Births  Marriages  Deaths  &c. &c.

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1857 continued

May 4th.
Phebe Annabella daughter of Jonathan & Phebe Adams born

" 25th
George Edward Selwyn son of Simon & Mary Young born.

" 30th.
Maria Angelina daughter of William & Rebecca Evans born.

June 8th.
Anniversary of our arrival. Twelve months have now elapsed since our landing at Norfolk Island and it has pleased Almighty God of his infinite mercy and goodness to preserve our lives and with few exceptions, our bodily healths. We have been mainly dependent on the supplies furnished by Sir Wm Denison for our subsistence, but for them humanly speaking, we must have starved or sustained ourselves solely on animal food [and?] I scarcely think it possible. The nearly total absence of [any?[ means precluded our making much progress in cultivating the soil on our first landing, and the long continued droughts forbad our planting the sweet potatoe vines after we had acquired a good quantity of them. We are now beginning to look forward with hope a good deal of rain have fallen during the last week and all the men have been fully employed planting sweet potatoe vines. Our irish potatoe crop was a complete failure, in the first place the season had gone by ere the seed sent by some kind friends in New Zealand arrived, and the heat and drought aided the failure. Should the Almighty be pleased to smile on our humble endeavours, we may I think consider ourselves fairly launched and a favouring breeze wafting us into the second year of our absence from the "Rock of the West."

July 22nd.
John M. Pattison son of James & Pricilla Quintal born.

" 25th.
George A. Selwyn son of Charles & Charlotte Christian born