William Lalor, Lima, Lagrange Co., Indiana, to father, Patrick Lalor, Tinakill, Queen's County, 12 May 1843
Description
William Lalor, who emigrated from Liverpool to New York in 1837, describes in detail his vicissitudes in America : his "total ignorance" of America's hypercapitalist system; severe sickness; his father's failure to loan or give him desperately needed money; economic depression following the Panic of 1837; and the "Yankee tricks" which cheated him out of money and a farm in Michigan. Is now resigned to working on a railroad or canal, alongside "the dregs of the earth," to recoup his fortunes. Plans to move to Wisconsin and marry Amelia Fox from home, whose Protestant family is also in the process of moving there. His future brother-in-law, Joseph Fox, is engaged to marry his sister, Mary Lalor. William is proudly Catholic but very tolerant in his religious opinions. Perhaps the best part of the letter concerns his bitterness over his father's inheritance practices, which obliged William to emigrate rather than remain an "old bachelor" in Ireland.
Date
12/05/1843
Date Issued
27/03/2023
Resource Type
Text
Archival Record Id
p155/1/2
Publisher
University of Galway
Extent
8pp
Topic
Lalor Letters
Geographic
Lima (township),LaGrange (county),Indiana,United States,Tinnakill (townland),Laois (county),Ireland
Temporal
Nineteenth century,Eighteen forties
Genre
Transcript,Reproduction
Note
Title, description and transcript text by Professor Kerby Miller.