Merchants, Shopkeepers, and Peddlers prev next 45: Mary Cumming, 1814-1815 [para. 365-377]
365 The last Irish emigrant in this section, Mary Cumming (née Craig), was the young wife of William Cumming, also from Ulster and a tobacco merchant in southeastern Virginia. Surprisingly, Mary Cumming's letters to Ireland have survived whereas her husband William's correspondence has not. This represents a reversal of the usual pattern which reflected not only lower literacy among Irishwomen than among their male peers, [1] but also the patriarchal custom whereby even literate married women often deferred to their husbands in communicating with Irish kinfolk. [2] For instance, although wives of wealthy Irish immigrants were more likely to be letter-writers than were the spouses of ordinary farmers and artisans, when Hannah Wright in frontier Ohio addressed her Irish relations, she wrote primarily on her husband's behalf—begging for money to fund his speculations. [3]
366 [Page 363] Thus, Mary Cumming's letters are relatively unique. In general, they provide an affluent, married woman's perspective on emigration, on upper-class life in urban Virginia, and, most poignantly, on the problems of sickness and premature death that beset many Irish immigrants, particularly in the South. Mary's surviving correspondence was written to family members in Ireland, mostly to her older sister Margaret, in an intimate, conversational style—as if "I am talking to you," she explained. As one might expect, its focus is primarily on domestic and family concerns—on husband and home in Petersburg, Virginia, but also on her father and siblings back in Ulster. Indeed, and despite her warm relationship with William, Mary Cumming's letters were riven with an almost inconsolable homesickness, so much so she could scarcely bear to end each letter—for, as she exclaimed to her sister, "it is like a second parting with you for me to quit writing." [4]
Portrait of Mary Cumming (1790-1815) of Petersburg, Virginia, painted in 1812 by an unknown artist.
Photograph courtesy of Tom McDonald, Impact Printing, Ltd., Coleraine, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
367 Yet in spite of the intensely personal nature of her correspondence, Mary Cumming's letters indicate that her life was by no means confined to an exclusively private domain. In this era what would later be called "middle-class" families were in transition: family and work were no longer combined in patriarchal households, but they were not [Page 364] yet entirely separated into distinct "private/feminine" and "public/masculine" spheres. Thus, during their first year in Petersburg, Mary and her husband resided under the same roof with his clerks, and although they later moved their home to an élite suburb, Mary's letters continued to demonstrate her remarkably detailed knowledge of William's business affairs. To be sure, unlike her older contemporary, the twice-widowed Margaret Carey Murphy Burke, [5] Mary Cumming was never an independent economic agent (for that matter, neither was William), and the tobacco she marketed was a gift from her husband; however, it is clear that she was thoroughly engaged in her husband's commercial concerns and employed her own capital and family networks in Ireland to promote his trading ventures. Likewise, Mary's domestic production—of clothes and lacework, for example—contributed significantly to the Cummings family economy, as did also her reluctant management of William's domestic slaves. And, finally, even Mary's participation in affluent Petersburg's social whirl—its seemingly endless balls and dinner parties—served to reinforce her family's status and advance William's career, while her participation in élite women's charitable activities, such as the local Female Orphan Asylum, complemented her husband's more overt involvement in the "male" worlds of business and formal politics. Thus, it is the paucity of letters, such as those of Mary Cumming, that often gives the erroneous impression that the wives of affluent Southerners were not engaged in commercial and public affairs—although, admittedly, Mary's economic roles may have been enhanced by her and her husband's desire to amass sufficient capital, as quickly as possible, to enable them to return permanently to Ireland at the earliest opportunity.
