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University of Michigan William L. Clements Library

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Duncan and Hugh MacKenzie collection, 1872-1919 (majority within 1889, 1917-1919)

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Summary

Creator:
MacKenzie, Duncan, ca. 1841-1888 and MacKenzie, Hugh Kenneth, 1881-1963
Abstract:
This collection is made up of one letterbook containing 41 retained draft letters by Scottish immigrant Duncan MacKenzie in New York City between May and August 1886, and eight letters by Duncan's son Hugh MacKenzie while he served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) during World War I. Duncan MacKenzie was a manager of the Argyle sugar plantation on St. Vincent for 19 years before the plantation sold and he was forced to seek work in New York in the spring and summer of 1886. While there, he wrote letters to siblings, cousins, business contacts, and his wife Amy MacKenzie, who remained on St. Vincent with their children. These letters inform recipients of his efforts to find work, requests for financial assistance, and frustrations at being middle aged and unable to provide for his family. He could not find work and ultimately moved to St. Croix, where he worked as an overseer on the La Grande Princesse sugar plantation. Hugh K. MacKenzie wrote eight letters to his brother Colin F. MacKenzie while testing and training for the CEF Engineers, Signal Division at Toronto and Ottawa in 1917, from England and France in the fall of 1918, and from Germany and Belgium, December 1918-January 1919.
Extent:
9 items
Language:
English
Authors:
Collection processed and finding aid created by Cheney J. Schopieray

Background

Scope and Content:

This collection is made up of one letterbook containing 41 retained draft letters by Scottish immigrant Duncan MacKenzie in New York City between May and August 1886, and eight letters by Duncan's son Hugh MacKenzie while he served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) during World War I. Duncan MacKenzie was a manager of the Argyle sugar plantation on St. Vincent for 19 years before the plantation sold and he was forced to seek work in New York in the spring and summer of 1886. While there, he wrote letters to siblings, cousins, business contacts, and his wife Amy MacKenzie, who remained on St. Vincent with their children. These letters inform his recipients of his efforts to find work, requests for financial assistance, and frustrations at being middle aged and unable to provide for his family. He could not find work and ultimately moved to St. Croix, where he worked as an overseer on the La Grande Princesse sugar plantation. Hugh K. MacKenzie wrote eight letters to his brother Colin F. MacKenzie while testing and training for the CEF Engineers, Signal Division at Toronto and Ottawa in 1917, from England and France in the fall of 1918, and from Germany and Belgium, December 1918-January 1919.

Please see the box and folder listing below for details about the contents of each letter.

Biographical / Historical:

Duncan MacKenzie was born in Scotland around 1841. He married a London-born woman named Amy and the couple moved to the Argyle sugar plantation on Saint Vincent in the British West Indies, where Duncan worked as a manager. There, the couple had four children, Lillian Mabel MacKenzie (b. April 3, 1880), Hugh Kenneth MacKenzie (August 25, 1881-September 30, 1963), Colin F. MacKenzie (b. 1883), and Norman D. MacKenzie (b. ca. 1885). When the owners of Argyle sold the estate in 1886, Duncan MacKenzie lost his job, and traveled to Brooklyn, New York, leaving his family in the Caribbean, so that he could seek out employment. Being unsuccessful in New York, he traveled south and ultimately took a position as overseer on the sugar plantation La Grande Princesse outside Christiansted, Saint Croix, in the Dutch West Indies. There, he worked for Peter Didrichsen.

The MacKenzie family moved from St. Vincent to Christiansted, St. Croix, but Duncan MacKenzie died shortly thereafter on January 10, 1888. Ten days later, Amy MacKenzie gave birth to their youngest child, Didrich Duncan MacKenzie, on January 17, 1888. Following Duncan's death, the family divided. Amy lived in a house in Christiansted, St. Croix, with her sons Hugh, Colin, and Norman, while her daughter Lillian lived on the government-owned Sion farm, and her son Didrich stayed with his adoptive parents Peter and Rosalinde Didrichsen at La Grande Princesse.

According to the 1910 U.S. Census, Hugh, Colin, and Norman moved to New York City in 1902 and they were joined by Didrich in 1907. The brothers lived together and worked as bookkeepers and salesmen. Meanwhile, their mother Amy and sister Lillian made the voyage to New York in June 1907, aboard the ship Korona. Amy MacKenzie died less than a year later in New York, on April 11, 1908. By 1915, Lillian MacKenzie worked as a governess in the Sperry household in Cranford, New Jersey.

Colin F. MacKenzie married Helen H., a Pennsylvanian woman of Irish descent. Colin and Helen traveled to Guatemala on multiple occasions in the 1910s for Colin's employment. Their daughter Amy K. Mackenzie (January 17, 1916-March 10, 2008) was born in Guatemala City, Guatemala. In 1930, the family lived in Neptune, New Jersey, and in 1940, they lived in Queens, New York.

Hugh MacKenzie attested for service in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, as a New York resident, in the summer of 1917 at Toronto. He passed telegraph school and joined the 2nd Field Company of Engineers, Signal Division in July 1917. He received further training at Ottawa's Signal Training Depot before shipping to England, then France in 1918. In October 1918, he noted that his mail should be addressed to the Canadian Corps Signal School, Wireless Section, in France. In December 1918 and January 1919, Hugh MacKenzie moved to Bonn and Köln, Germany, then Belgium as part of the Canadian occupying force. Hugh McKenzie died in New York on September 30, 1963.

Acquisition Information:
2021. M-7299 .
Arrangement:

The collection is arranged chronologically.

Rules or Conventions:
Finding aid prepared using Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Contents

Using These Materials

Info for Visitors

How to Request

Ordering Reproductions

Download PDF Finding Aid
RESTRICTIONS:

The collection is open for research.

USE & PERMISSIONS:

Copyright status is unknown

PREFERRED CITATION:

Duncan and Hugh MacKenzie Collection, William L. Clements Library, The University of Michigan