plp 31-5-47
Burslem
Feb 29,1820
(letter to Mr. Tindale)
My Dear brother,
I will send you a preacher to Boston as soon as possible;
and I intend you to have good and acceptable one. But I have met some
impediments in making some necessary arrangements. However, I hope very
shortly to send you some good assistance. I send you this line that you may
know that I do not forget or neglect you.
My love to Mr.. Towler, and tell him I sympathize with him.
Indeed I have been ill myself, rather in a similar way for five or six weeks,
but am now better.
My wife joins me in love to yourself and Mr.s. Tindale.
I am
Your affectionate Brother
Jonathan Crowther
PLP 31-2-15 Nortwhich
July 3,1818
My very Dear Brother
We are all greatly surprised at your long silence and more
especially as Father wrote some time since informing you of our uneasiness and
to that letter we have received no answer. It is impossible for me to describe
the variety of conjectures that have passed (?) our minds as to the cause of
your long silence, sometimes attributing it to one cause sometimes to another,
perhaps illness -- will pardon me if I ask you if it be want of affection. I
can assure you Father and Mother are much pained as well as myself and they
have threatened to write to some one else to know the cause if you don't write
and that very soon.
Mary left home last Tuesday she is gone to learn Millinery
and Drape Making with Miss Knowles who has begun business in Macelesfield and
who I believe is doing very well. Miss Oliver was married last week. Mr. Pig
who was at our wedding is to be married next Thursday week to a lady of
Buncorn whose Father died a Missionary in Geberald. Her name is McMullen. She
is governess in Mr. Moretons family. Cousins will know her. I believe it is a
very sudden thing. We are expecting him here tomorrow as he is going to preach
our Charity Sermon on Sunday. This afternoon your new Brother is leaving home
for Unworth (?) in the Bury Circuit where he is going to preach a sermon for
the benefit of the Sunday School. He wished me to go with him but Mother is
not willing.
About three weeks ago we spent a very agreeable week with
my new relatives in Staffordshire. They gave me a hearty welcome and treated
me with kindness of our own parents. They live within 3 miles of Congleton.
Father and Mother live by themselves in a small house embossomed in woods,
keep 2 cows which supply them cheese, butter and milk. There are only two
Brothers which are both very kind and attentive, The one lives at a very
delightful place about a half a mile from him his Fathers at an estate under
Sir John Mainwaring. He has apparently married his own cousin and her Father
has given a farm to him so that they are doing very well. I left out who is
the oldest and by trade a Tailor but who has by his industry built a house
which he now lives in and lately put out on interest four hundred Pounds. He
has some thoughts of beginning a drapery business. He always makes and repairs
for Mr. C gratis which you know with many other additions will be an help.
They seem to willing to do anything to make us comfortable, they have given me
a stock of table linen and prepared cheese.
If you take the least notice of what I have said respecting
Staffordshire I shall be grieved and should never hear the last of it from
Mother.
Father, Mother, Mr. C, Brother, Sisters join me in sending
love to yourself and Cousins I remain yours affectionately as ever, Hannah
Crompton
These you know are helps I do beg you will not take the
least notice of what I have said a I told you in the greatest confidence
knowing you would be anxious to hear how I am going. I can assure you I am
happy and comfortable.
You write return of Post without fail giving me every
information.
plp 31-2-4 December 12,1814
My Dear Brother;
I assure you it gives me great pleasure to think you are
comfortable in your situation. I trust it will ever be the case. We received
you letter by Mr.. Benson. I a very glad to hear that you had again begun to
meet in class. I trust you will attend as punctual as you possibly can; it is
a blessed means of grace.; I often think these are wells of salvation. Mr..
Benson preached at Hilgate yesterday morning. I did not hear him Mother and
the rest of the family did but I was left as housekeeper. But I heard him in
the evening in the large room of the Stockport Sunday School. His text was
"and I saw the dead small and great and the Book's were opened up. I
believe there were hundreds that would not get in the eternal.
