Ohio History Journal

BRIAN P. BIRCH

 

Taking the Breaks and Working the

Boats: An English Family's

Impressions of Ohio in the 1830s

 

While the frontier was a great leveler of people, in putting them

back into log cabins and deerskins, it was also a zone of increasingly

varied economic opportunities, as the new settlements created a de-

mand for services and communications. Not only was there a need,

as the frontier moved across an area, for farmfolk to occupy land, to

clear the forests and to till the soil. Opportunities also arose for a host

of other trades and skills-road builders, millers, preachers and

many more. As the settlement frontier moved on, the openings for

some skills increased faster than others. Those pioneers faced with

much more competition often needed to move from place to place and

from trade to trade in order to survive and prosper. Frequently indi-

viduals combined farming, the predominant frontier activity, with

some other trade or skill to best meet these fast-changing circum-

stances.

Nowhere is this flexibility of activity and frequent change of lo-

cation better seen than amongst the British in the early period of set-

tlement in the midwest. The British formed a significant minority

amongst the foreign-born on most midwestern frontiers, including

that in Ohio, but because no language barrier hindered their spread

they dispersed widely and, unlike some foreign groups, formed few

areas of concentration. As a result, they have left behind little evi-

dence of their former existence either on the landscape or in the ar-

chives.¹ What little can be learned of them would suggest, however,

 

 

 

 

Brian P. Birch is Senior Lecturer in Geography at Southampton University, England.

 

1. There are no texts on British settlers in the midwest and only a few books and ar-

ticles on them in individual states. Some reference can be found to British farm settlers

in nineteenth-century Ohio in Mary L. Ziebold, "Immigrant Groups in Northwestern

Ohio to 1860," Northwest Ohio Quarterly, 17 (April-July, 1945), 62-71; and James H.

Rodabaugh, "From England to Ohio, 1830-1832: The Journal of Thomas K. Whar-

ton," The Ohio Historical Quarterly, 65 (January, 1956) 1-27, 111-51.

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102                                                    OHIO HISTORY

 

that many came to the frontier as much to practice trades and skills

they had picked up in Britain as to take up land for farming.²

That the British should have adopted this approach is natural not

only in view of the increasingly varied needs of the frontier by the

time it was traversing Ohio, but also in view of the types of emigrants

flowing out of Britain. By 1830 England had ceased to be a predomi-

nantly rural society, and the majority of those leaving Britain were

coming from urban and industrial areas.³ With little or no knowledge

of land clearing and farming, many of the English saw the American

west as much as a place to practice their varied non-farm skills as to

secure their future through land ownership and agriculture.

Something of the nature of this urban-based flexibility with

which the English seemed to approach frontier living can be illus-

trated by use of a set of recently-discovered letters written home

by a family of English brothers who emigrated to America in the

1830s.⁴ The letters of the Mighill (pronounced Mile) boys, repro-

duced here, tell of their frequent changes of employment as boat,

farm and factory hands in Ohio and elsewhere after 1831, and lend

support to this view of the English as a relatively mobile and peripa-

tetic group. Like other English emigrants, however, the Mighills were

not good letter-writers either in terms of their frequency of contact

with their correspondents-in this case their parents in England-or

in terms of fully recounting events in their lives in America. Nor can

we learn anything of their experiences there from other sources. It

therefore becomes necessary to piece together evidence from their

letters to present any sort of coherent story of their lives on the Ohio

frontier.

In spite of the shortcomings of the letters, it is clear that all of the

Mighill brothers, and their one sister, emigrated as young adults to

the United States, leaving England, one after the other, over the

space of a few years. The letters allow us to learn more of the activities

 

 

2. For an example of the life of an English preacher-farmer on the Ohio frontier, see

Brian P. Birch, "A British View of the Ohio Backwoods: The Letters of James Martin,

1821-1836," Ohio History, 94 (Summer-Autumn 1985), 12-24. The archives of the Ohio

Historical Society contain a few sets of letters written by British settlers in Ohio; for ex-

ample, the letters of Scottish immigrant Charles Rose written in 1822 and 1830 from

Wellsville, Columbiana County, Ohio.

3. Charlotte Erickson, Invisible Emigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish

Immigrants in Nineteenth Century America (Leicester, 1972).

4. The Mighill Family Papers were deposited in the East Sussex County Record Of-

fice, Lewes, England, in 1977 and are catalogued as AMS 5575. The American letters

used here form only a small part of an extensive collection of family materials. They are

quoted here with permission, and the help of the county archivist in sifting through

the papers is acknowledged.

