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…………









June 13,1856 Unknown John Benjamin Friend to John Benjamin-1823

Flint
June 13, 1856
Dear John,
Your very welcome letter of April 19 only came to hand on 26 May, just five weeks after it was written.  I can assure you it gave me very great pleasure to hear from you after so long a silence ____ the pleasure of which must now rests with me for you wrote to me last and I have been remiss in not writing long ago. 
I am glad to hear that yourself and family are in the enjoyment of health and am grateful to say that we are the same in that enjoyment of that irresistible blessing. 
After so long a silence you will naturally expect as long a letter > the news of a public character you will from time to time you will have learned from the Albion, our local and private news I must send you what I can. 
There has been an alteration in our firm since I last wrote.  Mr. Joseph ___ has withdrawn;  we are going along on usual jogging away but not making money like you Americans do.  I should very much like to take a trip across the Atlantic some summer for 3 or 4 months if fortune favors me before I get too old to appreciate the pleasures of traveling.  I certainly think I shall come over to see the beauties of the country.  I sometimes in joke tell my wife I will sell up and go to America, buy land, and settle down as a farmer but she would not go if she might have America for going she says with Bryon “England with all thy faults I love they still”.   I have often thought if my wife’s family were all to go they would do well for they are all workers, both lads and lasses.  I am found of farming, it is such a healty occupation; in fact it is the natural business of man.   
Have you never the longing to see your own dear nation home?  I think at times you must feel a desire for however beautiful the land of your adoption may be, it cannot surpass the in beauty the hills and the valleys of hen Eymsus(?) but perhaps you may never again tread your native soil .  You and I may never see each other on this side the grass, that will not be of much consequence if we only meet in a happier place.  I hope and trust we are journeying _____________.
There has been great changes in the occupation of ______ here within the last two years.  All Mostyns estates about here have been on sale and most of them have changed hands .  I have bought the house I live in , or rather the freehold or reversion of the lease.  Rose cottage, you will remember it,  have altered and improved it very much since I bought it and now it is a comfortable little cot.   I have also with the assistance of a friend bought Lyddys near Bagillt; my mother in law is not living there.  It is a capital farm.   The late Mr. Roulkes Jones  spent a deal of money improving it.   I hope if I am spared and am fortunate I may sometime have it entirely free, but how we do toil for worldly possessions and how slow we are to secure our heavenly ones. 
Mr. ___ Eyton died about three months ago and the collieries here are standing in consequence.  They are going to be sold.  I hope they will go on again as it is a great injury to the neighborhood their ceasing to work. 
I suppose I gold you before that we had gas works in Flint (it is so long since I wrote I may fall into the error of telling you things twice over) of which I have the assignment.  I have gas in every room in my home now.  I cook with it as well.  We hope at some distant time to have water brought into the town, but the colliers stopping will put a check to improvements.
Musparrate who has Roskells old smelting works is doing a large business.  They employ a very great number of men indeed.  Flint would be in a bad condition now but for them.  Oner of the partners, Mr. Ricahrd Muspratt, has another large house in the square .  They are a very nice family.  It is through then that we have had gas introduced .  They have also established a library and news room.  It is called the Flint ____ Institution. 
I feel flattered by you ______________________________>  I hope he might be a better man than the one whose

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