Agnes Buchanan Freeland

AGNES BUCHANAN FREELAND

is the daughter of James Freeland, and his wife, Sarah Peter [Find A Grave] http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=41922405&ref=wvr

A collection of letters written by Mary Cumming to her family in Ireland gives a sense of Agnes Freeland when she was still a teenager just prior to her marriage. The excerpts below are from the entire collection, which is found at “Mary Cumming’s Letters Home to Lisburn from America 1811 – 1815” http://www.lisburn.com/books/letters_home/letters_home.html Other references to the Freeland family in the letters may be found in the profile for Agnes’ mother.

January 2, 1814 (in a letter to her sister when Agnes was sixteen):
“There are a number of very pretty girls in Petersburg, most of the American ladies I have seen are remarkably fair, with scarcely any colour, owing to the warmth of the climate, I suppose. My sweet little Agnes Freeland is an exception, she is as blooming as any Irish girl, she has beautiful hair and dark eyes, I have not seen her here so often of late, owing to her mother's health, which I am sorry to say is very bad.”

July 24, 1814 (Mary in describing for her father a planned trip with her husband to Baltimore): “Agnes Freeland will go as far as Georgetown with us, on a visit to some of her friends who live there, I am sure she would be a great favourite with you, she is so lively and pleasing. I shall feel great regret at parting with her …”

The journey of Agnes with the Cummings began before the end of July. It is possible that on this visit to Georgetown Agnes met or reacquainted herself with her mother’s younger first cousin Major George Peter. He had been widowed in February of that year, and both his infant children had died in March. According to family records, the following year in July he and Agnes were married in Petersburg on the twenty-seventh by the Rev. Andrew Syme, rector of Bristol parish. She was seventeen, and he was thirty-five.