William E. Van Vugt - Portrait of an English Migration: North Yorkshire People in North America

Series editors: Alan Dobson, Robert Hendershot, and Steve Marsh

The McGill-Queens Transatlantic Studies series, in partnership with the Transatlantic Studies Association, provides a focal point for scholarship examining and interrogating the rich cultural, political, social, and economic connections between nations, organizations, and networks that border the Atlantic Ocean. The series combines traditional disciplinary studies with innovative interdisciplinary work, stimulating debate about and engagement with a field of transatlantic studies broadly defined to capture a breadth and richness of scholarship. Books in the series focus on but are not limited to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, normally falling within the subfields of history, economics, politics and international relations, literature, and cultural studies.

1 Not Like Home American Visitors to Britain in the 1950s

Michael John Law

2 Transatlantic Upper Canada Portraits in Literature, Land, and British-Indigenous Relations

Kevin Hutchings

3 Greatness and Decline National Identity and British Foreign Policy

Srdjan Vucetic

4 Portrait of an English Migration North Yorkshire People in North America

William E. Van Vugt

North Yorkshire People in North America

William E. Van Vugt

McGill-Queens University Press
Montreal & Kingston London Chicago

McGill-Queens University Press 2021

ISBN 978-0-2280-0584-1 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0585-8 (paper)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0686-2 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0687-9 (ePUB)

Legal deposit first quarter 2021
Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

This book was published with the help of grants from the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship and the John Van Engen Faculty Development Fund.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Portrait of an English migration : North Yorkshire people in North America / William E. Van Vugt.

Names: Van Vugt, William E., 1957- author.

Series: McGill-Queens transatlantic studies ; 4.

Description: Series statement: McGill-Queens transatlantic studies ; 4 | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2020035552X | Canadiana (ebook) 20200355872 | ISBN 9780228005841 (cloth) | ISBN 9780228005858 (paper) | ISBN 9780228006862 (ePDF) | ISBN 9780228006879 (ePUB)

Subjects: LCSH: English United States History. | LCSH: English Canada History. | LCSH: Immigrants United States History. | LCSH: Immigrants Canada History. | LCSH: North Yorkshire (England) Emigration and immigration History. | LCSH: United States Emigration and immigration History. | LCSH: Canada Emigration and immigration History. | LCSH: North Yorkshire (England) Biography.

Classification: LCC E184.B7 V36 2021 | DDC 973/.0421 dc23

This book was designed and typeset by Peggy & Co. Design in 11.5/14 Adobe Garamond Pro.

For Dudley Baines

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the people and institutions who made this book possible. I was fortunate to have four superb mentors over many years of studying British-American history: Ronald Wells, Robert Swierenga, Charlotte Erickson, and Dudley Baines. Erickson and Baines were especially helpful and generous during graduate school and the decades that followed. Their pioneering work on the study of migration and other aspects of economic history will always remain the standard in the field. I hope this book reflects that.

I am grateful to Calvin University for its support in the form of a sabbatical leave, several course reductions, and a McGregor fellowship for my student, Spencer Cone, to conduct early research with the passenger lists, census manuscripts, and local newspapers. I am also grateful to my History Department chairs Will Katerberg, Kristin Du Mez, and Kate van Liere for their encouragement and support. Jenna Hunt was especially helpful with preparing the footnotes and bibliography and reading the manuscript for technical errors and clarity. I am also grateful for financial support from the John Van Engen Faculty Development Fund and the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship.

In England I have incurred many debts that are a pleasure to acknowledge. I owe special thanks to Tanja Bueltmann, Donald MacRaild, and David Gleeson, who hosted me several times at Northumbria University in Newcastle for conferences and invited lectures. These scholars have advanced the study of British and Irish migration with several important works. Tanja and Dons recent The English Diaspora in North America: Migration, Ethnicity, and Association, 1730s1950s, has added much knowledge to that subject and has led me to revise my own understanding in important ways. This book reflects their contributions to the field, and I owe them much for their support, dedication, and exemplary scholarship.

I am especially indebted to Marion Moverley of the Upper Dales Family History Group. When I first asked her for advice on sources on North Yorkshire, she contacted local and family historians who generously provided me with many letters and journals and permission to use them. She also read an early version of the manuscript and spotted areas for improvement that only an expert historian from North Yorkshire could do. Her vast and intimate knowledge of the region everything from local families and traditions, early memories to accents and dialects, places, and how to farm was invaluable. Any remaining errors or shortcomings are mine alone.

Helen Bainbridge, curator of the Swaledale Museum in Reeth, gave me encouragement and advice, allowed me to use their archives, and invited me to present a public lecture on an earlier version of this work. I am also indebted to Glenys Marriott of the Upper Dales Family History Group and editor of Those Who Left the Dales, a wonderful collection of letters by emigrants in many parts of the world. Christine Howie provided letters of her ancestors, the Wilkinsons of Nebraska and Wyoming. Others who did the same include Ruth Simpson, Jacqueline Auclair, and Janet Westwell, who also assisted with obtaining photographs, as did Christine Amsden and Phyllis Ruth Edwards. I would also like to thank Roger Burt and Mike Gill for their encouragement and expertise on mining history.

I am grateful to many archives and museums in both England and the United States. In North Yorkshire, the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes provided sources and research space and permission to cite excerpts from their collections. The same is true of the North Yorkshire County Record Office (NYCRO) in Northallerton, the Keld Resource Centre in Keld, the Richmondshire Museum, in Richmond, the Ryedale Folk Museum in Ryedale, the Rosedale History Society and Reading Room in Rosedale Abbey, the Fylingdales Local History Group in Robin Hoods Bay, the Whitby Museum, the Beck Isle Museum and Archives in Pickering, the Skipton Library, and the Rosedale History Society. In other parts of Yorkshire, I found materials in the East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Local Studies Service in the Treasure House, in Beverley. I also studied sources in the West Yorkshire Archives in Leeds, Bradford, Kirklees and Wakefield, and in the Durham Archives Museum. In London I found materials in the British Library of Economic and Political Science, the National Archives in Kew, and the Freemasons Hall on Great Queen Street.