The completed manuscript of this history of the English Settlement, written by the founders, was presented by Flowers to the Chicago Historical Society in 1860. Flowers was a wealthy Englishman who bought some 26,000 acres (40 sq. miles) in the vicinity of present-day Albion, Illinois, and brought about 200 English settlers to farm upon it. Birkbeck and Flowers went on to play important roles in preventing Illinois from becoming a pro-slavery state in 1824.