368 The future Mary Cumming was born on 6 December 1790, the second child of Rev. Andrew Craig (1754-1833), a Presbyterian minister in the thriving linen-market town of Lisburn, County Antrim, and Mary McCully (1760-1807), daughter of "an ingenious experimental farmer" who lived near Newtownards, County Down. [6] Although her mother died when Mary was only 17, she and her siblings, Margaret (1789-1850), James (1793-1845), and Rachel (1798-1860), apparently enjoyed an idyllic life at Strawberry Hill, their father's country manse just outside Lisburn. It was at Strawberry Hill, on 8 August 1811, that Mary Craig, aged 20, married William Cumming. For several years Cumming had resided at Petersburg, Virginia, and the wedding took place during one of his trips to visit relations in Armagh town, where his elder brother was a clergyman. Cumming was employed in Petersburg as a commission merchant, purchasing tobacco, cotton, and flour for the export-import firm of Alexander Brown & Sons. The elder Brown (1764-1834) had been a wealthy linen merchant in Belfast before 1798, when he was implicated in the United Irish rebellion and emigrated to Baltimore—at that time the fastest growing seaport [Page 365] in America. [7] There he became a millionaire as his business expanded from commerce into ship-building and banking, with branches in Liverpool, New York, and Philadelphia. His Cumming cousins also prospered, as both William and his younger brother, James, served as company agents in Petersburg, while other members of the Cumming family represented the firm in Liverpool and Savannah.
369 Shortly after their wedding, Mary and "Mr. Cumming"—as she referred to her husband in her first six letters—sailed from Warrenpoint, County Down, to Liverpool, "encountering the danger of a tempestuous sea and the most dreadful sickness I ever endured." [8] After crossing the Irish Sea, the Cummings resided temporarily in Liverpool with William Brown, one of Alexander Brown's four sons and business partners, and made a brief visit to London. Despite her stern Calvinist heritage, Mary enjoyed the London theatre and was entranced by the city's high fashions and "magnificent buildings." However, she disliked Liverpool's dirt and bustle and, although she found the English countryside "charming"—and its cottages "so neat and clean" compared with their Irish equivalents—she missed the mountains of her "darling Ireland." [9] After three weeks' delay, on 28 [Page 366] September the Cummings embarked from Liverpool on the Lydia, sharing first-class staterooms with William Brown and his own young bride. Only six weeks later, on 7 November, they arrived in New York City, but despite their comfortable accommodations, Mary Cumming, already pregnant, had spent most of her short but miserable voyage confined to her berth. "Our passage . . . was very rough," she related; "indeed it blew a constant gale . . . for most of the time." "It would be impossible almost to conceive the delight I felt when again I set my foot on land." [10]
370 After recuperating in the New York mansion of Robert Dickey—another Cumming-Brown cousin and United Irish exile who had become "immensely rich" in American trade [11]—Mary and William traveled by steamboat to New Brunswick, New Jersey, then by stagecoach to the Delaware, down the river by sail to Philadelphia and Newcastle, overland by stage to the head of Chesapeake Bay, and once again by sailboat to Baltimore. There they tarried for several days at Alexander Brown's mansion, where they met Robert Oliver, a Lisburn Quaker who had emigrated in 1783 and amassed a fortune in trade, and Rev. William Sinclair, who in 1787 had officiated at the wedding of Mary's parents and, like Dickey, had been exiled overseas in 1798. [12] Finally, on 17 November the Cummings embarked by stagecoach south to Alexandria, Richmond, and Petersburg. Mary found American cities "much handsomer than . . . expected," and she enjoyed "travelling through the American woods very much," but her long journeys left her "very much fatigued" and weighing only 105 pounds, 21 fewer than when she left Lisburn. [13]
371 Nevertheless, Mary Cumming's first impressions of her new home were very favorable. "[A]fter encountering the troubles and dangers of a sea and land voyage," she reported, "here I am at last comfortably fixed in a very pleasant house which I may call my own":
Oh, my darling friends, how I wish you saw how happily I am settled in this nice little place, there is everything in it I could possibly wish for. The house is extremely neat and convenient. . . . The first floor is entirely taken up with the office and store and [Page 367] room for the young men [14] to sleep in. Above stairs there is a very neat parlour about the size of the sitting one of my own sweet Strawberry Hill, [plus] a very handsome drawing room in front with three windows . . . very neatly furnished indeed. You go out of the parlour into a little passage which leads to my sleeping room, which is a very pleasant apartment. On the same floor there is a very nice high dressing-room which I intend making a china closet of. Next to that there is a back stairs which leads you through a little shrubbery to the kitchen, which is at a little distance from the house. There is another little room with shelves all round it where the cold meat and bread are kept. In the third story there are three excellent sleeping-rooms all as neat as I could wish for. There are fireplaces in all the chambers except one. . . . Mr. Cumming has got plate, [15] china and glass, etc., in great plenty, indeed it does not look much like a bachelor's establishment. [16]
