Peter McAuley was born in Coatbridge Scotland in 1862. His parents had moved from Northern Ireland several years earlier at the tail end of the Great Famine.
Sometime between 1866-1877 his family relocated to Blantyre Scotland and he began to work in Dixon's Colliery at an early age with his brother Arthur and father Charles. In March of 1893 he emmigrated to the USA. From 1893 till his death in 1902 he worked in the coal mines in eastern OH and western PA.
Introduction to Peter's Poems and Songs
The following poems and songs are transcribed/translated directly from Peter McAuley's original journal written between 1879 and 1900.
At the time when Peter first started recording his poems and songs, he did not know how to read or write. This he explains himself in his introduction and in fact the very bottom of the inside cover reads, "Written by James Docherty, Blantyre." (James was a boarder in Peter's household who also worked as a Coal Miner.) As the story goes, Peter would carry this notebook with him and whenever he thought up a poem or a song he would give the pen to someone else and ask if they would write it down. Several different handwriting styles exist in the first half of the notebook.(See inside front cover) It may be very well that he finally learned how to read and write himself for the last half of the journal appears to be in one (sloppy) hand.
Transcriber's Notes
Transcribing this text was difficult for a few different reasons. Some words used are either unique to that area of Scotland and Northern England and/or are obsolete in today's English. On top of that add a number of misspellings and the brogue accent and much of the time done in handwriting that is less than neat. Unfamiliar words I looked for in several dictionaries and a world atlas. If I found a word that I could not translate, I took my best guess at the handwriting and enclosed it in square brackets [ ]. (Sometime in the future I will make another pass and try again to resolve them.)
Peter McAuley, his first wife Maria (Mallon) and first son Charles, circa 1888.
