Dear James,

In a lucky hour I hope I take up the time to let you know we are all well thank God, hoping these few lines will find you enjoying the same blessing.

Think ye would I not make as good a partner as any you have got yet. If you think so I will go for it. I’m losing time stopping in Ireland for you can make more money in one month than we can all make in one year. I would not sell the farm. I would only set it until I would try Australia.

You wish to know how our flax paid us. It paid well. We had 800 and some pounds which we received £0.10.0 for; also the grey filly I sold to William John Lamond at £13 a few days after you sailed.

John Currie stayed with us to May and now we have a son of John Getty's of Ballymoney which is about the size of Mathews James. Our crop all well saved. We had different hands at the sheering but it was all shorn by the stook. Sister Jane and partner is well also the children is well and doing well.

But Ireland is no place to make money though times is very good. Butter 9d per Ib and pork £2 10s by the cwt; beef from 2d to 7d per lb. Mutton much the same.

It is only losing one' s time stopping here after all. Mary and my mother would be willing to let me go and it all depends on you. As soon as you get these lines let me know if you would advise me to go.

Mr Crommie has set Colbreene from Ballygan and Taughey farms to a man the name of Guage. John McAffee,*** Johnie White and James Love is all gone to America. McAffee has 30 pounds found. No account from Johnie White what he has. James Love has 30 pounds found. Old Ephraim Love died shortly after James went away. Dear James, life is very uncertain. You remember William White and Robert Curry going to Scotland before you went away. Well they both returned again in September. Then William went on the Police to Dublin and lived there about 6 months when he took unwell and died a penitent as it is reported. Sarah McLelelan has had a son and Margaret McDonnald has had one which report says she left to shift for itself and I heard she was in the huean cry for murder. But I hear she is now amongst the Conelies or Connels.

I have 28 pecks of flax this year which looks very well and all the rest of the crop look pretty well. We have 5 slips of pigs as good if not better than any you ever saw us have. The foal or coalt is big and strong. I harrowed with him and ploughed a little and made drills and I have horse his mother again.

As soon as you receive this write and let me or us know……. what sort of goods to take with me when you advise me to go, whether boots and shoes or neither. '

Letter from John Getty, Taghey, Ballymoney, Co Antrim, to his brother James Getty, Melbourne, Australia. September 1855 (P.R.O.N.I. Ref. T2052/4)

'We have received no letter from you this long time. We received one newspaper February 25 1854 which informed us that you were well but trade of all kinds was very dull. Mary had posted a letter some time before we received it. We had been expecting an answer from you this three or four months which makes us very uneasy. You ought to write often and let us know how you get your health……..We are all in health much the same as when you left us only a little more worn, We would be glad to see you home again but we are getting on very well.

John Curry is back with us again and appears to do well. Our flax is not so good as it was the year you left us on account of the summer being so dry but I think it will be a good quality. It was upon the same field. Our corn crop looks pretty fair. We have the craft and Hill len in corn and that is all. The field at the back of the garden is in crop; the one half in potatoes and the other half in, Sweddish turnips which look very well. The fallow part is also in turnips which you would be surprised to see. The potatoes look to stand a better [chance] than they have done this some years back. It is now the second day of September and they are very little blight in the tops and there [are] almost no bad ones. They are selling from 5d to 6d per stone, meal from 18s to £1 per hundred. Flax is expected to sell from £4 to £5 per hundred; firkin butter 10d per Ib retail Is. Beef from 6d to 7d per Ib, pork from 7d to 8d per Ib.

But what need I blithar . All this is of no use. We are so uneasy to hear from you . You ought to write and write often for I fear there [is] something wrong with you, Richard Martin mistress and family as well. Matthew Getty of Taghey is dead, died in the winter 1853.

So well as I guest something was wrong with you your letter which we received dated May 20 1855 informed us you were very bad which we were sorry to hear. Part of this letter was written before we received yours which you will perceive we received yours on 22nd September 1855. Now as you are about commencing business for yourself I would advise you to lift your money as soon as you win it. But I need not advise you for I think you will have need of it as soon as it is win but need it or not its not a bad plan. I fear you will encumber yourself with houses and work and affairs that you will never get rid of. Your talk of coming home some time as soon as you have got what money will keep you easy but I fear that will be a long time, a time some of us will never see, maybe none of us. Life is uncertain.

I don't think much of your iron houses. If you had taken care of your money as you won it and wrought another year or two you might have had as much as would have done you your time. But what came of your pound or 25s per day. Surely half of that was fit to bed and board you. But what right have I to dictate to a man in Australia. He surely knows better than I do.

The railway is nearly finished, the ingin is running from Portrush to Ballymoney and several other places along the road where she disloads timber and runs. I was twice in Belfast in the month of September getting letters of administration. Mr Johnston and Robert Love also went along with me to balance. We took the car to Ballymena then went by the train to Belfast. The letters of administration cost me £10 forby the expense of going up to Belfast twice.

Your mother wants you home that she may see you and bless you before she dies. She says you have money plenty more than ever you will live to see done. She will dream of you some time and thinks she hears you at the window and rises to let you in but when she goes to the door and sees you not she finds it but a dream. She also wants you home to see the fine road we have made of the gravel lane for in reality it is so and stoned also. By this you would think she was doating but there nothing of it. She is so anxious to hear from you and see you if it was possible that so often dreams of you ...'

*** This John McAfee was the son of  James McAfee of Currysheskin (holding no. 3 in the Griffith's Pirnted Valuation of 1859). Unfortunately John was drowned while bathing in Round Mountain Reservoir in Nevada on the 26th June 1862.. His body was brought back to his father's residence in Currysheskin and he was buried on the 30th October 1862. According to a report in the Burial Register the funeral was attended by 'a large number of respectable acquaintances, who deeply lament the vacancy his accidental death has left amongst them'.