Mary Cumming shared the house not only with William and his clerks but also with at least six black "servants"—"I cannot bear the word slaves," she admitted [17]—whom she managed, apparently, with both kindness and success: "the servants appear to be all regular and well behaved," she wrote, and one of them, Nancy, "is so good a cook that I have only to tell her in the morning what I wish for dinner." [18]
372 Superficially, early nineteenth-century Petersburg seemed an ideal place to be young, wealthy, and Irish. With 5,668 inhabitants (half of them slaves and free blacks), Petersburg in 1810 was Virginia's third largest town (behind Richmond and Norfolk), the leading tobacco port for the southern part of the state and for much of North Carolina, and a major flour-milling and manufacturing center. It was also a rigidly stratified society: in 1820 the top 10 percent of Petersburg's taxpayers held nearly 60 percent of all taxable property. To be sure, Petersburg's main streets were not paved until 1812, and religion was reportedly "at a low ebb"; the first permanent Presbyterian congregation was not established until mid-1812, which obliged Mary to endure "dry, uninteresting" sermons in the local Episcopal church. [19] However, the town boasted a flourishing social and cultural life, centered around what was reputedly the oldest theatre in North America, the race track, and balls and card-parties in the gentry's "elegant and well-built houses," as one traveler described them. [20] Moreover, the Irish presence in Petersburg was especially strong: economically, as after the Revolution Ulster-born merchants largely supplanted the Scottish factors who formerly dominated the tobacco trade; and culturally, as resident Irish literati such as the 1798 exile, John Daly Burk, [21] published volumes of history and Irish music, and wrote plays for the town's theatre. Intelligent, charming, and well-connected, [Page 368] Mary Cumming enjoyed a prominent place in this society: "I like the country," she enthused, "and I admire the people whom I have met with extremely. The American ladies are in general gentle and elegant in their manners, and most of those I have the pleasure of knowing appear to be accomplished and well-informed." [22]
373 Most rewarding was her seemingly idyllic relationship with a devoted husband: "My dear William . . . is everything to me my heart could wish for," she wrote; "the longer I know him I love and esteem him more." [23] The Cummings apparently enjoyed what historians have called a "companionate marriage"—increasingly common among the genteel classes in Britain and America—that was based on free choice and mutual affection and respect rather than on patriarchal authority, parental compulsion, or purely economic calculations. Clearly, Mary and William delighted in each other's company: they attended parties together; read to each other on chilly evenings; and shared interests in gardening, politics, and William's commercial ventures, in which Mary herself invested. Thus, what she called her domestic "rapture" seemed complete when, on 1 May 1812, she gave birth to a "darling little daughter." [24]
374 Yet, despite every comfort, Mary Cumming was desperately homesick. After she and her husband moved to an even grander house in Petersburg's upper-class suburb of Blandford, "William tells me sometimes that . . . I will get so fond of the place that I will not like to leave it"; however, she vowed, "there is not the least danger in that respect": "a cottage in Ireland for me, before a palace in any other country." [25] In part, Mary's longing for "dear Strawberry Hill" stemmed from her initial belief that, after merely a few years in Petersburg, her husband would make his fortune and return to Ireland—thus relieving her of the need to adjust psychologically to the possibility of permanent emigration. [26] Unfortunately, and despite William's assurances, on 18 June 1812 her worst fears were realized when war commenced between the United States and Great Britain. The War of 1812 not only imperiled transatlantic communications but also made going home impossible: "I now feel as if I was a prisoner in this country," Mary lamented; "I much fear that the time for our return to my dear native land is now more uncertain than ever. . . . I cannot bear to think of it." [27] The outbreak of hostilities also endangered the status of Petersburg's alien residents, and despite their families' many associations with United Irish refugees, both Mary and her husband were loyal "Britons." [28] Thus, although she [Page 369] readily admitted that "[t]he people of this country certainly enjoy many blessings," [29] she assured her father, "I do not feel pleasant when I hear old England spoken of disrespectfully." [30]
