From Thomas Waters Jr. to his parents, Elizabeth Waters and Thomas Waters Sr. (March 3, 1851)

[Thomas Waters to his parents]

[from transcripts]

            3 March 1851

Digby     Nova Scotia

My Dear Father and Mother

I received a letter from Ben dated Jan 17th and was much gratified by its contents and also the newspapers and Illustrated etc which I find very interesting.  I have been home these last two months and the time has passed very pleasantly, the winter so far has been very broken, sometimes intensely cold and sometimes very mild.  My health has been first rate, I think I am getting a little stouter.  Amaret and myself now and then take a drive in a sleigh or what in England is called a sledge, her Father sends it in whenever we want it.  It is very pleasant riding, you glide along so swift and easy, I can manage one now quite well it being the almost only possible way of travelling in Winter, of course Mrs Waters is an adept.  We burn wood, the cutting and splitting of which with carpentering occupies most of my time  I am considerably handy with tools.  I wish I had that mill out here and then my flour meal and buckwheat I could make myself, which would be a great saving to me. I hope you all spent a Merry Xmas etc.  I spent mine as usual at sea but arrived the day after at home where I found and enjoyed the American roast beef and plum pudding substitutes, consisting of doughnuts, jo floggers [a New England sweet treat], flapjacks, crullers, pies etc and many other curious named but nice eating articles.  Amaret tried her hand at my request at a plum pudding and considering that she only had a faint recollection of seeing and tasting one in her life and that was in St John’s New Brunswick, you will not wonder at its being a partial failure, I say partial because when boiled and put on the table it was half a plum pudding and half a plain pudding, the plums mysteriously being all at the bottom, or at one end, however if you will send me a recipe I know I will have a whole plum pudding.  The vessel in which I have a share will be launched about the 1st May, she is getting on first rate.  I do not know what her name will be but if they christen her the same as they do children it will be an odd one, only fancy Rosinblade K– Saphronia Adalaide Augusta Matilda B– and many more as odd and plentiful. The other day we were walking in the woods when it was warm and sheltered from the wind and we started two foxes, they are very plentiful here.  The climate of Nova Scotia is considered the most healthy in N.America, numbers from the States and neighbouring provinces remove here for their health, we have no agues here. But in many respects it is a poor place for new comers.  A person coming here must either have capital or else the strength and constitution of a navy but not their habits, of course seamen excepted, but they must be sober and steady.  I like my wife if possible better than ever, she is all I could wish, kind, affectionate, clean and industrious, our blankets and many other things, all her own woolen clothes, the yarn was spun by herself from the wool of her father’s sheep.  It is most likely I shall be a month or more home every winter and then if I had the mill here I could get my year’s stock of breadstuffs,  Grist mills are very scarce here and it takes sometimes a day’s journey to reach one, consequently the farmers generally bring their grain to town and take Yankee flour in exchange of course at considerable loss.  I take plenty of connections out here by my wife, firstly 4 Brothers, 1 Sister,

Uncles 10, Aunts 7, own first Cousins 50 and other cousins too numerous to mention so you see the family connections are large – some rich, some poor and scattered all over America.  All the Dakins are ship builders and farmers.  My Father in law farms in Summer and in Winter cuts timber off his woodlands and is master shipbuilder, he is reckoned one of the best in the province, is very hardworking, never idle and a magistrate, still he is not rich – there is some screw loose in the housekeeping department; he is very much respected and liked by all who know him, he is a teetotaller and owns about 250 acres of land part cleared, part wild, with house, barns etc cows, oxen, sheep, horses, poultry, pigs, part of a small vessel, all clear of debt or mortgage, worth considerable to himself, but if they were brought to the hammer would not amount to much, as money is very scarce out here at present. Farms are exceedingly cheap out here now as a great many farmers have taken the Canada mania [pre-Confederation, this would refer to Upper or Lower Canada], sold off and removed thence, by all accounts it is a better farming country, that is the land is better than in Nova Scotia, but not near so healthy, Summer very hot, Winter very cold, agues plentiful.  I think I have spoken enough of relations and Nova Scotia.  The snow is just up to the third pane of our first floor windows.       Feb. 26th I have to dig a road to the well, woodhouse etc. every now and then we are called out to clear the highways so that the mail may pass.  I received a letter from Eliz Feb 27th with four newspapers and one newspaper I would not receive as there was 9 pence postage on it on account of its not being posted within seven days after its publication, so those which you will be kind enough to send me in future please post within that period, they were all Standards and with the letter were very acceptable.  The boxberry may be set as soon as you like in the garden on a poor soil.  In answer to Eliz enquiries I live in the town of Digby about three miles from my Father in Law’s and when the walking is good often walk out there in company with my wife, at other times we drive out there.  I see my Father in Law every day but my Mother in Law is not very well having had a child a few months ago, but we see her every week that is at my home, the child is named Gustavus Waters Dakin.  I wish you would send me a recipe for pickling onions etc.  You say roses etc are in flower in the garden while we cannot see even the tops of our roses for the snow, in some places here they have to stick long poles in the snow to mark the road as all the fences are covered up.  We have had a very hard winter for gales of wind and shipwrecks.  I hope some of these days to be a farmer.  With best love to all at home or otherwise

  I remain

 Your affectionate son

Thomas Waters

Mrs Waters sends her best love etc.  Please tell me if the mill is unsold.  Ben’s letter was very kind. I hope you are all quite well as Mrs Waters and myself are at present.  I wrote to Uncle a short time since.  I hope Mary is well, Uncle, Aunt etc.