From Catherine O'Bryan at the farm of Mr May in Hindra to [her daughter] Mary O'Bryan at the house of Mr Glasson in Madron near Penzance.
It seems a long time since she heard from Mary, and trusts that she is well and still close to God. Spiritual matters are discussed.
She has not seen Mary's dear father [William] since the Tuesday after she saw Mary last, but has received three letters from him. Mary's sisters are all well as is grandmother and Phillippia. Catherine has not however heard from Mary since Catherine saw Miss Glasson at Truro - Catherine trusts that Mary has received the things which she sent via `young Glasson' and that Mary has also sent her Aunt Oates a letter before now.
Various family matters are discussed in detail.
The quarterly meeting for this circuit is to be next Monday at [Abraham] Bastard's in ?Trulizza, after which Catherine hopes to return home to the dear children and then she shall expect to receive a long letter from Mary, who should not delay but write the week after next and send it by post. Perhaps Mary has already taken the opportunity of sending a letter via Mrs Lyle, who Catherine has heard will soon be in this area. Catherine will wish to hear again from Mary before Christmas.
Her time has been fully taken up since Mary left, with filling the place of an absent [press] ?corrector - first when Mrs Thorne left, Catherine had to take Em [Mary?] Cottle's place after she went home with Mrs Thorne. Then after Ann Mason's arrival, Catherine went to several new places in that circuit and also visited her brother and sisters at Gunwen. She also held a meeting at Chilbrook, stopped at Sister Lowry's place for two nights before meeting with Margaret Adams at Luxillion. They travelled together and she stayed with Adams for a fortnight, travelling as far as Uncle Frank Tamblyn's (where Mary first spoke). After parting company with Adams, Catherine stayed in the area and held meetings in several different places - one was at T. Cobildick's. Then [Harry] Major asked her to come to this circuit and Brother Rudd also invited her to go there for three weeks in Margaret's place.
She came here and took Sister Rudd's preaching plan last Sunday fortnight. She has had to attend three meetings each Sunday. Spiritual matters are discussed in detail.
Francis or Frank Tamblyn was an early supporter of the Bible Christian Connexion. In 1818 he built one of the Connexion's first chapels at Derry Combe between Liskeard and Bodmin in Cornwall.
Source: Thomas Shaw, A History of Cornish Methodlsm (1967) and Bourne, p.61.
Abraham Bastard was a noted Bible Christian local preacher in Cornwall. A renowned wrestler in his youth, he was converted by the preaching of the female itinerant Betsy Reed.
Source; Bourne, p.66-67.
Margaret Adams was a Bible Christian itinerant preacher of considerable repute, who worked closely with William O'Bryan in the early days of the movement. She was one of the original twenty-nine preachers listed in the minutes of the first Conference of 1819.
Source; Bourne, pp.69-70.
Mary Cottle entered the Bible Christian ministry in 1823. She was stationed in Kilkhampton, Cornwall, as a supplementary in 1830 after which she disappears from the record.
Source: Beckerlegge.