ABSTRACT
Ralph Youens was a basket-maker in Dartford, Kent, who emigrated to America in 1858 to join relatives in Texas. Here, nearly twenty years after his migration, he writes to his brother, Jesse Youens. The brothers have clearly kept up their writing to each other, and the letter conveys their sense of humour. This letter is mainly concerned with the plague of grasshoppers and other pests in Texas. Ralph also refers to reading Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, which Jesse sent him but Ralph did not enjoy. The Youens were apparently well educated. Ralph also refers to attending the Methodist church at Navasota (which locates him in Grimes County, in East Central Texas). He was disappointed in the music there, but he also refers to the brothers’ ‘desire to find out God, the Plan of Salvation … and the vanity of earthly things’. Religion was clearly a central part of their lives at this comparatively late date. Youens’s details about life in Texas give us a sense of his successful immigration and the brothers’ faithful relationship through their letters.
