Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1894-1896 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
13pp
Context area
Archival history
Kerby A. Miller created his transcripts of the N.K. Harshaw letters from the original manuscripts held in PRONI [reference number T1505].
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Kerby A. Miller's excerpts and abstracts, along with a typed transcript of two letters, of the N. K. Harshaw letters. The Harshaw letters are a set of four letters written by N.K. Harshaw in Patterson, New Jersey to a 'Master John' in Ringclare, County Down between 1894-1896.
Per Kerby A. Miller: 'This elderly emigrant is almost pathologically homesick, and very dependent on the letters he receives from home, presumably from his brother. "I was very glad to receive your letter a short time ago, and to have such a full feast of neighborhood news as it contained. It spoke of so many people and places that I was well acquainted with that it was almost equal to a visit to them, and certainly has the effect of bringing them all distinctly before me with the old home feeling." He agonizes over news of anyone at home being sick or dead, "and when you speak of their feeble and failing health it makes me greatly long to see them again... These glimpses of coming Spring, as well as your letter, make me think of the white roads and the hawthornes of Ireland. It is sad to hear of the difficulties and the great lack of means that seem to rest on everything connected with the Milltown, as if a blight had been sent on every thing concerned with it." Lamented deeply that he had never had the money to 'build again the waste places of Judea' and to rescue his relatives and his home place from growing poverty.'