MOUNT VERNON — Another fine week of reading other people’s mail! This time, I’ve come up with a postcard that was sent from Mount Vernon to England.
Alfred Shutt was born in the town of Bideford in Devonshire, England, in 1869. Bideford took its name, quite literally, from what was there: “by the ford,” a crossing point over the River Torridge.
It was a port town in southwest England, and was a popular place for people to embark on ships headed toward the New World.
By the time Alfie was 12, he was employed as a porter in a hotel, where he no doubt talked with people leaving England for new opportunities in America. By the time he was 14, Alfie decided that working in a hotel was not his calling, and he struck out for the United States.
Unlike many immigrants, Alfie did not come with his family, who remained home in Devonshire the rest of their lives. Alfie left them behind.
Alfie Shutt arrived in the U.S. in 1883, aged only 14. Somehow or other, he made his way to Knox County, where he married Lenora Bricker in 1891. Some other Shutts appear in city directories before Alfie, so it may have been that relatives made the connection for the young immigrant.
Alfie must have been an enterprising young man, for by the time he is seen on a census report in 1900, he and Lenora are running a farm in Miller Township. It was a mortgaged farm, but over the years they were able to pay it off and live well.
At some point around 1905, Alfie was in Mount Vernon and stopped into a shop on the corner of South Main and the square, where a fellow by the name of Silas Parr made and sold shoes. As they conversed, they discovered that they were both from Devonshire, England, originally.
Silas had been born in the village of Weare Giffard, just a couple miles up the River Torridge from Alfie’s home town of Bideford.
Silas had long been in Mount Vernon, and was a fixture of the downtown merchants scene for many years in the late 1800s and early 1900s, having come to the United States in the 1860s.
Tickled with traveling halfway around the world to find someone who used to be almost a neighbor, Alfie decided to send a postcard back home. It is addressed to Mr. J.J. Lamerton, who turns out to be John Jeffery Lamerton, who also lived in Bideford.
Lamerton was about 15 years older than Alfie, and Shutt addresses him as “Mr. L” on the card, so one surmises that Mr. L had perhaps been a mentor or teacher to the boy. Perhaps Lamerton was even the one who encouraged Alfie to head off to America.
Whatever the case, Lamerton remained in England, where one census report identifies his trade as an accountant.
Alfie bought a postcard with a view of South Main Street and marked Silas Parr’s shop with an ‘X’, right next to Stadler’s clothing shop. He said he was doing well and hoped “dear Mr. L” was doing well, too. He then mailed the postcard for the princely sum of 2 cents to England.
The card eventually made its way back to the states as postcard collectors traded items, and I snapped it up to bring it back home.
If anyone has any images of Alfie Shutt or Silas Parr, let us know, and we’ll run them in a follow-up.
