Annie Oakes Huntington

Submitted by annelisec on Fri, 03/25/2016 - 02:51

Writing from Brockhurst on the Peak where her family is spending the summer.

From: Annie Oakes Huntington - age 10

(an American expat child whose father worked for Russell & Co.)

To Marion Richardson (in Boston)

Hong Kong July 11th 1885.

My dear Man:

I suppose you are down at Beverly and asleep while I am writing this letter. The Bay of Hong Kong is very pretty with mountains all around the Bay. We live about half up the peak so we get a lovely view. We live on Robinson Road,

Brockhurst, is the name of this place. The terrace windes round and you have to go up steps and then you come to the flat tennis ground, then more steps and another Terrace, the house is very large, with a wide veranda on three sides of it and at the back, is called a bungle [sic] because there is no upstairs. We keep 9 servants, a butler and Amah, a boy, house Coolie, cook and four chair coolies, tell this to Maggie. Baby sends her love to her to. We have two big dogs that belong to the house, - it is not our house but we take it for the summer

I am collecting butterflies now and have a nice net I made of bamboo with a lace bag. You don't know what a lot of bugs and things there are here. I hear there was a snake killed 9 feet long a little way from us called a python, he was in a tree and a coolie killed him with a stone while a soldier had gone for a gun. I take the Santa Nicolas and liked it very much. Papa gave me a collar and he has s ent to Canton for a dog for a birthday present. I have put in six little rice papers give to to Nina and two to Ruthwith my love and keep the others. Withl love to all from your loving

Ann

Book type
Diary / Memoir
Dates of events covered by this document

Comments

I could not find a house named Brockhurst in connection with Robinson rd.  There was a Brockhurst property on Pollocks path, close to Mount Gough. May Ann have mixed her memory? She might have been living at both locations. On the other hand, if this is her own written letter at the actual time, she sure wood not have made such a mistake. Her letter is dated 1885, and the Brockhurst on Poll.path may have been built later?   Is it possible that different buildings in Hong Kong could have been given equal names?

My grandparents and their three daughters were living in Burrington which was in the neighbourhood of Brockhurst. But that was later, about 1910 - 1923. Do you know more presicely which years Annie might have spent her holidays there?

Johan Revold

Kristiansand Norway