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Taking the Breaks and Working the Boats                             103

 

of Richard, the eldest brother who came to Ohio in 1830 at the age

of 18, and of two of the younger brothers who reached the state a

few years later. We can learn much less of the other two brothers and

one sister who also emigrated to America, or of their parents to whom

all the surviving letters were addressed.

When the sons and daughter emigrated, their parents were living

in Brighton, then a small south coast fishing settlement in the county

of Sussex. Mighill senior had begun his working life apprenticed to a

tanner in rural Sussex, but by his thirties had become a fish retailer

in the town of Brighton.⁵ Around mid-century, after his children

had emigrated to America, he attained greater status and wealth by

getting involved in real estate development related to Brighton's rap-

id expansion as a coastal resort for London. But it is clear that as a

young father of restricted means he had been able to provide his

children with only a limited amount of education and with no pros-

pects of training or advancement in a trade or profession. For this rea-

son alone, going to the developing American west must have appealed

to his children as a way forward.

Several conclusions can be drawn from the fragmentary evidence

the letters provide of the Mighill's approach to life in frontier Ohio.

First, each of the brothers appeared to be quick to take every oppor-

tunity to better his circumstances by moving frequently from job to

job and from place to place. Richard, the first to emigrate to Ameri-

ca, worked for a few months for a Zanesville brewer before becoming

a boathand on the Miami and Erie canal, and later worked on Missis-

sippi river boats. Similarly, Philip, the second brother to arrive in

Ohio, worked for several farmers over the space of a few years, and

Edward, a third brother, worked on the Mississippi, in a Cleveland

factory and on an Ohio farm during his first few years in America. A

second point that becomes clear is that the Mighills made much use

 

 

5. Richard Mighill, the father of the five sons and one daughter considered here,

was born in 1794 and died in 1865. Relatively late in life he became involved in proper-

ty development in the Cliftonville section of Brighton, one of the fast-growing resort

areas of the town. See E. W. Gilbert, Brighton: Old Ocean's Bauble (London, 1954).

The eldest Mighill boy, Richard (1813-90), emigrated to Ohio in 1830 and, after several

years in Ohio and the southern states, moved to California. A second brother, Philip,

arrived in Portage County, Ohio, in 1838 but had settled in New Orleans within two

years. Edward first appears on the scene in New Orleans in 1840, and after some years

in the south and Ohio went to Australia in 1853 where he stayed for two years before

returning to England. A fourth brother, William, had emigrated to America by 1842

but lived mainly in the south before settling in California in 1851. Similarly, Joseph, the

youngest brother, was living in the south in 1839 but cannot be traced further, while

Grace, their only sister, was living there in 1860. The collection includes no American

letters from the last three named Mighills.

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104                                           OHIO HISTORY

 

on their arrival in America of contacts, probably made by their par-

ents, with other English families already settled in Ohio. These con-

tacts often provided them with a first job, although each son was

quick to release himself from his tutelage as soon as a better opportu-

nity presented itself. Thus not only did Richard first work for an Eng-

lish brewer, Mr. Stile, in Zanesville, but Philip worked for an English

farmer near Cleveland when he arrived in Ohio, while Edward lived

with Mr. Stile later. The names of Stile, Bartlett, Buckwell, Green and

Brown, all Englishmen in Ohio who were known to the Mighills in

Brighton, England, recur at several points in the letters.

It was largely because Ohio by the 1830s had attracted a consider-

able minority of English, who had established themselves in a varie-

ty of trades with which they were familiar in England, that later new-

comers, like the Mighills, similarly gained experience in a diversity of

occupations. Indeed, the existence in Ohio in the early-19th century,

more than in other midwestern states, of a thin but widespread scat-

ter of England families-many of them from southern England like

the Mighills-probably attracted the Mighill boys there. That each

of the Mighill boys in turn quickly released himself from the grip of

his first employer-and not always on the friendliest of terms-is fur-

ther evidence of a strong feeling found amongst the English, like oth-

er settlers, that one could do best for oneself by going it alone, taking

each break as it came. For the Mighills, as for many others, reaching

the point where one could go by one's own "hook" might involve

passing through several stages of employment-from being at first

taken under the wing of a fellow countryman, then gaining experience

at a variety of jobs before finally getting one's own farm, mill, boat or

other business. The letters that follow make it clear that the Mighills

saw success in terms of becoming independently established, and

that movements from job to job and from place to place were but nec-

essary steps towards that goal.

