ABSTRACT
Revd John Ingle (1788–1874) was a Baptist minister in Somersham, Huntingdonshire (now Cambridgeshire) who arrived in America in 1818. The family letters begin in England, before the emigration, and record the painful parting emotions that were so common among emigrants. Perhaps some of the sorrow was ameliorated by the fact that friends of the family were considering emigration as well, and the fact that they invoked God’s guidance. An important source of Ingle’s comfort and encouragement, though, was surely the fact that he was heading for Morris Birkbeck’s and George Flower’s settlement in Albion, Edwards County, Illinois, where the family received accommodation and assistance while they got settled, before proceeding to nearby Vanderburgh County, across the Wabash River, in Indiana (see the introduction to this volume). Ingle knew Saunders Hornbrook, also part of the settlement, and whose letters are also included in this volume. Together, the Ingle and Hornbrook letters form a remarkable dual set. Apparently, Ingle was in part politically motivated, as he writes to the other immigrants: ‘you are escaped from our oppressions’. His references to both Birkbeck and Flower shed light on that interesting and important settlement. He also assumes that letters from America are examined at English post offices for political content.
