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An Emigrant's Letter from Iowa, 1871

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2011

C. Erickson
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Extract

John Flounders Dixon was born in 1844 at Crathorne, near Yarm, in the Cleveland district south of the Tees in the North Riding of Yorkshire and was thus 27 years of age in 1871 when he made the journey to America described by him in the following letter. His companions were his younger brother, Charles Albert, aged 22, and Frank Standing to whose uncle's farm in Iowa they travelled.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the British Association for American Studies , Volume 12 , 1966 , pp. 5 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for American Studies 1966

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References

REFERENCES

1. 1841 Census manuscripts. H. O. 107/1257/8, p.7. Public Records Office, London.Google Scholar
2. Details of the Flounders family have been supplied by E. Rodway of Leeds, the great nephew of the writer of this letter. When not otherwise indicated Mr. Rodway is the source of my information. We are indebted to him both for making this interesting letter available and for supplying some of the details which make it possible to establish the economic and social circumstances of the emigrant's family.Google Scholar
3. 1841 census manuscripts. H. O. 102/1257/8, p. 10. 1851 Census manuscripts, H.O. 107/2376/2.9, p. 11. 1861 Census manuscripts, R. G.9/3659/8. Public Records Office.Google Scholar
4. 1851 Census manuscripts. H.O. 107/2376/2.9, p. 5.Google Scholar
5. United Kingdom Census, 1871, l, 458; ll, 464; United Kingdom Census, 1851, l, 1, Division IX, p. 80.Google Scholar
6. These observations are based on a perusal of the Census manuscripts and on Kelly's Post Office Directory for Yorkshire, 1857, p. 1233.Google Scholar
7. It is just possible that William Dixon had some connection with this school. Its master in 1872 was Ralph Dixon and In 1857, George Dixon. Though Eliza Dixon's children were, like herself, educated in Quaker schools, her father had forfeited his connection in 1806 when he had married outside the Society.Google Scholar
8. United Kingdom Census, 1871, I, 457; ll, 464; United Kingdom Census, 1851, l, 1, Division IX. Kelly's Post Office Directory for the North Riding of Yorkshire, 1872, pp. 90–1.Google Scholar
9. United States Census, 1870, l, 354, 27. United States Census, 1880, 1,432.Google Scholar
10. Christopher Jackson, who is again referred to later in the letter in a deferential sort of way, was living in Cleveland Lodge, Great Ayton, a man of 48 years of age, in 1861. He was coachman in the household of John Pease, land and railway proprietor. Census Manuscripts, 1861, R.G. 9/3659/8, p. 28.Google Scholar
11. Henry Wilson was appointed in February 1871 as assistant to the Burlington and Missouri Railway's European Commissioner with the title of agent general. His aim was to attract farmers and land purchasers to the lands owned by that railway in Iowa and Nebraska. See Overton, Richard C., Burlington West, Harvard University Press, 1941, pp. 359–65.Google Scholar
12. Homeopathic medicine was based on a system of therapeutics introduced in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann of Leipzig. As the practices of bleeding and cupping and the application of leeches declined in favour for use on almost any malady, and as medicine in its more advanced forms turned to the study of pathological anatomy under the French influence, a study which had little relation to curing diseases, homeopathy became for many the single and universal cure-all. See Encyclopedia Brittanica and Shryock, Richard, Development of Modern Medicine, London, Victor Gollancz, 1948, pp. 138–9, 159.Google Scholar
13. In 1855 the New York Board of Immigration was authorized by the state legislature to buy the old revolutionary fort at the southern tip of Manhattan Island for an emigrant landing station. It continued to serve as such until the Federal Government established Ellis Island for the purpose in 1890. See Wittke, Carl, We Who Built America, Western Reserve University Press, 1939, pp. 14, 126.Google Scholar
14. A wringing machine was apparently just what it sounds like, a machine for wringing clothes. At this time some labour-saving devices for the household were still being introduced from England into the United States.Google Scholar
15. A town in Iowa between Chicago and Des Moines.Google Scholar
16. London, Ontario.Google Scholar
17. The presence of these Friends in the neighbourhood may in part explain the connection of this destination with emigrants from Great Ayton. That village was in itself an important center for the Quakers. The North of England Agricultural School, established in 1841 for the free education of 72 boys and girls under the care of the Durham Quarterly Meeting was located there, and near it on a square at the edge of the village stood the Friends Meeting House. Kelly's Post Office Directory for the North Riding of Yorkshire. 1872, pp. 90–1.Google Scholar
18. North of England Scottish usage for raspberry.Google Scholar
19. “Whins” usually refers to the common furze or gorse, though it was sometimes used to apply to other prickly or thorny shrubs.Google Scholar
20. Out of a total population in Dallas County of 12,019 in 1870 only 880 were foreign-born, and of these only 91 reported as being born in England or Wales. United States Census, 1870, l, 354. This was exceptionally low for the state and region at that time.Google Scholar
21. see above, footnote.17.17 This seems definite evidence that the Quaker connection may have determined the migration of this family both to Great Ayton and now to Dallas County, Iowa.Google Scholar
22. Boll was a measure of capacity for grain used in Scotland and the North of England. Its usage varied locally in the North of England from the old boll of ó bushels to the new boll of 2 bushels.Google Scholar
23. John Flounders Dixon's father would have been 64 years old at this time. The town of Great Ayton contained four almshouses erected and supported by Richardson, Thomas, Esq. for the benefit of poor members of the Society of Friends. Post Office Directory for the North Riding of Yorkshire, 1872, p. 91.Google Scholar
24. This list of friends helps us to fix the social group from which these young men left. Joseph Wilson may have been the young man by that name; aged 18, joiner, son of George Wilson, journeyman currier, listed in the Census Manuscripts, 1861, at Great Ayton, R.G. 9/3658/8, p. 34.Google Scholar
25. Possibly Wm. Weatherill, 74, retired servant, listed in 1861 census manuscripts at Great Ayton, loc. cit. p. 37.Google Scholar
26.Sanderson, William, 15, son of Ann Sanderson, teacher of writing and arithmetic, listed in 1861 census manuscripts at Great Ayton, loc. cit. p. 12. Directory for 1872 lists William Sanderson as master at the British School (non-conformist) at Great Ayton.Google Scholar
27.Sanderson, Sarah, 19, dressmaker, daughter of Ann Sanderson, laundress, listed in eensus manuscripts for 1861 at Great Ayton, loc. cit, p. 12. Sarah Sanderson, dressmaker, also appears in the Directory for 1872, p.9.Google Scholar
28.Nichols, Robert, 38, farm labourer, had a son Robert, aged 10 at the time of the 1861 census. Loc. cit. p. 8.Google Scholar
29. See note 10 above.Google Scholar