Finally, that several of the Mighills should see their independence

in terms of working on the waterways of Ohio and the Mississippi

Valley should come as no surprise. The opening of the Erie Canal,

linking the lake to New York in 1825, heralded the development of

other links-notably the Ohio and Erie, and Miami and Erie Canals

-across the state to the Ohio-Mississippi River system to create a

vast inter-connecting transport network through the Mississippi Ba-

sin. With Ohio and New Orleans at either end of this great route,

trade blossomed along it for a few short years from the 1830s, and

the Mighills saw this boom developing.

The letters are reproduced here with only small elisions, the na-

ture of which are indicated in parentheses. In order to ease their

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Taking the Breaks and Working the Boats                      105

 

reading, some additional punctuation and paragraphing have been

introduced into the letters and several capitals removed. The original

spelling which sometimes varies from place to place, especially be-

tween brothers, has been largely retained except where it causes

confusion, in which case the modern equivalent is given in brackets.

The first two letters, written by Richard in 1831 from Zanesville

and three years later from Cincinnati, show that he had contacted

several English famillies, who were probably known to his parents,

on first arriving in Ohio. He had also taken a job with a family ac-

quaintance from England, Mr. Stile, a brewer in Zanesville. In his sec-

ond letter, however, Richard explains to his parents that he left Mr.

Stile within a year because "he did not use me rite," and he had

gone to work from Dayton on the waterways. At the time of writing,

he was steering a Miami and Erie canal boat but had twice been

down to St. Louis on other craft in previous years. So impressed was

he with the Mississippi Valley that he had plans to work his way to

New Orleans, from where he might return to England or go else-

where in the midwest. But Richard's first letter may also be of inter-

est for the list of goods he prices and for its brief description of

Zanesville and its factories, both indications of the material progress

of Ohio which was impressing him.⁶

 

 

Zanesville, April 26, 1831

Dear Father and Mother,

I have to apologize for not writing to you before, but wishing to give

you a more correct account of what I have been doing or, I might say,

what I am doing now (h)as prevented me till I could give a favourable

account which I think I am now capable of. You will first have the

price of provisions-flour 31/2 dols per barrel, pork 21/2 dols per 100

lbs . . . [more prices] . . . eggs 6 cents per dozen. Dined on Christmas

Day at Mr. Greens of a fine goose, cost 25 cents, and on New Years

day at Mr. Saunders of a turkey at 18 cents . . . All kinds of grocery

very cheap, timber 1 dol per 100 feet, brick 3 dol per 1000, lime 121/2

cents per bushel. A good cow for 8 or 10 dols. We have good horses

 

 

 

6. Zanesvillle, on the Muskingum River, had been capital of Ohio 1810-12 and had

developed a range of industries in the 1820s. Salt had been produced there since 1817

and the letter from Richard in 1831 refers to 7 or 8 salt works. Flatboats had worked

north to Cleveland and down to the Ohio since 1810, and were replaced by keelboats

after 1835 when the river was improved. J. Hope Sutor, Past and Present of the City of

Zanesville (Chicago, 1905), 171.

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106                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

very cheap. Timbered or uncleared land is very cheap 11/2 dols per

acer, cleared land is from 5 to 6 dols per acer. All kinds of glass is very

cheap.

Hear is 2 glass factoreys, 2 iron founderys, 3 saw mills, 6 grist mills,

2 oil mills, 1 paper mill, 2 woollen factoreys, 1 cotton factorey, 4 tan-

ners. The people tell me that a boots tanner is the best business going

on hear in this part of the country. Sole leather is 28 cents per lb, the

tanners tan with hickory and oak barks. 7 or 8 different salt works

between this and Dinkins (Duncan) Fall which is about 8 miles from

hear. Mr. B is at work at Dinkins Fall building a grist mill .. . [family

greetings] R.M.

 

Cincinnati, Ohio, June 20, 1834

Dear Father and Mother,

[Family greetings] . .. I left Zanesville in April 1832 . . . [address

letters to Cincinnati] . .. I am at present stearing the canal boat 'Emi-

grant' which runs from Cincinnati to Dayton which is 65 mils. I am

getting 14 dollars a month. When I left Zanesville I went down the

river to Lewisville wich is 550 mils from Zanesville and 150 mils below

Cincinnati. I stade thare 2 months. I went to Santlewes last sumer and

staed thare one month. The collary (cholera) was thare very bad

and in Cincinnati. Thare was not many cases on the canal but in town

thare ware 80 and 100 of a day. Santlewes is 700 mils from Cincinnati,

fore hundred mils down the Ohio river to the north and three hun-

dred up the Missipia. I have been nine [months] on the canal ever

since I came from Santlewes.

