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. 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. Highly literate, Ingle travelled with fellow English immigrants, some from Lincolnshire, who must have provided mutual encouragement. In fact, Ingle was struck by the 'vast number of English' in the area along the Wabash, and so he found much support and familiarity around him. The pioneering stories in the letters are excellent records of that interesting place and time.
