, No. 2.  The Fig Tree” by Ione  
     [Harriet A. Lees (m. John F. Carney)].  Fiction considering  
     the subject of disappointed love.  At the story’s conclusion,  
     the heroine enters the Lowell mills.}