375 However, most alienating and ultimately disastrous were the effects of what one early visitor called Petersburg's "extreme unhealthiness." As another traveler wrote in 1786, the town "stands upon the River Appomattox, the water thereof is almost stagnant . . . [and] the Vapors arising from it contaminate the air with the most pestilential disorders. Agues and fevers of Every kind prevail." [31] Conditions were no better during Mary Cumming's residence, and the local Female Orphan Asylum—of which she was elected a director in 1814—was necessitated by the high mortality from malaria, yellow fever, and other diseases. Thus, more than conventional piety obliged Mary to preface her hopes for the future with the phrase, "if we live." She was weak from the beginning and unaccustomed to America's climatic extremes, and Mary Cumming's health deteriorated rapidly during her first hot, "sickly season," when she contracted "a bilious fever" and, more devastating, when her "sweet infant" died of a "bowel complaint." [32] Mary never really recovered from this first major illness, and the following autumn another bout with "bilious colic" caused the stillbirth of her second and last child. [33] To make matters worse, if possible, "the severe remedies" prescribed by Petersburg's physicians were, she lamented, "almost as bad as the diseases themselves": "bleeding, blistering, salivating, are three of the most favourite cures for bilious complaints," she reported, and the doctors induced salivating by forcing her to drink calomel, a compound of mercury. [34] By January 1814, when she composed the following letter home, Mary Cumming had regained strength sufficient to observe, if not participate in, the events of the social season. However, her preoccupation with local funeral customs reflected her own precarious health as well as the shadow of premature death that fell over all Petersburg society.
Letter 1.: Mary Cumming, Blandford, Virginia, to Margaret Craig, Strawberry Hill, Lisburn, County Antrim, 2-9 January 1814 Blandford, January 2, 1814
Many happy returns of the year to my dear Margaret, and all the beloved inmates [Page 370] of Strawberry Hill. When or how this letter will be sent I know not, but as I intend it shall be a very long one I will write a little now and then till I hear of an opportunity of sending it. Occasionally I think of something which I wish to tell you, of which I forget when I am in haste to send off my letter. I wrote a very long letter to you in the beginning of November which has not left this country yet, and another to my Father last month which I expect he will receive before you get yours, as I sent it by another conveyance.
I have been very anxious to hear from home for a long time, and indeed if I did not know that vessels at this season of the year have sometimes very tedious passages I should be very uneasy. The last letter I had from home was from Rachel, dated June. The one she said you had written to me at the same time has not come to hand yet. Before I finish this letter I hope I shall have the happiness of telling you I have received a packet [35] from Ireland. I am now so well that I was able to be at no less than two balls last week, one of them was at Major Taylor's, [36] a very near neighbour of mine, the other was a public one held at the hall which is within a hundred yards of us. I danced a little but I have not the pleasure now I once enjoyed in that amusement. I get so soon tired owing to my want of strength that it is rather a toil for me to go through a reel, and I feel more pleasure to sit and look at others than to join them in the dance. "How you are changed" you will say, but believe me I have no idea my dancing days are over. When I go home you will see me I hope as active on the floor as ever. I do not like the reels they dance here, it is the same or nearly the same figure [37] over and over again. They seem to me to pay no attention to the music and begin at the last of the line as soon as at the beginning. Country dances are not much liked here. In Richmond and the Northward cotillions [38] are the most favoured dances, balls are always well attended and young and old join in the dance. It would amuse you to see Mrs. Moore [39] going through a reel, she is an uncommonly large woman, dresses very gay, and seems to enjoy herself more than anyone I know. The American ladies in general dress very well, a good deal in the French style, which I do not admire. There are a number of very pretty girls in Petersburg, most of the American ladies I have seen are remarkably fair, with scarcely any colour, owing to the warmth of the climate, I suppose. My sweet little Agnes Freeland is an exception, she is as blooming as any Irish girl, she has beautiful hair and dark eyes, I have not [Page 371] seen her here so often of late, owing to her mother's health, which I am sorry to say is very bad. She is now confined to bed, and I am very much afraid her disease will end in a consumption. She has been long threatened with it, and she has met with so many misfortunes lately that I fear it has increased the complaint. Within the last year she lost her husband and an only sister. Mr. Freeland died very suddenly, her sister (who was a charming woman) died a few hours after the birth of her boy. Mrs. Freeland has an uncommonly strong mind, but I fear her health will suffer, I do not know what I would do if I was to lose her, she says she looks on me as if I was her daughter and she has always