This collection is made up of eight incoming letters to Scotland-born Anne Dickson Porritt and her husband David Porritt in Bury, Lancashire, England, between 1849 and 1859. They received letters from siblings who emigrated from Scotland and England to Buffalo, New York, and Janesville, Wisconsin. They shared their perspectives on immigration to the United States, cynical reactions to liberty and equality in a slave-owning and class-divided society, labor (farmers, joiners, carpenters, etc.), industry, wages, child rearing, hired servants, land speculation, and other subjects. Letter-writers include A. W. Dickson (1 item, Buffalo, New York, 1849), farmer Eliza Cross Dickson Bleasdale (2 items, Janesville, Wisconsin, 1855 and 1857), and John Dickson (5 items, Janesville, Wisconsin, and Leeds, England, 1857-1859).
See the box and folder listing below for detailed descriptions of each letter.
John Dickson (1794-1861) and Agnes Robertson lived in Scotland and had at least four children, including Anne Dickson (b. ca. 1825), Eliza Cross Dickson (October 28, 1826-February 12, 1907), Agnes Dickson (1828-1908), and John Dickson (b. 1831).
Anne Dickson was born ca. 1825 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and married David Porritt on May 15, 1851. The couple lived in Bury, Lancashire, England, where David worked as a joiner and carpenter. They had at least four children, including John W. (b. ca. 1854), Mary Ann (b. ca. 1856), Eliza (b. ca. 1858), and Charles Porritt (b. ca. 1860). Anne Dickson Porritt died in December 1913, in Bury, England.
Eliza Cross Dickson was born on October 28, 1826, in Perth, Scotland. She married Englishman Ralph Parker Bleasdale (1826-1880) in 1849. Her family immigrated to Janesville, Wisconsin, and had seven children, including John W. (b. ca. 1850), Joseph R. (b. ca. 1853), Ralph Parker (1854-1906), Frank Thornton (1857-1915), Eliza Hannah (1859-1943), Agnes Jane (1864-1930), and Florence Anna (1865-1925). Eliza Dickson Bleasdale worked as a farmer. In 1870, the family had real estate valued at $8,750 and a personal estate valued at $3,000. By 1880, Ralph Bleasdale, Sr., became afflicted with paralysis, and the entire family continued to live and work as farmers or teachers in Janesville. Eliza Bleasdale died on February 12, 1907, and is buried in Janesville, Wisconsin.
John Dickson was born in 1831. He married a woman named Emma (b. ca. 1832) and had at least one daughter, Mary E. Dickson (b. ca. 1853). He traveled to Janesville, Wisconsin, to stay with his sister Anne and brother-in-law David Bleasdale between 1857 and 1858. By the fall of 1858, he returned to his home in Leeds, England, where he eventually worked in woolen manufacture.
