Letters of John and Sarah Kenyon

Farm Letters [Home]

Correspondence of Ephraim G. Fairchild
Subject Index

Delaware County
1857-1865

Table of Contents

              1.  Aug 29 (1856)
              2.  Sep 25 1856
              3.  Oct 1st 1856
              4.  Dec 1st 1856
              5.  July 5 1857
              6.  Aug 8th 1857
              7.  Oct 1st 1857
              8.  Dec 5 1857
              9.  Jan 23d 1858
            10.  June 20 1859
            11.  Aug 1st 1859
            12.  Oct 15th 1859
            13.  Nov (n.d.) 1859
            14.  January 28th 1860

Plum Creek¹² Aug 29 (1856)

1.1

   ....Our goods have all arrived. the last that were sent came on the same time as our others. The stove hearth was broken into and the slide pretty well smashed. we can have the hearth mended I think but the slide is past pancakes. everything else came safe and sound....

1.2

   Our folks went after plums yesterday and I went a week ago.  we travel in ox teams here over the prairies. It was the first time I had been in the woods since we came here. it was really refreshing to get in the shade and hear the birds sing. When I buy my farm I shall be near my timber....

1.3

   Mr Parsons sold his farm a week ago for 27 hundred part prairie and part timber joining and is going farther west about two hundred miles. his wife feels very bad about it. I dont blame her. I have always looked at their place and thought it the prettiest place about here. there house stands near to the grove of timber. but any of the Westers are ready to sell anytime to make money. Mr Parsons paid six hundred for his two years ago so he thinks he will sell and go and make another good farm and sell again. I warrant all he has done to this one was to break and fence 20 or 30 acres. there was an old log hut on it that they have lived in since he came here without a window and so cold in Winter they have to go to bed to keep from freesing. that is what one of his boys told here. isnt it a shame a man worth between three and four thousand to live so but its the way of the world here.

Land Sales

Housing

1.4

   We get along and do without things here that would be impossible in the East.  I should dread for our neighbors to come and see us if they were not going to stay and settle.  if so well and good for they would soon see the way of Western life...

1.5

   Wednesday forenoon I must try to steal a few minutes to write so as to get my letter finished to send to the office the first time any one goes that way.  it is not here as it was to Ashaway. you have to write and wait an opportunity to get it to the office. five miles over those prairies is quite a piece. Tomorrow there will be ten dozen men here to thresh wheat so I shall get but previous little time to write then.

Neighbors

1.6

   Our freight bill was enormous on our goods but I dont see what we could have spared very well. we get along with what we brought. all that I have bought is half dozen cups & saucers. we have to snub it but that is what I knew we should have to do but as long as we have enough to eat I shall feel pretty well satisfied. We dont have nay dainties but we shall live just as long and perhaps be the healthier.

1.7

   Molasses is eighty five cts per gallon sugar you can get 6, 8 and 9 pounds for a dollar. I did want to do up some plums but I cannot this year. great ones most as big as peaches.

1.8

   green tea such as we get there for forty cts is one dollar. We shall have to go on credit for a year then if John has his health I hope we can do pretty well.  He has got his cow most paid for. I feel very thinkful for that and (he) has bought two more heifers. I dont know how he will manage to pay for them but if he cant why he must sell them.  it is not like buying Livestock clothing or any such thing for they will sell and keep gaining too. I really want to keep them through the winter if possible as he has got his hay cut and they would sell then for a great deal more than what he gave. He bought them to a sale on three months credit last month for eighteen dollars of the same man he bought his cow of....

Livestock

1.9

   a mink killed (Clara s) old white hen and part of the chickens so I had to take six of the chickens into the house...Mrs.  Robberts gave she and Bub¹³ a Shangai rooster and pullet. their names are Tom & Bet. I expect every night will  be their last for the roost is not good for any thing and the owls minks and hawks are ready to help themselves the first opportunity. If they will keep off untill John can build a roost I will thank them very kindly...

Wild Animals

1.10

   I begin to dread the Winter. they tell such cold stories about here. they said last Winter was awful by generally the Winters are very mild so much so that the ground dont freese untill about January but last Winter their floors would ice when they mopped and the tables when they washed dishes. Mr Barnard froze his great toe one night. it happened to get out of bed when he was asleep...people as a general thing clothe the west with to much romance I take it. its not all gold that shines...