I am going down the river to New Orleans this fall if nothing appins

[happens]. I think I shall come home the followin spring. If not I shall

go further west to see a little more of this cuntry. I like this part of the

cuntry better than eny I have bean in yet. This is a fine cuntry for a

labring man or trads man. A labring man can get 12 and 15 dollars a

month and fawn [all found]. Thare are a grate many canal and turn-

pikes agoing on. Here are plenty of work for a labring man. Produce is

the same prise as in Zanesville. Thare are a grate many fish caught in

this river. Calfish which way from 10 to 100 pound. Thare are steam

packets that carry from 100 to 700 tuns burden each. They can run

from New Orleans to Pitsburgh in 16 and 18 days which is 25 hun-

dred mils. They can go down in 8 and 10 days. They can carry 200

passengers each.

The reason I left Mr. Stile was I thought he did not use me rite. I

worked for him till I received your letter and fawn [found] out that he

had sent to you for more close [clothes] for me for I had wore all mine

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Taking the Breaks and Working the Boats                   107

out and he did not buy me eny more. I did not want to luren the bruers trad [learn the brewer's trade] eny how so I thought I would go to work for myself. I worked in Zanesville for one Mr. Baldwin till I got me sum close [clothes] and then I went down the river to Lewes- ville. I got 10 dollars for gowing down . . . [explanation for losing a hunting weapon]. The reason I did not rite to you before I did not no ware [know where] to tell you to direct your leter for I have been very unsettled even since [I] left Zanesville. I hope you will not be angry at me. I shall rite to you agane when get to New Orleans. Thare are flat boats that go from hear to New Orleans. Tha can carry 7 and 8 hundred barrell of flower each. A man can get 30 dollours for goin down. It was one of these kind of boat I left Zanesville in, a flat boat, down in 5 weeks from Cincinnati which is 1800 mils.

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108                                           OHIO HISTORY

 

Santlewes is a fine cuntry for a labring man. 500 mils above Sant-

lewes is the led mins. A man can get 65 dollours a month thare but it

is very hard and disagreeable work. Land is cheap up there because

it is new. Land can be bought for 1 dollour and 25 cents an acar in the

area on the parerer [prairie] which has not got a tree on it ... [Greet-

ings] R.M.

 

 

Richard wrote a third letter home nine months later. This was ad-

dressed from Zanesville to which he had just gone to see his old em-

ployer, Mr. Stile, after completing three years working on the Miami

and Erie Canal. In this letter Richard announces his imminent depar-

ture for New Orleans and a possible onward voyage to England, trav-

el made possible because he had been "dewing very well" in his

work out of Dayton, a part of Ohio he liked better than Zanesville.

 

 

 

 

Zanesville, Febury 20, 1835

Dear Father and Mother,

[Greetings] . . . I am now in Zanesville. I arived hear on Thursday

last from Dayton ware I have been for the three years. I left Dayton

Friday last. I have been runing on the canal. It runs from Dayton to

Cincinnati wich is 65 miles. I have been stearing a canal boat at 15

dolars per month.

I am going down the river as soon as it rises which is expected in

about 2 weeks. As soon as I get down to New Orleans I shall cum to

England and sea you all if nothing apens (happens). If not I will rite

and let you now ware to rite to me. I rote to you last June from

Cincinnati but never received any answar. I saw James Stile tis morn-

ing and got the close [clothes] that you sent to me. I was very glad to

hear from you. The handkerchief that Betsy sent I think a gradeal

[great deal] of. I wish I had some chanc to send you sumthing to

keep for my sake. I put a 5 cent peas under the seal of the letter I sent

to you from Cincinnati. I receaved one letter from Mr. Baldwin. It

stated that one Mr. Buckwell had come to hunt me.

I understand that you are in a gradeal [great deal] of trouble about

me. You need not fret your selvs about me for I have [been] dewing

very well sins I left Mr. Stile. I can work half my tyme in this cuntry

and do well. I lik the cuntry about Dayton much better than this part

of the cuntry. Dayton is situate on the Miami river. Cincinatti is on the

• 8
 

Taking the Breaks and Working the Boats                   109

 

Ohio river but is about four hundred mils from Zanesville by water.

The land is very level in that part of the cuntry as I was travling.

Stade one night at a tavern which had 6 thousand acers of land be-

longed to it and 6 hundred head of cattle and a grate many sheap

and hogs. The land is very brown and hilly about Zanesville. Thares

no stone calc about Dayton and Cincinatti but thare is plenty of good

wood . . . [more prices and news of other English people around

Zanesville] R.M.