---------------- this evening some of the New School seem rather dissatisfied
with it . We had no funeral sermon preached for Dr. Coke as yet The Hilgate
and New School Pulpits are in mourning, but it is for Mr.. Murger.
Mr.. Trelk intended preaching one at Manchester yesterday
but in consequence of an awful disaster which happened, it was postponed till
yesterday. The disaster was this when the congregation was assembled just
before service began there was an alarm given that the gallery was falling.
This so much alarmed the people that in a very short time the doors were
blocked with people lying one upon another and not able to walk. Two, I
believe, were killed and five took to the hospital and many that were severely
bruised. On Monday they found in the chapel about 60 pairs of shoes and as
many hats and various other things.
Father was at one of the preparatory meetings last week and
they resolved to postpone these yearly meetings until the first week in April
when the days will be longer which make a material difference with the Coursby
people. Mr.. Bealy of Ratcliffe is likely to take the Chair.
The Park people are pretty quiet at present, suppose the
will have a Charity Sermon soon. Mr.. Bure has ben mentioned they would have
liked Mr. Benson to have done it but he refused. I don't know where I can get
a report of the Stockport Bible Society, but will enquire this afternoon. Mr..
Feamside and Father exchanged a Sunday about a fortnight ago. He said you had
written and he intended answering it soon. Mr.. Jackson says he will write to
you very soon. Mr.. Ague came here this morning on purpose to hear Mr..
Benson, he desires the kind respect to you. Excuse me saying more at present
as it is now nine and windy. I have told you all the news write very soon let
me have a very long letter. Father, Mother and sisters join me in kind love
and cousin Thomas, Mr.. and Mr.s. Herohain and Mr.s. and Mr.. Jackson send
their kind respects to you my dear brother.
Your ever affectionate sister,
Hannah Crowther
from sister to brother------
PLP 31-2-6
Stockport June 2,1815
My dear Jonathan
It is with pleasure that I accept these "trifles as
when of true love and affection"; and am glad that I have brother, who
can remember he has a sister; whether she be at the distance of one mile, or
one hundred and fifty. I very much prize the present you sent me and shall
never look at them without sensations of esteem and love for the giver. But I
am afraid you have learnt how to flatter since your arrival at London; you
tell me "I am the loveliest of earthly sisters". If you allude to my
person, I can only say that you have discovered what I never could myself;
though possibly others may be of your opinion; perhaps, however your reference
is to the mind: if so; I can only thank you for your compliment and say that I
hope it will be my endeavour to embellish it with every needful ornament or
that I may be qualified for some useful place in life, and thus render myself
"lovely", in the best sense of the word. Before I dismiss the
subject let me beseech you to take care how you act with regard to the
acquaintance you make. Will you permit me to warn you against intimacy with
those whose seriousness or integrity is at all disputable. Before you make a
choice of a friend, prove him. Try his spirit, ascertain his temper, views,
pursuits, learn his manner of life; behaviour connection, his religious creed,
morals, etc. I have heard that London is a large place in which there are a
great many bad people; so that there is great need of caution. There is
another evil against which I would caution you; not that I think you are in
particular danger from the quarter.; but because there is a possibility, for
the most scrupulous and determined mind to be enslaved, if off guard.
I have been told there is a lamentable number of
unfortunate people of my sex who go about taking captive those unhappy young
men who are so weak as to be seduced by their vile insinuations. I could
easily enlarge upon this topic, but I won't do it, least it should appear as
if i was afraid of you, which I am not, in any particular degree; would
therefore only say avoid the rock on which many mightier than you have split.
By all that is dear to you and I; by your fathers gray hairs, which you would
by a fall from virtue, bring with sorrow to the grave.; by all that sacred and
venerable in your Mother; by the regard you have for me, and the respect you
have for yourself; avoid the appearance of this bottomless gulf of misery and
woe. But I perceive I am going to preach, finis, shall therefore be the word.
You have more knowledge than I , but you know ladies must talk a little now
and then.
