Showing 1 results

Archival description
John H. Fisher
Print preview View:

John H Fisher Letters

  • AU TAS UTAS SPARC F1
  • Collection
  • 1842-1845

Collection consists of five letters from a Quaker, John H. Fisher, in Hobart to his brothers, Reuben A Fisher and Thomas W.Fisher in Cork, Ireland.
John Fisher asked for news of his family, mentioning particularly his sisters May, Susanna and Margaret, Uncle John, cousins and friends and the other apprentices and he inquired if brother Thomas was still apprenticed to Henry Morris. His past misfortune was his own fault and he did not expect friend Thomas Harvey to forgive him (F.1/2) and he wanted to know if the Friends Society had disowned him and how people he owed money to felt (F.1/4). He had not been much to the Friends Meeting House in Hobart -- it was very different from home (F.1/3). Fisher had been in Port Philip and went into the bush but had an accident crossing the Goulburn River when a bullock dray ran over his legs and broke his thigh. In Hobart Isaac got him a job as overseer to David Lord but he was the only free person employed. Now he was working with Isaac who was teaching him hat making (1843 F.1 /2) but in 1845 he wrote that hats could be imported more cheaply and Isaac was fell mongering - getting up wool for the English market (F.1/4). There was a depression in Hobart but his life was comfortable. Hobart had 4 insurance offices, 4 churches (2 English, 2 Scotch), a Catholic chapel, 4 dissenting houses and a Friends Meeting House. In his last letter, dated 11 November 1845, John Fisher says he is thinking of
trying for Californian gold. One letter was later endorsed with a letter from A. Fisher to Thomas dated 31 . 12 . 1894 from Dymond City, N.C., enclosing the letters from their brother John and commenting on A.F.'s good life in the U.S.A., news of his children and his
farm on which he still led an active life although both he and Thomas had "passed the three score and ten"

John H. Fisher