 

 

 

The next three letters from Richard to his parents were all posted

from Liverpool, and were all sent within a month of each other in late

1835 after he had arrived in England on a cotton and tobacco ship

from New Orleans.⁷ Explaining that his stay in Liverpool would not

allow him to travel to Brighton to see them, he told his parents that

he expected to make another trans-Atlantic voyage the following

year, at which time he would visit them. He reiterated his liking for

Ohio and his greater attraction to the Dayton-Cincinnati area than

Zanesville. But all parts of the Mississippi basin offered a future.

 

 

 

All parts of that large cuntry are good and more particularly those

parts on the Ohio and Miami rivers. I shall advise any person that [is]

wishing to emigrate to the western cuntry to go by the way of New

Orleans. It will be found much expeditios and les expence. Reasons

are this. On eny arivale they can without being detained take steam

to any part of the western cuntry. The fare from New Orleans to

Cincinnati is 5 dollars, luggage included. I think the tanners busnes is

as good as eny other but as to the houses of lether and bark in

Cincinnati I dew not know. On my return I shall make further enquir-

ies.

 

 

Either because Richard got home to England to see his parents on

a regular basis over the next few years, or because his letter-writing

became even less frequent, it is not possible to say if he returned to

 

 

7. Letters from Richard Mighill in Liverpool to his parents in England, September

14, 1835, September 27, 1835, and October 11, 1835. It is the latter one that is quoted

here.

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110                                              OHIO HISTORY

 

Ohio as he intended. He certainly sailed back to New York in early

1836, but no more was heard from him until 1840 when, with his

younger brothers William and Edward, he was based in New Orle-

ans where they had purchased a 12-ton boat in order to trade along

the Gulf coast.⁸

But they apparently did not fare too well in this business, because

Richard was again working the flatboats down the Ohio-Mississippi

from Cincinnati to New Orleans in the winter of 1841-42, and from

New Orleans in 1842 Richard wrote the following letter to his parents.

 

 

 

William and Edward are gawn up the river to spend the summer

... as things was rather dull hear at that time both hear and at

Mobiel . . . Things are some better than thay ware when they left.

Most of the sixty bancks are resume speace [specie] payment . . . I

have been steam boating lateley and think of continuing on till I can

dew something better for myself ... If enney of you think of going to

America I should advise the Cannadas. The United States are a

getting worse and worse every year and I think I shall leave it soon

myself if things do not change soon for the better. There is a grate

meny leaving this cuntry for Texas and New Callaforns [California].⁹

 

 

Little can be learned of Richard's whereabouts after 1842, but it

appears that he had cut his ties with Ohio. Either he wrote no more

letters home or they were not preserved, and none of his brothers,

all of whom were by now in America, refer to his wanderings. A final

letter from him written in 1856 from Los Angeles reveals that he had

joined the gold rush to California, along with brothers Edward and

Philip, but had made no money in the process. He was by then in

southern California visiting the hot springs south of Los Angeles to

ease his rheumatism which for the last three years had been "so

bad that I have not bean able to do scarce enithing."¹⁰ He was then

43 years old.

Leaving Ohio and his English contacts there to develop his Gulf

Coastal trading business in 1840, Richard returned up river to Cincin-

 

 

8. Letter from Richard Mighill in New York to his parents, February 12, 1836, and

from New Orleans, April 19, 1840.

9. Letter from Richard Mighill in New Orleans to his parents, May 23, 1842.

10. Letter from Richard Mighill in Los Angeles to his parents, March 19, 1856.

• 10
 

Taking the Breaks and Working the Boats                  111

 

nati on the flatboats on a number of occasions over the next few

years; but these journeys seemed to become less frequent. Yet in a

similar way, his younger brother Philip, as a new arrival in America,

also looked to Ohio and to English contacts there for his first em-

ployment just as Richard had done in his early months in the New

World.

Philip arrived in Aurora, southeast of Cleveland, in 1837 and

worked for a few months for an English farmer and family friend,

George Bartlett. As the following letters show, he found the experi-

ence unsatisfactory. He was then employed for a short time by a Yan-

kee farmer in the same area, but reported that he was treated little

better by him than by Bartlett. Between 1838 and 1840 Philip wrote

three letters to his parents, the first two of which, on this early peri-

od of his life in Ohio at Aurora, are quoted together here.11  Of his

employment with George Bartlett, Philip wrote:

 

 

. . .when I first got here I lived with him for 6 weeks. He used me

very well along first about 3 weeks. After that he was allways cross

with me. He wanted to play Englishman on me but it would not do

here amongst Yankees-I am a Yankee myself. George went to work

for a neighbour one day and left me to rake some hay. I did not rake

it all before a shower came. When he came home he was cross and

told me to look for another place . . .

