6209: Mary Macdonald

Màiri Alasdair

Mary  (1831-1902) was a daughter of Alexander Macdonald and Mary Morrison, 24 North Street, Sandwick, Stornoway.

A letter reprinted in the chapter Letters to men at the posts in the book Undelivered letters to Hudson's Bay Company men on the northwest coast of America, 1830-57 indicates that Mary had initially intended to marry Allan MacIsaac from South Uist, who had joined the Hudson's Bay Company. However, the marriage was not to be. A transcript of Mary's letter to Allan, as reproduced in Undelivered letters to Hudson's Bay Company men follows:

Allan MacIsac, Laberer Columbia river, Care of H.B.C.hous, London
Stornoway I octoper 1851
Dear allan I took the opportunity of writing you this few loins to let you know that I am in Good helth hopping this Will find you the same [.] I wase verry sorry that you did not tell me whether you Got the letter that I sent you or no [.] I wase verry sorry when we hard that you took the fever and we new that you would be verry bad [.] we new that there would be no one to th attend you [.] you here that Girls are Geeting married but I did not marry yet till you come [.] dear allan if you are to me as I am to you that will do [.] mind you and dond marry one that is out there and I will not marry one that is here till you come [.] mudena Campbell is a widow sinc you went [.] dear allan I forgot the little lie that you told me [.] that wase not the worst of it but the way you went [.] the crop is verry Good the year as yet the patotes is not so bad the year [.] I wase verry sorry that I did not Get the letter I wrote you if you did not Get it [.] I hard that James macIver is verry well adn I am verry Glad to here that there is one frone with you [.] I hop tho you are not hearing a minister that you are not forgeting that there is a God [.] dear love tho I am here I am there [.] my mother sents her best respects to you and she is verry Glad to here that you Got petter of the fever and she hopes that she will be boilling you weeding yet [.] I wase so bussy that i did not wait to write you with blood put I hoop that is fore no difference [.] dear lov I will be to you ase Good as I promised tho I write you this Know I am Going to write you [whe]n the wrest will write [.] [whe]ther you have the old time in mind or not I have and so long I wase wthout writing to [crossed out] hearing from you then were near to Go out of my mind put when I Got your letter I minded on them [.] my mother sents her best respects to you and Donald my brother an murdena Campbell and her mother and all my frends an peggy mac leod and mind whenever you Get this letter mind and write and nil mac Kay sents his best respects to you an all his family is well and he is working with the sapers [.] I have no more to say at present but your trew love till death mary macdonald

Undelivered letters to Hudson's Bay Company men notes that at the time of the correspondence, Mary was "living with her mother, Mary, a forty-five-year-old widow, and her older sister, Peggy, and younger siblings, Donald, Janet, and Lexy." It posits that:

Mary must have decided that she could not keep her promise to wait, as in 1853 she married Donald Matheson from Gravir on the Isle of Lewis. Perhaps her promise to Allan seemed as impractical as her romantic notion of writing in blood. Or perhaps the romantic fling of a Catholic Uist lad – Allan was unlikely to have been a Protestant, from the overwhelmingly Catholic community in Uist – with a Protestant Stornoway girl during the days before the ship sailed for North America was not a solid start to a lasting relationship.

In Lochs, in 1853, Mary married Donald Matheson of 31 Gravir, settling first at 31 Gravir then 25 Gravir in the 1860s. The couple had four children.

Mary was widowed in 1865.