author

Richard Flower

d. 1829

An English brewer, reformer, and early Illinois settler, he wrote lively letters that helped shape how British readers imagined life on the American frontier. His story connects radical politics in England with the founding years of Albion, Illinois.

1 Audiobook

Hulme's Journal, 1818-19; Flower's Letters from Lexington and the Illinois, 1819; Flower's Letters from the Illinois, 1820-21; and Woods's Two Years' Residence, 1820-21

Hulme's Journal, 1818-19; Flower's Letters from Lexington and the Illinois, 1819; Flower's Letters from the Illinois, 1820-21; and Woods's Two Years' Residence, 1820-21

by Thomas Hulme, Richard Flower, John Woods

About the author

Born in England around 1760 or 1761, he first built his career as a brewer and banker in Hertford. Later he retired to Marden Hill, where he turned more fully toward farming and political causes, supporting reform-minded writing and speaking out against taxes he believed were unfair.

In 1817, he moved with his family to Illinois to join the English settlement at Albion. Sources describe him as one of the pioneers of that community and as an energetic promoter of English emigration to the United States after the War of 1812.

He is also remembered as a writer. His Letters from the Illinois gave readers in Britain an on-the-ground account of frontier settlement and answered critics who had painted the region unfairly. A surviving 1817 letter to Thomas Jefferson also shows him taking an active interest in the future of the new settlement and in the wider promise of America.