 

In another letter Philip reported:

 

... George Bartlett kept me to work for him for fore months for

witch he never thanked me but when I left him he told people that I

worked for him to pay my passage out here. I hope I never shall see

the wretches face again. Since that I worked for a Yankey 5 months

for witch I received nothing. This was 9 months for nothing but was

a wearing out my cloths all the time. A man wanted me to go to

Illinoise and lived with [him] but I thought best not to go.

 

 

Over the two years after his arrival in Ohio Philip had other em-

ployers than the two mentioned here. His third was an Uncle Moses

of whom he wrote: "I have lived with him for one month for which

 

11. Letters from Philip Mighill in Aurora, Ohio, to his parents, October 26, 1838,

and April 20, 1840.

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112                                      OHIO HISTORY

he paied me eight dollars and I just begin to see into the Yankeys." In a second letter from Aurora, written eighteen months after the first, he reported that he was working for another Yankee, William Staunton, his fourth employer, but that Staunton was thinking of shifting into central Ohio.       I am not used here as I was at that Englishman Bartletts. I am going to stay with him 1 year. He thinks of going about 200 miles south from here .... There it is newly settled. That is the country for me, all woods and plenty of game. The land there is 1 1/4 dollar per acre. I wish I had about 50 soverings to bye some land with my boss. He is going to bye 80 acrs. The lots are one mile square 160 acrs in a lot ....       A third letter Philip wrote ten weeks after the last, and addressed from Streetsboro, a few miles south of Aurora, shows that he had left the employment of William Staunton and was now working for an- other farmer, Samuel Russel. That he felt more settled here, in spite of illness, is suggested by his plan to stay with Mr. Russel for at least a

• 12
 

Taking the Breaks and Working the Boats                113

 

year and to have his parents visit him from England, in connection

with which he asked them to bring "a good fox hound" for hunting

and two Durham heffers for his employer.

 

 

 

Streetsborough, June 28, 1840

Dear Father and Mother,

[Letter received] . . . I am in Streetsborough with Mr. Samuel Rus-

sel jun ... I have been here about 3 months. I have had the fever

and ague 2 months and have not been able to do anything but I am

now on the gain . . . [family news] . . . I think I shall stay whare I am

this summer . . . [news of George Bartlett] . . . Mr. Russel says he

should like to have you bring me out 2 of your Durram heffers when

you come out next sumer . . . [food prices] ... I shall stay here next

summer if nothing happens. If you come out here bring a good fox

hound with you for foxes are verry thick about here. We caught too

one day last fall. The clothes you talk of sending, I have no shirts.

Anything will be acceptable . . . [family greetings].

No more at present from your

obedient son,

Philip Mighill

 

 

 

Whereas Richard had appeared to do little to encourage his

brothers to join him in America-but they still came-Philip was

much more forthright in his advice. Just as in the last letter quoted

he was considering the visit of his parents, so in his two earlier letters

he urged his brothers, Edward and William, to come to America

and advised them on how to come: "I wish to no if it is ever you in-

tention to come out here. If you had have come when I did, with 100

soverings you would have been better satisfied here than with all

you have got in England." In a later letter he advised them to join

him as soon as possible, and that it was best to come via New York

and without a passage paid by an employer to whom one is then in-

debted:

 

 

 

If ever any of you come across, come on your own hook . . . We

were not used verry well on board the Dianna. If ever you come out

here do not come in the way we did, come by the way of New York

• 13
 

114                                            OHIO HISTORY

 

for it is mutch cheaper on the cannall and better. William I wish you

had come out here. With what you had you could have bought you

a good farme and you could have doubled it by this time. If I only

had what you had when I started I should have been a rich man by

this time...

 

 

Three other letters, all written by a third brother, Edward, in 1842

complete the series. Soon after arriving in America Edward had, like

his brothers Richard and Philip, been attracted to Ohio where he

hoped to farm, and, like his elder brothers Richard and William,

had worked for some time on the Mississippi flatboats. The first let-

ter reproduced here was written by Edward in New Orleans soon af-

ter he had arrived from Cincinnati on a flatboat.

 

 

 

New Orleans, January 17, 1842

Dear Farther and Mother,

I now take this opertunety of writing to you hoping to finde you in

as good helt [health] as it leavs me, for I was never in beter helth in

my life, thank God. I arived hear last Wednesday from Cincinnata on

a flat bote. I left thair on Nov. 9 but the water was verey low and it

took us a long time to cum down. We brought down 1000 barel of

flower, 60 of whiskey and 60 of pork. I had 28 dolars for cuming down

on her.

