SEARCHING FOR CHARLES: The Untold Legacy of an Immigrant’s American Adventure | IndieReader
May 19, 2023
A celebration of an “ordinary” working-class immigrant who journeyed from Britain to build a new life in America offers a window into 19th-Century prairie pioneer living.
SEARCHING FOR CHARLES (The Untold Legacy of an Immigrant’s American Adventure) unravels the legacy of Charles Watts, a lawyer’s clerk who set sail from London to New York City in 1835 to find a better future. The book’s 579 pages include reprints of twenty-two archival letters that the pioneer sent to family members between the years 1836 and 1868. Some tell of tragedy while others relate mundane details of daily living. Many contain heartfelt pleas to his brother Edward to join him. Author Stephen Watts, (Charles’s great-great-grandson) decodes the missives, which are immense in scope and detail. Then he follows each with a chapter that expands on his great-great-grandfather’s letters to put their content into historical context. In doing so he creates remarkable snapshots of a working-class British immigrant’s new life.
Though the author calls his great-great-grandfather typical and ordinary, the letters reveal an articulate man with thoughtful observations that resonate with modern-day concerns to a surprising degree. The letters cover everything from the plight of indigenous peoples to the evils of land speculators and include (of course) complaints about the extremes of hot and cold weather in the New World. “The poor Indians are already driven from large tracts of Country that are yet unsurveyed, (sic) and which ought certainly to be in their peaceable possession,” one 1839 letter states. A subsequent 1846 letter decries “. . . the rascally exporters (sic) Merchants (who) acquire their princely fortunes out of the Sweat & blood of the poor producer & consumer! (sic)”
The book is professionally presented and contains intriguing photos that help bring the author’s ancestors to life. The writing style is simple and direct, in contrast to the author’s complex footnoting, genealogy diagrams and maps. The quality and scope of research is the book’s main strength. Author Watts scoured thousands of documents, indexes and historical records regarding births, deaths, marriages, and military service. The main problem is the author’s struggle to organize his unwieldy research. Many of the historical events are recounted from different sources or cobbled together from archival anecdotes and readers may have trouble linking the threads of Charles Watts’s life. As it’s now organized, the book has too much information for most readers and its structure makes the historical narrative confusing, even though the author includes a lengthy explanation relating how to read it.
Genealogy lovers will be enthralled by author Stephen Watts’ Searching for Charles, a fascinating, authentic, and epic search to uncover his American family tree. ★★★