Dear brother and sister, I have written these few lines to you hoping they will find you in good health as they leave us all at present, thanks be to God for it. Dear brother, I am glad to hear you are all well and doing well. Give our kind love to your children and tell them we should like to see them all, but 'tis too far a distance from us. But if we never meet here on earth more, I hope we shall meet in heaven. Dear brother, I am sorry to hear that my brother George is not doing as well as I should like to hear he was. Your brother Robert[1] and his family send their love to you all and they are all well. Your mother sends her kind love to you all, and she is as well as we can expect at her age. Mother is living with me as she is not much fit to live alone at her age. She is 78 years old on her next birthday. She gets half a stone of flour and 1 from the parish a week. Give my kind love to my sister Sarah[2] and her husband and family, and we should like to see the 2 young men over this summer. I think they might find a wife here, for here there are plenty of girls that want husbands. Your brother's son Robert[3] was married last week. Mary[4] is married. My daughter sends her love to her uncles and aunts and to all her cousins. She says she should like to come and see them all. She has sent a lock of her hair. Dear brother, I have not got much good news to send from Edgefield for that is as poverty stricken a place as it always was. I think if you was to come over you would not know where to find Edgefield wood, for they have cut it almost all down and tilled it. There is a house built there and a Scotch man lives in it to see after the land. Mrs. Osborn is very bad with a plackt stroke so that she has to be helped out of bed and in. She has been so these 2 years. She is at a great expense, so she cannot send mother but very little now. My wife sends her love to you all and she is got about again. She has been confined about 5 weeks. The child is dead. I have buried 3, one boy and 2 girls. She would like to come if it is was not for the water. You must excuse all blots and blunders. Dear brother, I hope when you write again I shall hear a better account of George, for it’s a straight lane where there is no turn. I have sent a lock of my hair and mother has send a lock of hers. George's wife and child are quite well. I hear there are some more Edgefield people coming over to America this spring. I hope you will write again as soon as you can, so no more at present from your ever loving brother and sister, William and Rebecca Broughton

Footnotes

1: Robert Broughton (b.1797), the elder brother of Edward and William
2: Sara Broughton (b.1800), elder sister of Edward and William, who married Robert Riseborough and emigrated to Canada
3: Robert Broughton (b.1832), a son of Robert (b.1797)
4: She married William Potter, an Edgefield bricklayer