Richard got hear about 2 weaks ago. He left Cincinnata a few days

after me on a flat bote but came on her no further than Vicksburgh.

He is hear and quite well. William we hear arrived hear about 6

weaks ago. I am tolde he was quite well but he could scarse se out of

his eyes, but I hear he was a little sik last sumer. He neverd stop hear

a day but went on to Mobeil. I wrote to him last nite. He was in Saint

Louis I belive last sumer. I have not seen nor heard from him since

last May.

This is the first time I have wrote to you since I wrote in Cleveland

and I thing [think] if I was not to write you would never get a leter, for

neither Richard or Wiliam will write. Frank Bartlett is hear and quite

well. I saw him yestarday. He told me he had not heard from home

for 2 years. He thinks it verey strang [h]is farther does not write. He

ast (asked) Richard and me down to dinner today but I could not

find Richard and I did not go. I wrote to Mr. Stile in Cleveland on

the 16th of January and expects an answer soon. The [they] were all

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Taking the Breaks and Working the Boats                 115

 

well when I left that. Mr. Stile received a letter from his son James

from Zanesville while I was in Cleveland. The letter stated of a Mr.

Buckwell and his wife from Brighton which arrived there this sum-

mer and he suposed they came away in the night while folks were in

bed . . . [further reference to Brighton].

It has been verry sickly hear this summer and there was a great

many deaths in the sitty (city). Times has been verry dull here for

some time back but they are mending fast. Provisions of all kinds is

cheap here except flour and it is worth 6 dolars for a barel. Pork is

from 2 to 3 cents per lb. Potatoes is from 1 dolar to 1 1/4 per barel ...

[more prices and family greetings].

Edward Mighill

 

 

Edward's next two letters were written from Cleveland, an area

which he said he liked better than the south and which offered

cheaper living. He hoped to get a farm there.

 

 

Cleveland, May 29, 1842

Dear Farther and Mother,

[Greetings] . . . I arived hear from Orleans the 25 of April and

William with me. Things ware verey dull thair. Thair was plentey of

coton and other produce in the citey but the merchants ware verey

backward in shiping of it and 8 of thair banks ware in a verey bad

state. Thair money was onely worth 25 cents for the dolar.

I ham now working for one Mr. Hodle. I get 13 dolars per mont[h]

and things are verey dull hear but I think thay will take a start soon

for thay are going to bild a grate deal this sumer I hear. I think I shall

stop in this countery this winter for I like it much beter than the

southern counterey and I would have done much beter hear last

winter if I had stopt, than I did by going to Orleans. I want to get my-

self a peice of land if I can and go to farming for I finde a roling stone

gathers no moss.

William left hear on the 9 for New York, and from thair he is a go-

ing to cum home for a wife. I hope she will cum for I think it will be

much beter for bowth of them and I think she will like this countery

much beter than England wen she gets hear . . . [William going to

Mobile first]. I want you to send out by him some garden seed of all

kinds for if we get a peice of land thay will be verey handey to us, for

it is a hard mater to get good seed hear. I told William to fetch some

but I expet [expect] he will pay no attention to it. I want you allso to

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116                                             OHIO HISTORY

 

send me a good suite of clothes for Sundays and Wiliam will pay you

for them, and I will setle with him for them, for I canot get eney hear

that is good for eneything without paying three times the wourth of

them.

Richard left Orleans about 3 weaks before we did, asteamboating.

He came to Cincinnata and wen we got thair the bote had left for Or-

leans and so we never saw him. But I expet he will cum up hear this

sumer. Theay had a verey milde winter hear and the spring was a

month erler [earlier] than it usually is. All the crops look verey well

and they say thair will be great crops of wheat and corn this year.

Thair is allso a great show for fruit. Provishons are very cheap. Hear

pork is from 3 to 4 dolars per barel . . . [other food prices] . . . eggs 3

cents per doz. The hens say they too cheap it dont pay to lay them.

Every other things is cheap in comparison to numeros to mencion as I

am getting tired of writing.

James Stile was hear from Zanesville. He told [me] he had a leter

from Brighton stating the railroad being finisht and the terminance is

coming in which I was glad to hear. I hope yough [you] will write as

soon as you get this for I have not heard from yough for 14 months

. . .[asks for a Brighton newspaper, family greetings].

Your dutiful and afaconate son

Edward Mighill

 

 

Edward's last letter, and the final one in the whole series, shows

that at the end of 1842 he was little nearer getting the farm he hoped

for even though he had "a pocket full of dolars." He was now work-

ing in a hog distillery near Cleveland and living with Mr. Stile, the

English farmer to whom Richard came originally, and a Mrs. White

who was a silk dyer.¹² The letter also refers to other Englishmen in

Ohio who were known to his parents and at various times had be-

friended the Mighill sons.

