Searching for the author of the letter

After meticulously reviewing the passenger list of the SS Dresden, I have found a family group that matches the description of the sender of the letter of 10th March 1889 in an exceptional manner.

The primary candidate is Albert Martin, a thirty-nine-year-old carpenter travelling with his wife Eliza and their young children. Yet the key lies with his brother Reuben Martin, who also travelled on the same ship.

The exact records for the entire Martin family, extracted from the Dresden database, are as follows:

Record 1: The family of Albert Martin (Page 30 of the list)

• Albert Martin: 39 years, married, carpenter.

• Eliza Martin: 38 years, married.

Children:

• Frederick (9)

• Edith (7)

• Jessie (5)

• Eliza Rose (3)

Record 2: The family of Reuben Martin (Page 31 of the list)

• Reuben Martin: 42 years, married, bricklayer.

• Sarah Ann Martin: 44 years, married.

Children:

• Charles William Martin: 17 years. This is "Charlie, the son" from the letter!

• Ann Constance (15)

• William Henry (13)

• Emily E. (11)

• Jessie S. (9)

• Archibald (6)

The details given in the published letter present several highly significant coincidences, which I outline below:

Detail from the letter

Looking for coincidence in the Dresden registry with some clues of the letter I found:

• The author is a carpenter or joiner earning three dollars a day. -> Albert Martin is listed as "carpenter".
• The author mentions that his brother obtained work as a "foreman bricklayer" . -> Reuben Martin is listed as "bricklayer". The difference in age (39 versus 42) places them as brothers.
• The author states that his brother has daughters (one went to live with Viscount de Bondy) and a son named Charlie who lives and works with him. -> Reuben Martin has three teenage daughters and a seventeen-year-old son named Charles William Martin.
• The author travelled on the steamship Dresden and arrived in Buenos Aires on 15th February 1889. -> Both Martin families are listed with an arrival date of 15/02/1889, yet only Albert the carpenter is recorded as having embarked at Southampton; the rest of the family are listed at Queenstown (which suggests a possible administrative error or data-entry oversight).
• The newspaper describes him as a "well-known" former resident of Southampton. -> Although not specified in the record, the fact that two large families of skilled artisans emigrated together may suggest that they had roots and perhaps a business or reputation in the city. It is merely an idea, but at this stage of the investigation, I include it.

The Dresden records confirm in a highly suggestive, and nearly unequivocal, manner that the author of the first letter was Albert Martin. His story, and that of his brother Reuben and his nephew Charlie, accord perfectly with the detailed account of the crossing, the hardships in the Immigrants' Hotel, and the search for work in Buenos Aires.

From this testimony, several key lines of enquiry emerge.

What struck me most is that, when speaking of the colony proposal, there is someone who "strongly advised" him against embarking upon that project. Why, if it was presented as a solution, did someone—who I imagine would have been a member of the British immigration committee—"strongly advise" him not to go?

I have the sense, from this letter and from that of Mr and Mrs Clarke, who settled in Temperley, that the immigrants of the Dresden who came from Southampton arrived better prepared and were therefore assessed in a manner more in keeping with the norm.

On the Irish side, a great many of them were also taken on quickly within the first week of being in Buenos Aires, given that only eight hundred ultimately boarded the train for Napostá. Might they also have been advised, like Mr Martin, not to embark upon the Colony project?

On that first day of the initial meeting, it was agreed that Mr Drysdale would adopt a cautious stance and proposed postponing any definitive decisions for a few days—something the committee ultimately did, because it did not yet proceed with Gartland's proposal (and the truth is that Gartland had not fully closed the proposal either).

On the very day the Dresden anchored in Buenos Aires, two members of the committee went aboard the ship to "see" the immigrants: Messrs Johnston and Carroll.

These are merely ideas that we need to shed light upon with new discoveries and further material.

Onwards!