English Travelers (Revised)

This is a collection of three true narratives of an English family. Twenty-nine year old Susannah Estlin travels to France in 1789. She finds her way to Paris and from July 14th is witness to the storming of the Bastille and other events now part of history. The reader glimpses British upper middle class society through Susannah's remarks on French manners, religion, food and the height of French beds. She comments on the well-known Paris icons, the Louvre, Versailles, the Palais Royale and Notre Dame. Grandson John Prior Estlin, age 20, a Somerset bank clerk resides in London from 1847 to 1848. He describes Victorian London with its churches, public baths, Billingsgate fish market, sailing ships, docks, and Hansom cabs. His journal describes common tourist sights and family gatherings, which he illustrates with his own sketches. In 1881, John Prior's oldest son Alfred becomes the spokesperson for the family when his father suddenly dies just as the family emigrates to Canada. The family are left penniless, with no idea of how to farm or deal with the vast country and its new customs. He endures the Red River flood of 1882, 21 days by wagon and oxen to the Souris River and many long days building a homestead in what is now Manitoba. This story is a testament to the ingenuity of all the young men and their families who came to a strange land and built new lives in Canada during the 1880s.