Ballibay  Co Monaghan

                                                           26 October 1888

 

Dear Sir

       I enclose you an order for £12.6.4 balance of Rent due you up to 1st November 1887  As soon as I possibly can I will collect this year and forward it to you.  I have not the money myself to forward it or I would send it at once I assure you there is one tenant has not settled out yet for 1887 but I will make him settle both years the coming sessions I am sorry to see you are poorly I hope you are better by the time this reaches.  as soon as ever I can I will send you another remittance the whole year if in my power  All your friends are as usual [????]

  With kind regard to you and your family

            I remain yours sincerely

                     M M Rutherford[1]

 

PS  Edward M.[Barry] wanted us to allow him something for repairing his but he lived under a lease and he is just as able to pay it as you are expt to allow me I will give him nothing

                     M M

 



[1] See document 18 Canley Rutherford M. M. Rutherfor & Co. General Merchants, Ballybay  Matthew McCauley Rutherford was the son of William Rutherford and Esther Reed. The family are buried at Cahans (see At the Ford of the Birches, page 195). Although Esther's age is given as 62 yrs when she died in 1863, I'm fairly certain she is the daughter of Hamilton Reed and Martha Carlile, who according to Mary McNeil was born 4 May 1811 (see Chart 2). The discrepancy in her birthdate may be due to inaccurate transcription or to deterioration of the stone (I think some of the other transcriptions are suspect also). A branch of this Rutherford family came out here and I've been in touch with a descendant, David Rutherford. I had some material on the family, but can't locate it at the moment. It was copied from a website that no longer seems to be around – it was a site by a Canadian Rutherford researcher, but had a page on the Australian branch which had been contributed by David. The names Hamilton, Reed/Reid and Bartley were carried on in the family. Matthew seems to have been a jack-of-all-trades, and to have had a finger in many a Ballybay pie, from reading the Murnanes' book. The letterheads on his correspondence have long amused me - even before I knew of any family connection – they range from a very plain, low-key M.M. Rutherford & Co., General Merchants, Ballybay to my favourite: M.M. Rutherford & Co., Grocers, Ironmongers, Seedsmen & Undertakers, Ballibay, Co. Monaghan. Nothing like diversity! When I scanned the documents and sent them to you, I didn't include those that merely had details of the property management. If you would like these as well, let me know and I'll get them to you when I've got my system up and running again. Unfortunately, all the image files of the McCullagh documents were amongst the casualties when my last computer died, and I haven't got up to re-scanning them as yet.