“A True Picture of Emigration”

Extract

“A true picture” of frontier life in Illinois is preserved in the reminiscences of a Yorkshire woman who, with her husband and five young children, immigrated in 1831. From the time she left England to the time she returned for a visit, mistress of a large and thriving farm, she maintained her indomitable courage, and the critical aloofness of the foreigner.

Her first night in Illinois was spent in a log cabin, where the “little lady, exceedingly fond of smoking, as Americans generally are, particularly the females,” expected to be paid for her hospitality, even though the family used its own provisions. The Yorkshireman, on whose recommendation they had come, appeared shortly, “verily, as ragged as a sheep,” and they moved their quarters to his house, which “was more like the cell of a hermit who aims at super-excellence by enduring privations than the cottage of an industrious peasant.”