Agnes Ledgerwood Hately Wilson MacIntosh (1845-1931) was a daughter of Thomas Ledgerwood Hately (1816-1867), a composer and precentor of the Free High Church in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Ann Atkinson Brook Hately (1817-1861). She had two older siblings, Mary Ann Atkinson Hately Macfie (born 1840) and composer Walter Hately (1843-1907). Agnes also worked as a teacher of singing in Edinburgh, Scotland, before her marriage. In April 1874, Agnes married Reverend James Kinnier Wilson (1846-1879), a Presbyterian minister originally from County Monaghan, Ireland, who studied at Princeton University (1869), the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of the Northwest (1871-1873), and at Auburn Theological Seminary (1873-1874). From 1874 to 1878, James served as a minister at the First Presbyterian Church in Cedarville, New Jersey. The Wilsons had two children, Anne Edina Hately Wilson Paul (1876-1959), and neurologist Samuel Alexander Kinnier Wilson (1878-1937). In June 1878, the Wilson family relocated to WaKeeney, Kansas, where James served the Home Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America until his death in November 1879 from malaria. Agnes and their children returned to Scotland. In 1881, she married Henry MacIntosh (1836-1894), and they had a son, Henry Walter McIntosh (born 1882).

WaKeeney, Kansas, was established in 1879 on land purchased from the Kansas Pacific Railway by the Chicago land development firm of Warren, Keeney, & Co.

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.

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.

Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. > Clergy.

Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. > Missions > Kansas.

Clergy > Kansas.

Clergy > New Jersey.

Home missions > Kansas.

Malaria > Kansas > WaKeeney.

Cedarville (N.J.) > Religious life and customs.

Cedarville (N.J.) > Social life and customs.

Philadelphia (Pa.) > Religious life and customs.

Philadelphia (Pa.) > Social life and customs.

Scotland > Emigration and immigration.

WaKeeney (Kan.) > Religious life and customs.

WaKeeney (Kan.) > Social life and customs.

Clergy Kansas 19th century.

Clergy New Jersey 19th century.

Clergy Pennsylvania 19th century.