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Lowell Mill Girl Letters

January 8, 1848

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL 
CENTER FOR LOWELL HISTORY

WRITTEN BY HULDAH S. FIELD1 
TO HER SISITER HANNAH B. FIELD2

  
                                              Lowell3 Jan the 8 1848

Dear Sister

I now eat myself to address in the silent language of my pen spit is so cold in the attic where I am seated that I cannot collect my thoughts suiteable to address any one but I will say to you that I am well and enjoy myself first rate  Sarah4 is well and seems to enjoy herself well.  I make about $2 two dollars per week this winter, in the summer I should make more the old man5 paid Sarah one dollar per week last payment and this payment he will pay her one dollar and a quarter and next month he ill give her looms she will make a first rate weaver she is so particular she does better now than some of the old weavers that been in the room  this two years she often speaks of you and says she wants to see that old angel she is going to meeting with me and is going to join the Sabbath School next Sabbath she and I gets along rite or a bought rite. Mary Crossman works in the dress room in the same mill that I do I cannot think of much to rite Benjamin6 is well and sends his love to you he is going to make you a pair of those flat iron trivets I want you to come up hear in the spring if not before and take Mr. Peter with you I shall leave the mill in about two months and a half from now I a great deal to tell you that I cannot write I am in a great hurry for I am going to meeting I write to you  some three or four weeks ago and have not received an answer from you I directed to R.S. Webber7 write as soon as you receive this from the hand of your Sister and write when you will come up Write all the news you can think

Your as ever H.S. Field

[on cover]

Miss Hannah B. Field 
Portland, Me 
for care of S.R. Webber 
  

 

1Huldah S. Field b: 1820, ME; parents: John Field and  
     Eliza Baker; residence 1848: Lowell; married 1850:  
     Benjamin Samuel Parkhurst b: 13 Jul 1817, Pomfret,  
     VT; moved 1860-1880s: St. Albans, ME. 
  2Sister – Hannah B. Field b: 1823, ME; parents: John  
     Field and Eliza Baker; residence 1848: Portland, ME. 
  3Lowell, Massachusetts. 
  4Cousin – Sarah Marston Field b: 8 May 1831, Falmouth,  
     ME d: 17 Mar 1904, Onarga, IL; parents: Benjamin  
     Field and Harriet Rideout; resident 1848: Lowell;  
     married 1850: Sanford Kingsley Marston b: 24 Feb 1831,  
     Augusta, ME d: 1904, Onarga, IL. 
  5“old man” – overseer. 
  6Husband to be – Benjamin Samuel Parkhurst b: 13 Jul 1817,  
     Pomfret, VT; parents: Samuel Parkhurst and Mary Paddock;  
     occupation: iron moulder; residence 1848: Lowell; married  
     1850: Huldah S. Field b: 1820, ME; moved 1860: Fitchburg,  
     MA; moved 1870-1900s: St. Albans, ME; occupation: farmer. 
 7Solomon R. Webber b: 1808, ME; resident 1848:  
     Portland, ME; married Eliza Ring.