Series 19 - Hugh Harlin letters

110pp

Robert J. Fitzgerald of Rouses Point, New York, descendant of the Harlin family, provided the photocopies of the Hugh Harlin letters to Kerby A. Miller per his letters of 9 December 1992 and 12 April 1993.

Transcripts and reproductions of 19 letters written by Hugh Harlin from Jackson, Michigan and later from Laporte, Indiana, to his brother John in New York, between 1858 and 1862, plus correspondence between Kerby A. Miller, Harlin relative Robert J. Fitzgerald, and Miller's collaborator Gerard Moran attempting to track down information on the Harlin brothers.
Per Fitzgerald: ‘Hugh Harlin went west to pursue his business, which was "gas fitting." These letters make mention of the activities of Irish immigrants in Michigan and New York. Among the subjects mentioned in some detail are:

1. Formal excommunication of Irish girl for marrying an Episcopalian (Anglican).
2. Irish servant girls seduced by immigrant Irishmen.
3. Recourse to drink.
4. Removal of Irishman from Catholic cemetery to Protestant cemetery by widow; unlikelihood of widow to pray for his soul.
5. Northern soldier better off captured by Southerners in Civil War than to be "thrown into hole without priest."'