Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1818-[2018] (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
4 sub-series
Context area
Archival history
Photocopies of the Reford letters are catalogued as T.3028/B/1-26 in the Public Record Office of Northern
Ireland (PRONI), Belfast.
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The Reford family letters are primarily based on a series of 13 letters written by members of the Reford family to their relatives in Antrim town, between 1818 and 1873. Most of the 1833-1873 letters were written by James Reford, a manufacturer and small businessman, who emigrated with his wife Ann and their children in 1833 and lived principally in Bloomfield, New Jersey. Per Kerby A. Miller: 'noteworthy is an earlier letter from Montreal by Sampson Brady, describing the effects of the 1832 cholera epidemic; and an 1849 letter from New Jersey by Lewis Reford, James's scapegrace brother. In addition, the [series] contains another 13 letters, dated 1895-1904, by James Reford's US-born son, Joseph Banks Reford, also a businessman in Bloomfield, New Jersey.' The series contains copies of the 1833-1873 letters; summaries of the Joseph Banks Reford letters, and research pertaining to the family.