True Picture of Emigration (1936)2014

WHATEVER may have been our success in America, I can attribute but little of it to myself; as I gave up the idea of ending my days in my own country with the utmost reluctance, and should never have become an emigrant, if obedience to my husband’s wishes had left me any alternative. His motives, briefly stated, were these:—In the year 1817 we took a small farm at a village in Yorkshire on a lease for fourteen years, and as corn was at that time selling well, the rent was fixed at too high a rate for us to obtain a comfortable livelihood. We did indeed by dint of great industry and strict economy, maintain our credit to the end of the lease; but the severe struggles we had to endure to meet our payments, the gradual diminution of our little property, and the entire absence of any prospects of being able to supply the wants of a large family had tended effectually to fix my husband’s purpose of trying what could be done in the western world. We accordingly disposed of our little furniture, settled our pecuniary affairs, and ultimately began our long journey the last week in August 1831.  The reader will now enquire to what part of America we were going, or whether we had any plans as to the locality of our future home. This is an important consideration for every emigrant, though little attended to by many. We were not, however, like the poor Northumbrian, who, on landing at New York a few years ago, required a person whom he met in the street, to direct him to the back settlements. My husband had travelled many miles to obtain a sight of private American letters, and after maturely considering all the intelligence he could collect, he determined to go to Pike County, Illinois, to a person named Mr. B—, who had settled there a year or two before, and written to a brother of his in this country.  Without further preface, we are therefore to be considered on our way from the centre of Yorkshire to Liverpool, self, husband, and five children, the eldest a boy about nine years old, two others we were leaving behind, the one my eldest son engaged as an under teacher in a boarding school, the other my eldest daughter serving also in a respectable family. To persons such as we were, who had never been forty miles from home, a journey by waggon and railway, where every hour presents the eye with something new, does not afford the best opportunity for reflection; we in consequence reached Liverpool before we fully felt the importance of the step we were taking. Nature had indeed yielded a little as we gazed upon the scenes of our industry, which time had endeared, for the last time. But it was at Liverpool, when we had got our luggage to a boardinghouse and were waiting the departure of a vessel, that the throes of leaving England and all its endearments put our courage to a test the most severe. Our minds were now undisturbed by surrounding objects; we occupied a small apartment for which we paid two shillings a day, without even the indulgence of a fire to cook our provisions. The dark smoky walls of the opposite buildings were the only prospect that the situation of our sojourn could afford. Predisposed to melancholy as we were, no one can be surprised when he is told that its effects were soon apparent. A stranger would have thought us a most unsocial family, as we sat in profound silence for an hour together, only now and then a sigh would escape us tending to vary but not to enliven this painful monotony. Even our children participated in our disquietude, and seemed to lose their wonted vivacity. My dear husband, who before had displayed nothing but hardihood, on this occasion had almost played the woman. After a deep silence I not unfrequently observed his eyes suffused with tears, which though unnoticed by him, fell in quick succession down his sunbrowned cheeks. We were six days in this abode, and I may venture to assert that he did not spend six hours of the time in the forgetfulness of sleep.