1.11

   ...we have dug a well since we have been here and I finished stoneing it up yesterday. I have been a thrashing this week. Harvesting we had 1,00. 15 (sic.  115) bushels wheat. they use thrashing machines here. it requires 8 horses and ten men to tend them and will thrash from 3 to 5 hundred bus (bushels) a day. they put me in mind of a cotton hopper but make a heap more noise and its a right smart machine. that is a hoosier expression out here.  you can use if for a by word...

Sep 25 1856

2.1

   ....Such a snake as John killed in the garden I never saw nor you either I guess. it was as large round as my arm and very  long. Ann saw it first.  it was as large round as my arm and very long. Ann saw it first.  it was crossing the path right  ahead of her and the way she hollered some. John and I was digging potatoes close by and Mary¹⁴ she came post haste with a stick with Clara and Bub at her heels from the house and John ran from where he was opposite and rapped him with his toe. Mother and the girls went after hazlenuts last week. she saw a great yellow rattlesnake as large as this one but she did not dare to strike it. the bushes was so thick. Wolves carry off the neighbors pigs here every few nights. I should not dare to go far after dark here but Mary and John dont mind it or any of the rest of the folks around here.

2.2

   we have got no hen roost yet and I expect every night I shall lose my hens. Eggs are from 15 to 20 cts per dozen wheat  last week was down to fifty cts per bushel. rather of a hard look for the farmers but all that have sold around here get 75 cts. I wish you could get some for fifty cts which would bring your flour at 3.00 a barrell....Molasses here is 90 cts a gallon. we cant afford to use it. I have not seen a peice of gingerbread this long while and dont expect to for a year to come.... 

2.3

   I have been anxious for John to get a peice of land but he dont seem to feel in a hurry.  its rising every day but he thinks  because he has no money he cant buy. I think that those that have no money can make money by buying and improving. He says he likes here the best of any where he has ever been in the West.  It appears very healthy here...

2.4

   There has been a report that there was a colony coming from the East to settle within a mile of us in sight. there will be four Presbyterian ministers. there will be seven or eight ministers...then as there is four now.

2.5

   We dont have any new clothes. I will tell you when we do. John has had a pair of boots and shoes and bubby has got  to have some shoes. Clara and I will have to have some before Winter is over, and that I hope will carry us through.

2.6

   John has been sued since we have been here. I was outrageously mad to see him so imposed upon and he paid the costs like a dunce when he was not a obliged to as they did not go according to the law but he is so mighty good...  It was about his not working on the road.¹⁵ It rained one day so he did not go and the next time he was not warned of it untill ten oclock  in the forenoon and the thrashers were all here and he could not leave. The law allows them ten days notice and not less than three at any rate and that by the man that sees to the road and he did not come near John...

Plum Creek Oct 1st 1856

3.1

   ..I sometimes wish we had a tract of land here so as to sell it in a year or two but whether John will or not I dont know. I think he can do well raising stock if he dont buy any land around here but land is raising and the country is filling up in here so that he wont be able to pasture and cut hay for any great length of time...

3.2

3.3

   We went down and offered Mr Robberts fifteen dollars per acre for his farm cash down to fetch on his Mother and sisters.¹⁶ he likes Land Sales (it) here better than any place 5that he has see out West.  he has been in Wisconsin & Minnesota.  is going to put up a lumber  mill at Stillwater Minnesota.  Mr Robberts asked him twenty so they did not trade.

3.4

   Mary has worn out those new shoes that you and she bought out there and has got her a pair of calf skin ones. I wish I had some buck thorn berries to make some syrup “for to take” now and then. I wish you would ask Cpt Bills wife if she has not got some and if she has I would like two or three seeds in a letter and I will plant them in a box and grow them. The children make a terrible fuss over senna.¹⁷ Soon as John geta a minute (to) spare I want him to get me some butternut bark and I will try that. I dont know of anything else to prepare for physic...

Homr Remedies

Delhi Dec 1st 1856

4.1

   ..I am well as usual for me and have enjoyed good health here on the prairie. I think more so than it is around the timber and towns. it is quite sickly at Delhi at present.  there was three funerals there to day and one to morrow and there is several more cases that is doubtful.  they die with the typhoid fever. I have been to Delhi to (a) funeral to day.  went as bearer. they could not get enough in town and had to come out of Plum Creek for me and John Bernard...

