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| Robert T. Bosomworth, courtesy of Sarah Schorfheide Erwin |
Since writing my piece on Robert T. Bosomworth and his family, I have discovered further information about their lives in England, and about the circumstances of their voyage to America. As I previously stated, four generations of the family travelled together. Robert came with his wife, most of his children, his grandchildren, his father George, and his brother John and his wife. In addition, his niece Amelia, daughter of his sister Hannah, accompanied them.
According to a profile of William
Bosomworth, Robert's son, in Portrait and Biographical Record of
Madison County, Illinois, the
ship on which they originally sailed “sprang a leak” and they
were “nearly shipwrecked”. They were “obliged to return to
Liverpool”. From there, they boarded the ship the “George
Washington”, and after a voyage of roughly thirty-five days, which
was the average on a sailing ship, arrived in America “the day
before Christmas”. The incoming passenger list is available on
Ancestry.ca, which shows them arriving on December 19, 1853. The
total length of the family's journey is described as being “eleven
weeks”, which likely includes the first attempt. I have not yet
been able to find the pertinent outgoing lists. The family must have
been determined to come to the New World, as four generations of
Bosomworths were nearly lost all at once.
There does appear
to have been at least one family tragedy aboard the George
Washington. The Findagrave.com memorial for Robert's granddaughter,
Mary Elizabeth Bosomworth, daughter of his son George, states that
she died at the age of one of the measles and was buried at sea. It
is possible that other Bosomworths also died during the voyages, but
the incoming passenger list only tells us who arrived alive.
It can be imagined
that the family came to America for a better life, but there seems to
be another circumstance which may have influenced their decision. I
have found a newspaper article on Findmypast.com which reveals that
Robert's fourteen-year-old son John, committed suicide in 1845 by
hanging. He had been a “footman” in the employ of “Richard
Hill, Esq.” of “Thornton House near Pickering”. The verdict of
the coroner's inquest was “temporary insanity”.
In my 2012 blogpost
on Robert T. Bosomworth, I asserted that I did not believe that
Robert's father George travelled with the family, particularly as the
age listed for “George Bosomworth” on the passenger list was
about twenty years off. However, I now defer to the account in the
Madison County history, previously mentioned, which states that
George came with them and died soon after. I also stated that the
George on the list was likely Robert's son George Robert, but I now
believe that the twenty-one year old “Robert Bosomworth” on the
list was probably him. The elder George died soon after their
arrival, according to the account, possibly in Springfield, Ohio,
their first home in America.
Robert T.
Bosomworth is reported while in Ohio to have been employed “cutting
wood at fifty cents a cord”. The family removed to Lynnville,
Morgan County, Illinois in 1854, and then settled in Madison County
in 1856, where Robert purchased land after renting a farm for ten
years.
I am wondering if
their choice to move to Lynnville might have been influenced by
knowing people from their hometown in England who were living there.
These are namely Thomas Dickenson and his family, whose daughter Ann
married Robert's son, my great great grandfather, Charles, in May
1856. Ann and Charles had been baptized in the same church in
Thornton Dale, Yorkshire three years apart.
