The Blazon of Arms of Thomas Langton
This is a fascinating collection of privately published letters by this distinguished gentleman who went to Riga, Russia at age 17 on behalf of his father's company, stayed there 15 years, and on his return to Kirkham, Lancashire, participated in the family business there, and did extensive traveling about the Continent of Europe. These letters were written between the years of 1815 - 1818, and privately published by the family in 1900.
The copy in the possession of David Birley was severely damaged in a house fire in 1981, resulting in its spine being totally burned away. Fortunately the pages survived in sufficiently good condition that they could be microfilmed by the Family History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and then most recently scanned, using OmniPage Pro, v.12, and saved as PDF Documents.
The volume is 273 pages, although less pages as presented here. It has been
broken down by sections and chapters into individual PDF pages, with the index
on this page. If you do not have the Adobe Acrobat Reader, needed for reading
these documents, then just click on this link:
Scanning the book is very much a "work in progress", so if this project interests you, please add it to your Favorites list, and come back every few days to see if there is more added.
Title page, list of illustrations, and Preface including a short history of
Thomas Langton.
Chapter 1. Written from Whittingham, Northumberland.
Chapter 2. Written from Manchester, possibly from the house of Hugh Birley.
Chapter 3. Written from London.
Chapter 4. Written from London. Includes a picture of Skinner Zachary
Langton.
Chapter 5. Written from various places while traveling around France.
Chapter 6. Written from various places while traveling around
France and Germany, including an extended stay in one place because of some
family illnesses.
Chapter 7. Written from various places while traveling around
Germany and Switzerland.
Chapter 8. Written from various places while traveling around France.
Tells of William's illness and the treatments tried for it.
Chapter 9. Written from primarily Yverdun,
Switzerland. Tells about the interesting saga of the educational institution for
indigent children set up by a Sr. Pestalozzi. Contains some pictures.
Chapter 10. Written from primarily Yverdun.
Starts off by speaking of a recent bereavement, and then continues with
information about the education of his family while traveling.
Chapter 11.
Written from Champitet.
Talks about his adventures in exploring the Alps and Switzerland.
Chapter 12.
Written from Lucerne.
Continues his adventures exploring Switzerland, and talks of Skinner's
expedition with a German companion to gain fluency in that language and further
his education.
Last Updated on July 09, 2003 by David Birley
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