Author: Willis, Matthew
Biography:
WILLIS, Matthew (1799-c. 1883: Edwards)
The Mountain Minstrel (1834), printed for the author in York, was Willis’s major effort though he continued to compose poems long after he left England with his family in 1845. The preface is signed from “Yore’s Cot.” “Yore” is an older name for the river Ure which runs through Wensleydale, an older name for which is Yoredale. Willis’s family were Quakers and farmers there; some of his letters home later reminisce about their farm, Yorescott. He was born on 29 Jul. 1799 at Carperby, Yorkshire (“My Native Place”), with his birth registered at the monthly meeting of the Society of Friends at Richmond. His parents were John and Ellin (Eleanor) Willis, who had married at nearby Aysgarth on 29 June 1786. (There was another Quaker Matthew Willis, born in Aysgarth in 1800, who married Alice Simpson in 1823 and went on to have nine children, but he became a grocer and is in the 1841 census.) Willis, as his preface reveals, grew up working on his father’s farm and was entirely self-educated. On 1 Sept. 1836 he married Jane Longmire at Brough under Stainmore, Westmorland. They had four children born in England but left the eldest, Elizabeth, behind with her aunt and uncle when economic circumstances led them to emigrate to America in 1845; correspondence between them, though fitful, shows that the family bonds remained strong. One of their three sons died on the voyage. They settled as farmers near Mifflin, Iowa County, Wisconsin, where seven more children were born. Willis’s “Letter from America” was published in the Wensleydale Advertiser in 1846 (Edwards). The Willises on balance regretted their decision and tried for some time to sell up and go back to England, but could not manage it. Jane died in 1774 and was buried on their property, but Matthew lived to participate in the 1880 census and died in 1882 or 1883—sources differ. A substantial collection of poems written in America and letters kept by members of the family has recently been edited by a descendant, Phyllis Ruth Edwards. (Phyllis Ruth Edwards, ed., Pioneer Poetry . . . Matthew Willis 1799-1883 [2015]; ancestry.com 23 June 2024; findmypast.com 23 June 2024; Goodridge; Newsam) HJ