John Mackenzie (1813-1878), Portobello, England, letter to Agnes Ledgerwood Hately, Edinburgh, Scotland

Letters from Agnes to James, March-December 1873, document their courtship, as well as his travel through Italy and return to Auburn Theological Seminary in Auburn, New York. After their marriage in April 1874, letters from Agnes to relatives in Scotland discuss their lives in the United States, including their initial settlement in Philadelphia and activities in Cedarville, New Jersey, where James served as a minister at First Presbyterian Church from September 1874 until June 1878. Letters from this period also document the birth and early life of their daughter, as well as a brief letter by James that announces the birth of their son.

Letters from June 1878 to November 1879, discuss the relocation of the Wilson family to WaKeeney, Kansas, and document their activities in the burgeoning community, including building a house and cultivating an 800-acre farm, as well as the activities of the Home Mission congregation. Letters also document events in WaKeeney related to the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, also known as Dull Knife's Raid, in October 1878, which was an attempt of the Northern Cheyenne Indians to return to their traditional lands after relocation to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation. A final letter from this period documents the death of James from malarial fever on November 26, 1879. Letters after this period consists chiefly of correspondence Agnes Wilson to her older sister in 1879-1880, as well as a single letter to her in 1941.

Many of the letters have brief notations made in 1906 by Anne Edina Hately Wilson Paul, the daughter of Agnes and James.

The collection consists of letters related to the Wilson family, which document their emigration from Great Britain to New Jersey and Kansas, 1873-1941, with the bulk of the material covering years from 1873 to 1879. Agnes Ledgerwood Hately, later Wilson, wrote most of the letters to her fiancée and then husband, James Kinnier Wilson, as well as to her family in Scotland.