Series 13 - James Murray letter

27pp

Materials pertaining to a letter written in Ulster Scots ca. 1736. The letter is signed by a Mr. James Murray of New York and addressed to a Reverend Baptist Boyd of Aughnacloy, County Tyrone. A manuscript of the letter was found in the London School of Economics archives and dated 18 March 1767. Per Professor Michael Montgomery: 'This letter is remarkable in its language and its unqualified description of the colonies as a true promised land… ...Unknown to Professor Erickson and to the LSE archives staff, the letter (more accurately, a variant of it) was published thirty years before, as the lead item in Benjamin Franklin's newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette (issue 464, October 27-November 3, 1737) published in Philadelphia. This earlier version itself had no date, and a manuscript original for it is not known, although the newspaper's preface to the letter claims the existence of one... ...Perhaps it passed into local folk tradition as a nostalgia piece read for the reminiscence it brought of earlier days of emigration; more likely it functioned as a propaganda statement to stimulate emigration, used by emigration agents and other parties. It is so unusual in style and so full of unconventional spellings that one might question why it was written in this form at all.’
The series includes: Montgomery’s correspondence with Kerby A. Miller regarding the letter; versions of the letter forwarded by Montgomery as published in The Pennsylvania Gazette (1737) and in Heartman’s Historical Series (1925); a photocopy of the manuscript found in the London School of Economics Archives; and other Ireland-related materials found in The Pennsylvania Gazette (1729) and The Virginia Gazette (1736).

Michael Montgomery’s article examining the letter is located at P155/89/9/4.