Transcription

Home Castle Septbr 3

My very dear Son

Your very welcome letter of the 4th Augst reached me only yesterday. I cannot tell you how anxious I had been for months past to have some news of you, and your dear ones and was indeed thankful to learn by your long letter that all were well with you when you wrote. May God in His Mercy keep you all so, and grant that yellow Fever may not visit your home this year.

That fearful disease been such a dreadful thing in my family that my very heart turns cold at the mention of it. Your Father and two sons died of it, and three of my Brothers, and dear Harry Page, all died of it in various parts of the world, and your three dear Children of the same disease. I shall think of and pray for you and dear Anna on that sad anniversary. You had the comfort of seeing your dear Children while I had only the consolation that & closing the eyes of none of my sons except little Willie and the other three strangers did the last sad office for them.

But if a wish would bring my Boys back again to this world I would not wish for them back, dear as they all were to me, and much and sorely as I have missed, but I feel that God does all things well, and that it is good for me that I have been so afflictted. I was too proud of my Sons, and ___ knows that my Heavenly Father knew my Heart was too proud so He in His wisdom made me pass under the rod, for it is only through much tribulation that we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It is as you say very hard to feel Thy will be done.

I think I wrote you that dear Mamie too had lost two eldest Sons just when they had grown to

**rest of this letter not yet found

Notes:

Philip's father was Roger Swire, who died in Jamaica in April 1841. Family stories have stated that he drowned, however, this letter states that he died of the Yellow Fever.

Roger Swire's two sons who died of Yellow Fever were Philip's brothers John Henry Dalzell Swire (died in 1867) and Roger Jones Swire (died in 1870).

Frances Lydia (Cox) Swire had two known full brothers, and four half-brothers. This letter states that three of her brothers died of the fever. Her known brothers were John George Cox (1798 - 1850) and Herbert Palmer Cox (1801 - bef. 1816), from her father's first marriage, and Herbert Palmer Cox (1816 - bef. 1851), Harry Alexander Cox (1819 - Aft. 1851), Robert Melville Cox (1821 - bef. 1851), and Francis James Cox (1823 - Bef. 1851), from his second marriage.

Harry Page is Henry Constantine Page, first husband of Elizabeth Anne Coy Swire. He died in 1863.

Philip's three children who died of Yellow Fever in September 1878 were: Walter John Swire, Tezora Maria Ritchie Swire and Harry Kean Swire.

Willie is William Spencer Swire, who died in Jamaica in 1839.

Frances Lydia's "other three" sons who died away from her were John Henry Dalzell Swire (died in 1867), Roger Jones Swire (died in 1870), and Augustus Swire (died in 1874).

Mamie is Marianne (Swire) Plues, sister of Philip. She lived in Victoria, Australia.