treated me as if I was really so, but I hope from my heart she will soon get better, I cannot bear to think of losing her. I have attended four funerals since I came to this country, I believe. The persons all died during the last year, they were all acquaintances of ours, and what is singular, all Scotchmen. I like the manner that funerals are conducted here very much, I think they are extremely solemn and impressive. It is a mournful subject, but as this is Sunday I will therefore tell you as well as I can how they are arranged. The day after the decease of the person their friends send notes to as many of their acquaintance as they wish to attend, mentioning at what hour the funeral will take place. The ladies all go in carriages, the men on horseback when you get to the house every place looks mournful, the coffin put on a large table in the middle of the room, covered with white, the ends tied with black, all the pictures and mirrors are covered in like manner. When all the company have assembled the clergyman reads the funeral service, which is altogether the most affecting scene I have witnessed these many years. After he has finished six of the deceased's most particular friends bear the coffin to the hearse, the company attend to the place of interment, all alight and proceed to the graveyard where the clergyman again delivers a short prayer over the spot. No person could possibly help being affected during this solemn scene.
There is always a quantity of what is called funeral cake, made on the occasion. It is like our Naples biscuits, each piece is rolled up in mourning paper and sealed with black. I think this is a curious custom, even the baskets which it is handed round in are all covered with white. I shall now bid my dear Margaret adieu for the present.
Thursday, January 6th
I again take up my pen to have a little conversation with my dear Margaret, and to tell her we have all been on the tip-toe of hope and expectation for these last few days past. A cartel [40] has arrived at Annapolis and brought a messenger from the British Government, who is now at Washington. The general opinion is that the message is of a pacific nature and that peace is not far distant. From my soul I hope it is not. William is in fine spirits at the good news. If it does take place I think I shall see my beloved friends sooner than I once expected. Do you know I am going to commence tobacco [Page 372] merchant? William gave me for my Christmas gift a quantity which I intend shipping off when peace takes place. If I succeed in my first attempt I shall go on in the same manner till I return to Ireland. William and myself were talking of a plan if we should have peace which he would advise my Father to think of. It is for him to get James Cumming [41] or some other person to purchase some fine and coarse linens, send them to W. Brown of Liverpool to be shipped to America. William will sell them for him and if he pleases lay the proceeds out in tobacco so that if all would turn out well my Father would make by [42] both purchases. William says if we had peace many merchants will be ruined, some have speculated very largely [43] in tea and sugar when both articles had got [44] an exorbitant price in expectation that the war would last a long time. I am glad to say William never thought it would last very long. I have the happiness of telling you Mrs. Freeland is much better since I wrote last and I trust will soon be quite well. My acquaintance is now very numerous indeed, my health has been so bad lately that I have not been able to visit any except my most particular friends. There are about eight families with whom I am very intimate, and those are quite enough for me. I do not care for a large circle of acquaintances, a great many of whom I do not care for. Several of my most intimate friends are as elegant accomplished women as I ever met with, so much so that I can find no fault with them, but I must give you some description of Mrs. Taylor, a lady who visited me about a twelve month ago, and who is my nearest neighbour, as I have nothing better at present to tell you. Perhaps it may amuse you. You must not say I am satirical, I shall not exaggerate nor "set down aught in malice." Often before I had the pleasure of knowing this lady I had heard of her. I was told she was extremely lively, witty, and sensible, [45] keen in her remarks, and will have her laugh no matter at whose expense. From these accounts I thought I should feel rather afraid of her, but my opinion changed the first time she came to see me, I found her lively, cheerful, and agreeable, seemed very desirous. [46]
I really think this long epistle will try your patience, but I wish you to send me one just as long. Peace is still spoken of as not being far off, I feel quite anxious now for William's return to hear all the news. If we have peace he will make a very handsome sum of money by a purchase of flour which he bought the other day, it was quite a sudden thought; he had heard some report of the good news, and therefore bought eight hundred barrels of flour at four dollars and a half a barrel. This was lower than it has been here for a long time, and yesterday he would have got six for it. If we have peace it will be up eight or nine dollars, so that at any rate he will make.