 

 

 

Cleveland, December 28, 1842

Dear Farther and Mother,

[Family greetings] . . . ever since William left I have been to worke

for one Mr. Pelie this last 5 months in a distilery. I left thair on Christ-

 

 

12. By 1840, just before Edward arrived, Cleveland had become the second-most

• 16
 

Taking the Breaks and Working the Boats                   117

 

mas Day on acount of it a stoping to repair the boilers and stills, but

he wants me back again wen they start wich will be about 2 weaks.

But I think I will not go for I do not like it on acount of having to work

on Sunday. Besides it is verey disaegreable work and I can aforde to

stay still the rest of the winter for I have a pocket full of dolars, or till I

can find something to suite me beter . . . [letters received].

I am living with Mrs. Winter and Mr. Stile and are very comforta-

ble. I have not sent aney papers to you this sumer for ware I worked is

2 miles from Cleveland and it was seldom I got a chance to cum into

the citey to se for them in one of your letters.

You wish to know what is cum of Green and Brown. They are both

in Zanesville. Green is at work in the stone cuting bisnes [business]

but is maried againe to a widow women with 9 children, and [h]is

own 5 make onely a small family of 14, but I believe that he had a

pretey good farm with hur. Brown is at worke at the bote bilding

trade . . . :[Brown's children].

In the last letter I had from yo [you] say yo had some of our porke

but it was not so good in flavour [as] your own, but for my part I have

seen beter hogs hear than you can begin to rase, and eat fines porre

[pork] than ever I did in Brighton. But in this countery thay think so

little of it they take no paines in salting and packing of it as you do at

home, but I gess the packers thinks it will do for John Bull at the

disterley.

We fated about 9 hundred hogs which are fed upon the meal after

the spirits are taken from it. Theas ware all boiled down for lamp oil

wich wen manafactured is worth $1 per galon. This pays beter than

making porke of it. Thay take the hogs and cut them up, hams and

all, boil it down into larde after wich it goes through another process

and becomes equl [equal] to eney straned sperm oil ... Thair are sev-

eral of this kinde of manafactures started up in and about Cleveland

and is geting quite comon in all the western states. Ded hogs can be

bought now for $1 + 1.50 per hundredweight, beef is $1.50 to $2 per

hun . . . [more prices] ... I bought 3 fine young gees at 15 cents

each. Theas I meen for my birthday and I wish you ware heare to

have some dinner with me. I think they will go pretty well with a

good plum puding.

 

 

 

 

populated city in Ohio, with over 6000 inhabitants and a wide range of industries.

There were two hog-packing companies, such as the one that Edward worked in, in

Cleveland in 1829, and others were established in the years that followed. W. G. Rose,

Cleveland, the Making of a City (Cleveland, undated), 110.

• 17
 

118                                           OHIO HISTORY

 

It has been a pretey mild winter so far, they say, but it [h]as been

as cold as I have seen it fore maney years, but I supose I feel it more

by being in warm climates so long. Thair has been more loss of lives

and shiping on the lakes this winter than has been nown for a num-

ber of years before . . . [no news of Philip, send news from home].

We have had a one Mr. Hick a preching in Cleveland and he

preches that the coming of Criste will be in April next. Thair are some

belive him and quit work and have joined him. Others have gone out

of their minde, others insane and some died through his preching.

Others call him an imposter but for my part I think he is after wat he

can get.

We have had but verey little snow this winter. The canal [h]as

been shut up this 6 weaks and all navagacion stopt on the lakes. The

ladis of this citey have been round bying up all turkeys they could

get and give them to the poor, the widow[s] and sik for thair Crist-

mas diner, likewise food, flour and watever theay neded to make

them comfortable for the winter. It was rather sikley in Cleveland last

sumer, and thair ware a good maney deths . . . [Greetings].

Edward Mighill

 

 

Edward, finding his employment at the hog packers "very dis-

aegreable work," eventually bought the Ohio farm he hoped for al-

though he had to sell it again in 1845 when he failed to keep up with

the payments. By this time he was in the south working for his

brother William, about whom we can learn least but who ran a cotton

dray business out of Mobile. When Richard's coastal boating busi-

ness failed in New Orleans, leaving him and Philip unemployed, all

four brothers left the south for California, three of them to the gold-

fields and William to San Francisco. Just as they left Ohio for New

Orleans, so they left the south for California, in search of new oppor-

tunities on fresh frontiers.

• 18