1877 letter from Lewis Doyle to his first cousin John Doyle, "The Hill" Pollerton Little, Carlow. Kilkenny, Le Sueur County, Minnesota, America. July 15th 1877. Dear Cousin, I have been thinking for some days past that I ought to write you a few lines and now I proceed to do so .... The folk in Michigan are well and they tell me that my mother is able to go to Church and is almost as good as new. My two oldest girls have been living in town and received two and a half dollars per week each, but the youngest of them is home now to help me through the hay and harvest. Crops of small grain look splendid and my barley will be fit to cut in two days. I expect to have about 200 bushels wheat, 100 bushels barley and 150 bushels of oats. I have about half acre in garden and like Carlow folks I am great on onions, cabbage etc.. We have hard work to save the potatoes from the bugs. I hear they are in Germany and France. The locusts hatched here in millions and the people were badly scared, but they did no harm.They have destroyed everything out west of here on the prairies. The are building a railway here commencing at Minneapolis and running south to the Iowa line. The trains will be running on it by the 1st of October. It has been a great help to the farmers. It makes a market for railroad ties, wood and everything they have to sell. The road is two and a half miles from this house and we can get as big a price for our stuff as they do in St. Paul or St. Louis except the freight. It is over a year since I heard from our cousin Mary. She was then working in the County Hospital in Chicago. I received a couple of letters from her at that time and all at once she stopped writing although I answered her letters. Please tell me how is all your family and also the Clonegal folks and if there is anyone of them around there who knew me 35 years ago. If so give them my best wishes and tell them they may see Ireland free of British rule 'ere long. There is over $500,000 in bank in New York for that purpose and money being sent in every day. J. O'Donovan Rossa receives the money and receipts it in the next issue of the "Irish World". It is the best paper in the world for Irish men and is doing more for the cause of freedom than all the rest. I will send you one of an old date. It explains itself and also one or two others. My two boys are very good fiddlers and one of them is rasping away now, but I hate to tell him to stop so long as he doesn't lose much time. My dear John write me a good long letter as soon as you get this. Tell your sons to write me and if they would like to come to Minneseota land is cheap here and plenty and cannot be beat in the world for fertility. I have good wheat growing now on land cleared 18 years ago and got no manure since. [ Note added May 24th 2012 ; enough typing for now - to be continued, mick. ].