High Ercall Letters - c 1850-1870. Transcribed by Roberta's mother, contributed by Roberta Bailey : Family letters from England to a family who lived in Wood County, WI dating from the 1850's to the 1870's. Two brothers, Thomas & John Davies, came to America leaving their parents & siblings in England. Some of these letters are complete with the mispellings & some have been cleaned up. Roberta's mother started transcribing them several years ago but passed away before finishing so Roberta picked up where she left off. In all it looks like there are 16. Watton October 14th My Dear Children I trust by this time that you are come home to your family again now the war is over we see in the news paper that the south has been obliged to submit and leave you master of the field It was a sad affair of that man shooting the President Lincon we trust that now you will have a perminant peace I have no doubt it has made things very dear with you as well as they are here we have had a very good harvest here very good crops of wheat & barley the potatoes have got the diseas again this year and it is a very bad year of turnips they had to sow some of them four or five times over and there is a many acres of barron ground now the turnips have not come up and those that have come up the blight has taken them and they are roting on the ground before they are any size so that what they will feed the cattle with this winter I don’t know beef & mutton is very dear beef 8 ½ to 9 ½ per pound mutton 9 ½ to 10 per pound the best joints bacon flitches 9 ½ per pound and ham a shilling fresh butter one shilling & six pence per pound we have a bit of bread not very dear the wheat is seven shillings a bushel potatoes about three shillings a bushel Mr and Mrs Brooks of Watton are both dead and buried and left a family of six small children behind them they have given us notice for a rise of rent they have taken as you know the best part of our garden to build two cottages on for Mr Brookes but he has not lived long to enjoy them they have raised our rent to five pounds year so we must either pay it or turn out but they served all alike on the Dukes estate the farmers as well as the poor Henry & Emela give their love to you and are very well they have two children George is at Shrewsbury he is stoker on one of the great Western engines a passenger train they have three children Esther is living at a place by Chester Andrew is living by Rugby and Peter in Shrewsbury so that they are all away the single ones but Henry & his family are living with me at present poor old Molly Sambrook is dead and buried sometime ago Oakengate ???? Chester My Dear Brother and sister I am very glad to hear that you have got home saf an I hope that you ar all well as this leaves me at this time I ------ ----- my mother staying with me a week and she as seen the river at Liverpool an she licked it very much I and Peter ar living very neer Liverpool pleas to writ soon let us no how you ar doing an so ----- ----- Love from all the friends in England believe me to remain your loving mother an sister an brothers Transcribed by Roberta Bailey Edited by "MAK" (c) Copyright 2003 Roberta Bailey . All Rights Reserved. USGenWeb NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. Files may be printed or copied for personal use only.