[Page 373] I have a delightful plan in view to expend the profits of this little speculation, and if all goes on well I hope to see it accomplished. I wish William to take me on in the gig [47] next summer to Philadelphia, spend some time there, and get the man who made the gig to exchange it for a handsome carriage, as the former is of very little use to us now, since William is so much engaged. I should like to spend some time in Baltimore also. Carriages are very necessary in this country in the Summer to protect you from the immense heat and in Winter from the cold. We have had some piercing weather lately, but I do not mind, as I am always better in cold weather. It is the sudden changes we have which are so injurious. You have not said anything of the Cairds in your letters lately, I hope they are well. I do not know what all the Lisburn girls are about, [48] not a girl of my acquaintance married since I left Ireland. Tell Margaret Byers I have not had a letter from her this long time. J.C. [49] deserves his ears boxed. Oh, my beloved Margaret, how happy we shall all be when I return to Ireland. I suppose Dublin will be our place of residence, and then I will have you and Rachel always with me, or I will be with you. My dear Father must come very often and stay with me. I fancy Rachel will be his housekeeper before that time comes. I should like M. Cumming to be mistress of the house at the bridge, as for Miss Rachel I want her to be planted beside me. What do you think of these plans?
This is a great day in Petersburg, the inhabitants are to give a dinner to the volunteers. [50] I was awakened this morning by the firing of cannon, some of the democrats [51] have styled them "the Spartan band." I suppose it will be "Much ado about Nothing." William subscribed, but he would not dine with them. The suppers we have at the public balls are very superb. The ladies never pay, each gentleman's ticket is four dollars, and he may take as many ladies with him as he chooses. I like this plan, it is considered enough for them to honour the balls with their company without paying anything. The girls in general strip [52] very much at these places, the frocks are made very low, without very often a shoulder strap; their hair, ever since I came to this country has been worn in what is called an Indian knot. It is twisted in this form as close to the neck as possible, I did not like this fashion much at first, but I am reconciled to it now. The Americans dress much more in the morning than is customary in Ireland, I have seen ladies fine enough to go into a ball-room paying morning visits. Perhaps this is owing in some measure to their using carriages so much. There is a beautiful kind of silk to be got in this country, called the French Levantine, it is much richer than the English sarsnet, [53] as soon as I have an [Page 374] opportunity I will send you and Rachel frocks of it, for it is not to be had with you. [54] I got a very handsome figured [55] pink one for the last birth-night ball, which I paid fifteen shillings a yard for. Mercy upon us! how the cannons are firing! If they were going to give a dinner to Lord Wellington [56] there could not be a greater fuss. I think they had better not waste any more powder, as they are very often at a short for [57] some when they are fighting. I believe in my soul many Americans wish old England was sunk in the sea, but she will flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all.
You cannot conceive how very much my white tippet [58] is admired, it is the only one in Petersburg of the kind. I have told many people how it was done, but they are afraid to begin so troublesome a job. Pelisses [59] of fine cloth trimmed with gold and gold buttons are very much worn here. This I think is too showy a dress for the street. I have never seen any velvet as handsome as mine. I send you a little bit of the trimming Agnes Freeland taught me to do. Perhaps Rachel or you will find out the way to do it, it is very easy, but I fear unless you saw it done you will not succeed. However you can try, and I will endeavour to give you the best description of how it is done that I can. You take a piece of cotton (the kind we used to knit with will do) about a yard long, put the one end of it between the first finger and thumb of the left hand, put the thread once around the left hand, and with the right take the other end and work the cotton which is over the left hand something like the way you make a button-hole. When you have about sixteen stitches on try if it will draw, [60] which forms the little loop, which you may make large or small by putting more or less stitches on. The only trouble is to learn to make it draw, which you may be able to find out from what I have said, though I wish I could make it clearer to you. Do not be discouraged if you do not succeed at first, for I am sure I tried forty times before I could get it to draw with me. There are a great variety of ways of making it, but this is the most simple kind I have sent you. I will with pleasure teach you all the others when you can do this, but you must learn to make it draw before you can do any kind, It is called tatting [61] and makes a very neat trimming. I have done a great quantity of it. When your cotton gives out you must knot it close to the little loop.