Am looking over your note again; is beautifully written,( I
wish I could write such a nice hand;) I perceive you call me an "earthly
sister". Do you imagine I shall ever be a heavenly one? If so, I fall in
with you notion, for it is my decided opinion that we shall know one another
in heaven; let this thought therefore be an additional enticement to diligence
in the pursuit of every praiseworthy and pious acquisition that you may be
prepared for that enjoyment of which none can partake but those who are pure
in heart. Consider now, wouldn't it pain you at least a little if you were in
heaven and I excluded; wouldn't you pity me were you to behold me a great way
off; the other side the impassible gulf, and Oh! what anguish! what
insufferable sorrow should I feel were I to perceive myself safe in the
desired haven and You cast out to the" scene of woe"! Doleful Hades!
where peace and hope ne'r come! how would it afflict me; what sufferings
should I endure but I cannot bear the idea or sustain the thought; it shall
therefore be dismissed.
I am glad to find you are at Mr.. Lemmon's; hope you will
continue there. I suppose you are getting on rarely as a compositor; you are
getting rich, no doubt; and if I should want a new book you know I have the
liberty to draw upon you at that for five guineas; however, you may compose
yourself, Mr.. Composer; I am not in immediate want; you shall receive advice
of the bill, before it is presented for acceptance.
Hope you are attentive to be home at night food time, so
that the family are not put out of the way. I should think ten o'clock full
late enough, excuse my freedom; you know a sister feels interested for you. I
have got many other things to say, but really time patience and paper all fail
together. I am pretty well upon the whole, only a little unwell now and then
like everyone else. Your brother and sisters desire their love to you. Your
father is going to write soon.
your affectionate sister
Hannah Crowther
plp-31-5-13
The following text is a letter from Jonathan Crowther to
Mr.. Jabez Bunting, Methodist Chapel, Sheffield England. This Jonathan
Crowther is my g.g.g. grandfather born June 1759 and died June 8th 1824.
York, Spivey,1809
My Dear Brother,
I received your communication by the hand of Mr. Coater,
The remittance was six pence too much. Mr. Todd took only 2 pounds. I should
have written sooner but that I have been two or three days out of my Circuit.
As to the "Petitioning" or in other words,
dictating for Preachers for the entering Methodist year, I cannot say much. It
is a system I never could see the propriety of. I think it to be productive of
more evils in the Methodist Connexion than anything, perhaps more than all
things else. Nothing was said at our late quarterly meeting upon the subject.
And I am not sure that anything will be said the next quarterly meeting. But,
would you condescend to spend , were it only for a single year, upon the
ground where Roman Emperors made their entry into the world, and their exit
from this vale of tears (I mean you know, only some few) your way will be
open. But Leeds or Liverpool, I suppose possess superior churches. It is
feared that Kingswood School is under curse similar to that of the barren fig
tree.
As to preventing so large a number from attending the
"Conference", I feel little anxiety, especially as it is to be
submitted to the consideration of all concerned, juniors not excepted, at the
district meetings. Perhaps we might enact,
1st that the decisions of the Districts Meetings, shall in
general, be decisive upon all matters.
2.ndly, that no Preacher shall attend the Conference till
he shall have traveled 7 years.
3.rdly That no Preacher shall attend the Conference more
than once in two years till he shall have traveled 4 years. -And- do not
smile-
4.thly That no Preacher shall attend the Conference at all,
who accepts his appointments from Stewards, Trustees, etc. and who goes to the
Conference chiefly to see that the decrees of these Juntas be registered.- I
think there is neither Scripture nor reason to support the making the Hundred
Supreme Governors". If it would not shake the settlement of the Chapels,
I should be glad that the Hundred were abolished. And I shall gladly give my
vote for adding another Hundred to them, or for fixing it, that every Preacher
after traveling 4 years, or even 12 years, shall vote for the President &
Secretary, and be in all things upon a level with the Hundred.
"Our District", I think will meet in Whitsun-week.
I think "the Portsmouth squabble" is not "terminated".
My Wife & Mr.s. Farror join me in best respects.
Your affectionate Brother,
Jon Crowther
