Rev. Matthew Dinsdale was born at Askrigg, Yorkshire, England, July
14, 1815, and received his education at a boy’s school in his native
valley Wensleydale. This school was on a foundation existing from the
time of Queen Elizabeth, and one of its first trustees was Ivor
Dinsdale, an ancestor of Matthew. The latter came to the United States
in 1844 on the packet _St. George_, 1200 tons, one of the finest
transatlantic steamers of its time. After a three months’ journey he
arrived at Kenosha (then Southport), Wisconsin, on the eighth of
October, and was soon among friends who had preceded him and settled
at English Prairie just across the Wisconsin line in McHenry County,
Illinois. A month later Mr. Dinsdale was received into the quarterly
conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, having brought
credentials from the Wesleyan Conference in England. The next year he
joined the Rock River Conference and was assigned to Potosi circuit in
the lead-mining district of southwestern Wisconsin. The succeeding
year Mr. Dinsdale was appointed to the Lake Winnebago circuit, then a
mission district including preaching stations among the Brothertown
Indians, at Oshkosh, and other new settlements along the lake shore.
He virtually lived in the saddle, going from cabin to cabin, and
gathering the settlers together for a Sunday service. Often he slept
by the roadside or in the woods. His health was impaired by the severe
strain of his circuit-riding days, and in 1849 he joined a group of
friends who visited the gold regions of California. After over two
years in this pioneer work, Mr. Dinsdale returned to England, and
there in April, 1853 he married Mary Anne Mann, of York. Returning to
America with his young English bride, he applied once more for
admission to the Methodist Church, and in 1858 entered the West
Wisconsin Conference. Thereafter for nineteen years he served in many
pastorates in the southwestern part of the state. In 1872 and 1873 he
was preacher in charge at Madison. Four years later he retired from
the active ministry, and spent his declining years at Linden, Iowa
County, where, on April 15, 1898, he passed away.
His only surviving daughter, Mrs. Magnus Swenson, of Madison, has
recently presented to the Historical Society many of her father’s
papers. Among them are three diaries of considerable historical value.
The first describes the voyage from England to America, the early days
in this country, the work and events of pioneer life, “hewing bees,”
house-raisings, rail-splittings, hog-killings, and the like,
interspersed with descriptions of the weather, the climate, and the
land.
The second, or California diary, is perhaps the most interesting of
the number. Leaving Linden, Wisconsin, November 3, 1849, the traveler
went via Milwaukee, Buffalo, and Albany to New York City whence he
sailed December 1 for Panama. Thereafter we have a daily account until
the landing, January 21, 1850, at the new city of San Francisco, which
he thus characterizes: “San Francisco I think will become a great
place. Its location is good convenient and pleasant and more still is
healthy.” Thence the young minister sought the mining camps, digging
during the week and preaching on Sunday. Here for example is a typical
entry: “Sunday 19 Jany 1851. A Captn (Sea) told me _how_ he came to be
in the mines. Lost his vessel and came to San Francisco to purchase
another. There he took the _fever_ and came to dig: Has made but
little, Spoke of the misery caused to familes by the gold discovery.
His case that of thousands. Leave all to mine and then make nothing.”
Mr. Dinsdale’s case was not of this character. The fifth of June,
1853, the assay of his gold at the Philadelphia mint amounted to
$4,094.13.
The third journal was written when in service as agent of the
Christian Commission in the spring of 1865 in the vicinity of
Nashville. The writer visited the camps and hospitals, distributed
papers and Bibles, read and prayed with the soldiers, and in some
cases took their dying messages.
In addition to the diaries, the papers include many letters of
historical interest. All those written home to England from the time
the young emigrant arrived at New York until he left there five years
later for California have fortunately been preserved. The writer had a
good command of language and a gift for clear and lucid expression,
and he portrays his first experiences in the New World with delightful
vigor and freshness. He relates his first days in America, the prices
of commodities and the modes and discomforts of traveling. He had an
especial fondness for natural scenery, and his descriptions even of so
hackneyed a subject as Niagara Falls, do not pall upon the reader.
More important are the accounts he gives of conditions in our
Territory during its formative years--at first in the southeast, then
in the more settled southwestern portion he pictures the life of the
frontier with truth and vigor. Most valuable of all, perhaps, is the
description he gives of the Lake Winnebago region when the rapid
ingress of new settlers was at its height, and the Indians were
retreating before the American advance. Among the experiences he
details were those of a visit to a Menominee Indian payment on the
shores of Lake Poygan, where his clear observation of conditions among
the retiring race are of peculiar value to the historian of the
tribesmen. In the letters of advice which he gave to relatives who
intended to emigrate, nothing was forgotten, and their detailed
narration presents a full picture of the difficulties and necessities
of the early immigrants from Great Britain, and the courage required
to undertake the long and oft-times dangerous voyage.
A series of later letters describes the writer’s experience in the
work of the Christian Commission during the Civil War.
Taken as a whole the Dinsdale Papers are a valuable addition to the
collections of our Society, illustrating as they so well do the
experiences of an intelligent, educated immigrant during the formative
period of territorial days. It is to be hoped that many more such
groups of papers, now preserved in private hands, will ultimately find
their way into our custody where they will be of value to the history
of this state.