January 9th, Sunday.
This is a very wet day. William is gone to town and I have been engaged writing to Mr. Gilmour. We had a snow storm last week, but if this rain continues it will soon [Page 375] disappear. I did a little bit of the tatting last night, which I send you, you will find if you draw the long end of the cotton which I have left it will form the little loop. The trimming makes a handsome finish to any kind of work, it always looks well round the sleeve or neck of a morning gown. If you cannot find out the manner in which it is done, as soon as I have an opportunity I will send you and Rachel some. Perhaps she could describe something she learned at school to me, so that I could find it out. What pleasure I shall take in teaching my beloved sisters all the little things I have learned during my stay in this country. I never saw such elegant baby-clothes as the ladies make here. I took much pains making mine the last time, but alas! I had no occasion for them. Tatting done with fine cotton looks very well round the ruffle of little shirts. You see I am telling these things as perhaps you may have use for them some time or other. I have got some beautiful patterns for working, which I would like to send you. Does Rachel make her frocks?
And now my beloved Margaret, I shall bid you adieu! having told you everything I could think of, and I hope I may soon receive a letter from you, as long as this is. I shall write to Rachel very soon. God bless you my darling sister, and grant you every happiness, is the sincere prayer of your
Mary Cumming
William sends a thousand loves to you all.
376 Mary Cumming's hopes for Anglo-American peace and a speedy return to Ireland were continually frustrated. Thus, in summer 1814 William tried to console her with what she hoped would be "a charming excursion, from which I hope to enjoy health and a great deal of pleasure," [62] to the fashionable medicinal springs at Balltown (now Ballston Spa), near Saratoga, New York. Unfortunately, she reported after her visit, "whether it was owing to the fatigue of travelling or some other cause I did not derive the benefit . . . which I expected; on the contrary I think I got weaker during my stay." [63] Indeed, by the time Mary and William reached Baltimore on their return journey, she was too ill to travel further and was forced to remain at Alexander Brown's house while her husband continued to Petersburg. She rejoiced that William "has now determined on returning to Ireland," as "I suffer so much from the climate that he will not run the risk of keeping me longer in it." [64] Yet despite the ministrations of the city's "most skillful physician," Mary Cumming never left Baltimore, and by mid-March 1815, when she penned her last letter to her sisters in Lisburn, her joy at the "most wonderful news" [65] of [Page 376] peace between the United States and Britain was canceled by the certainty of her impending death.
Letter 2.: Mary Cumming, Baltimore, Maryland, to Margaret Craig Ward and Rachel Craig, Strawberry Hill, Lisburn, County Antrim, 15 March 1815 Baltimore, 15 March 1815
My ever beloved and darling Sisters,
As I have been getting weaker every day since I wrote to my dear Margaret, I again take up my pen to try to write a few lines. [66] Thank God that I feel a little stronger today than I have done for some time past. Oh my beloved Sisters, I too well know what you will all feel when this letter reaches you, but I hope and trust that Providence will enable you to bear the mournful news with composure. I hope I shall be quite so before Providence thinks fit to remove me out of this world of care and sorrow. I do all I can to be so. I find it a hard trial to think of leaving this world with all the prospects of felicity which I thought I had to find in it. These are now all over and I must try and prepare myself for another and better state where I believe I am now soon going.
My dear dear friends I have a great deal to say to you. I wish I had strength sufficient to write to you all but that I have not at present.
