John Benjamin was born in England in 1823. In 1849, at the age of 26, he immigrated to America with the goal of seeking opportunities in the new world and improving the life of his family. During his immigration and eventual settlement in Hutchinson, Minnesota, John saved many personal letters that were written by and to him. These letters, the subject of this web site, bring to life his immigration and the life of others during this courageous adventure. The most recent letters posted on this sight are on this front page. To see all the earlier letters, keep pressing the “Older Posts” button on the bottom of this page. The earliest letter recorded here is June 20, 1849. The letters…………









August 14,1857 Robert Benjamin-1795 to Edwin Benjamin-1833

 
Bagillt
August 14, 1857
Dear Edwin,
I for once more take the opportunity of sending a few lines to you in hopes of finding you all enjoying the best of health as these leaves both your mother and myself but very indifferent indeed, for I myself have been laid up for about eighteen or nineteen weeks with a very bad leg as we should suppose as Robert Williams might of told you as he was here two or three times before he came to America.  And we are sadly surprised what have we done to you and your brother John, that we are gone that it is not worth your while to send a single letter to your father and mother, and I think that we are not deserving of being used in that way, for I have sent you 8 letters and we have never received an answer,  only to the first two of them atall, and we have never received one letter from you since the 19th of November, 1855, and that is 21 months ago, and we told Robert Williams all about it, these things, before he came, and he would not allow me to write a few lines to take with him for he said that he could tell the things  better himself, and we have no doubt but he has told you all our conversations  as we told him and as he was well aware of them himself, and we have been ___ waiting to hear from you after his arrival until now thinking that you ere this would have sent something or other about yourselves , either your brother John or yourself .  We have never got nothing from him since January 1857 and that a small note in Mr. Gleave’s ___ and said in that that he had received a letter from cousin Jones the watchmaker in Holywell and that he would be sending to him soon, and that he could send one in that again, and then he has never sent nothing to him atall and they can’t think what is to do with him as he don’t send to them, and we can find that Robert Williams has sent home two or three times since he has arrived in America and cannot find as nothing is said about us in any one of them atall.  Therefore, don’t you think that it makes us quite uneasy to think that as he is along with you must send home and you cannot send as much as a single line or other.  We think that it is a great shame for you and also your brother John that you can use your poor father and mother in the same way, and I do believe that it is a sin too for you to be so, and you making so many promises as you did and does not perform any of them atall.  We are quite ashamed to give people an answer when they ask us if we don’t hear from you and have to tell them that we don’t hear atall.  And we have to tell you that you said you would send our rent in your last, that you would send it by the first of January 1856 and never heard from you since, and Mr. Faulks is without the money ever since and none besides, and he often threatens us to upset us upon the account that he can’t see that you send us anything  atall, that it is too much expense and trouble for to write a few lines home, let alone send any money.  He was here last week saying the same, therefore we don’t know what to say to him for I can assure you when he turns us from here we have nowhere to go to but to the union workhouse , and that is a true fact for you as I am  sorry that I have it for Robert to you and I am sorryer [sic] to tell you as you well know that yourselves before you went away to America that I cannot work myself, to my sorrow, in these days .
Therefore your brothers and sisters sends their kind respects to you all , and this from your dutyful father and mother,
Robert & Sarah Benjamin

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