It is possible that this letter will be given you by my beloved darling William. Oh my friends, if ever you loved your poor Mary, show it in your attention to one that was dearer to her than life. Try to cheer and comfort his dear heart which I know will oppress him for the loss of one whom he always treated with the most unremitting affection, kindness and regard, but I know you will do this with the greatest pleasure. His own worth will secure him the regard of all who have the happiness of knowing him. Talk to him of me for this will please him. He has been my comfort and support during all the sickness and sorrow which I have had and he is now the soother of every moment of my life. I hope and trust we may be united in a better world, never more to part. I cannot speak of the happiness I promised myself on my return this Spring to my native country and to the beloved friends I left, that is over now.
William will take you a few seeds and roots. My dear Rachel will show him what I once called my garden where I want them to be planted. Let him have it to cultivate when he is with you. He is fond of flowers and this will help to amuse him. Try and keep him with you in Ireland, I think he would be much happier than here. I know my ever dear and beloved Father will do all in his power to comfort and amuse one so every way deserving of his kindness and affection.
[Page 377] My illness has not been a severe one. I hardly suffer any pain as yet. It seems to be a kind of gradual decline. For this I am, I hope, very thankful and it will be a consolation to all my friends to know that I have had the very best advice that America could give. I have met with every attention from this family that I could have had even at home and if an All Wise Providence now thinks fit to take me, I trust to a better world, I must endeavour to be resigned to his Will. My attachment to this world was very great, it is so still, but my dear friends, I look forward to a blessed reunion. Any and every circumstance you may wish to hear, my dear William will take pleasure in telling you, if you ask him.
There are a few little trifles which it is my wish should go to you to be divided between you in any way you think right. It is not for their value but that there is a good deal of your poor Mary's work on them.
I send back my dear James's brooch which I have always kept with great regard. Give him now a sister's blessing who always adored him. Tell him I hope he will prove an ornament to his family and name. Give him some of my hair which you will receive by my love.
But what shall I send to my adored Father, that father who took such pains with me? Oh that I could think of something. He will require nothing, nothing to remind him of me. I hope all his good instructions have not been bestowed on me in vain. I can leave him nothing but my blessing, and may every blessing this world can bestow light on his beloved head. God bless him.
You would wonder if you saw how thin I am, that I could write with such a steady hand, but so it is. You will give my most affectionate love to my dear and very kind friends in Armagh, to my ever kind and most attentive relation Miss McCully, and to my once lively and dear early companion and friend Margaret Byers. I think with great affection and regard on the many many friends I have left in Lisburn, please remember me to them all.
Do not you remember, my beloved Sisters, some kind of Spring Evenings I used to be particularly fond of? They were in the latter end or beginning of April. On some such evening as I shall attempt to describe take a walk to Charles Grove with my dear William and talk of me. Soft, mild and calm, the twilight stealing on, the Bat flittering about and the Beetle humming through the air. You will think then of me.
I gratify myself writing these lines and this moment I feel quite composed and perhaps I am more fanciful than usual.
May God bless, protect, help and support you all through this transient world and grant us all a happy meeting in a better beyond the grave, is and will be, the last prayer of
M. Cumming
377 Mary Cumming died in Baltimore in early April 1815, so beloved that relatives as far away as Londonderry and Genoa named ships after her and composed elegies in [Page 378] her honor. After her death, William Cumming visited the Craigs at Strawberry Hill [67] but returned to Petersburg in December. According to one source, William died of fever or a broken heart in April 1816, but the fact that his will was not recorded in Petersburg until 17 March 1825 suggests that his death occurred shortly before the latter date. Cumming's real and personal property was valued at $23,000, including 134 cotton bales ($7,814), eight slaves ($2,210), his and Mary's pew in the new Presbyterian church ($75), and all their household goods. William generously bequeathed £500 each to Mary's father and two sisters in Ireland, and the same to his Cumming relations in Dublin and Armagh. The final tragedy, however, was that to yield those sums the entire estate had to be sold—including the slaves for whom Mary Cumming had had such sympathy and affection.
Irish immigrants in the land of Canaan: letters and memoirs from colonial and revolutionary America, 1675-1815
Kerby A. Miller, Arnold Schrier, Bruce D. Boling, David N. Doyle
New York : Oxford University Press, 2004, c2003.