4.2

Food - Diet

4.3

   We are all quite smart now.  I made me a new hood out of Anges old dress skirt and have to wear it nights for a night cap. with the remainder I made Clara a quilt.  Daytimes I wear Bubs sunbonnet...You spoke about knitting stockings. I really wish we did have some for I guess I shall friz here. Mary swept off a keeping dust pan of frost off one window this afternoon.

4.4

   ...Monday night a weasel came in our chicken roost and killed two pullets. They killed all of Mr. Jones. thirteen for Mr Bob and quite a number for Barnards folks.  I fear we are going to have a harder winter than we did last. The people around here say they had no such storm here last Winter. That money you sent was very acceptable for Clara and I are about barfoot. just as soon as the roads get clared if they ever do John will go to Dyerville. We have not had any molasses for two months... Our light consists of a saucer filled with coons oil with a rag in it. still we are as chipper as birds and I have never seen  the day what I wished myself East to live...

Money

Housing

4.5

   ...Monday night it commenced snowing and blowing and it lasted fro forty hours.  such a storm I never saw since I can remember.  the snow is about twenty inches deep in the woods where it is not drifted and on the prairie it is from one inch to 16 feet deep.  you could not see two rods some part of the day.  tuesday John Barnard went to hickery grove to drive his cattle and he got lost in the prairie and did not get back untill the next morning.  his folks was woried about him so his father in the course of the evening started to look for him and he got lost before he got ten rods from the house and the first thing he knew he brought up all standing at his own house and concluded not to try it again untill morning...

Iowa July 5 1857

5.1

   I am all alone excepting Clara and the day is as long as the moral law. I have to write with one eye in the garden and  if the cattle was up the other would be in the wheat feild...John has gone to see if he can get a dog. its nothing but a puppy but perhaps it will bark and do a little good...

5.2

   its hot as blases here in the middle of the day so I had begun to get dinner. I must tell you what it was. well pusly (sic. pussley: purslane or purtulaca) I was picking. I butter and sweeten (it) a little and play its string beans. try some. the first I cooked I stewed in that little tin cup you sent to John. it pleased our folks...but I was half starved and it was all that I could get that had got large enough and I was fairly surfeited with greasy pork and white bread. we have no potatoes now.  let me see I was picking pusly looked and the wheat was full of cattle so I started off on the full canter. when I came in hailing distance I clapped my hands and screamed...and all went out like fun but Fathers white steer. Steere by name.  he would go one way and tother way and every way even to the right way but would not go far enough to do any good.  after all I chased him up stream and let down all the pair of bars there was in the feild rapped him on the rump and bid him begone. I had to keep my eye on them till John was here to fix that and one of the calves was in by the time he was back to the house again.

Livestock

5.3

   But the cattle dont begin (to compare) with our hens. they are eating up every thing in the garden and we have to chase them the whole time trying to save pea & bean. they will pick and eat bean leaves as fast as they would pick up corn. dont
lay an egg.  we made a soup with one (of) then the other day and I will make
another.

5.4

   Lewis Box was here yesterday to change some eggs to set. I hadnt any so he wanted to know if I could lend him a rooster. Barter yes says I here is one. Bill was that minute coming for the beans. says I catch him he cant run very fast. I had tied his legs up so he could not get around so fast and I could give him a whack now and then so he soon ca(t)ched him.  the boy wanted  to know when we should want him.  I told him we would let him know. that wont be till beans are out of the way and thats some time.  Now Clara will have to watch for me...

5.5

   Hay is going to be very light this year. we shant get more than enough for the cattle. the railroad contractor has great droves of fatting cattle which ear up all the grass besides its very light. I am dreadful sorry I was in hopes John could get enough to buy him a team...

Oneida Aug 8th 1857

6.1

   …My health is rather worse than usual now. I have had a dreadful misery in my side a week or two back but its some better now. I put on a plaster and am taking Blackmans balsam…

6.2

   It seems like Fall it really scares me. Every body is prophesying that the corn will be cut down with frost. I hope not for I have promised my family that they shall have a nubbin of corn one of those days to make up for their poor fare now. My pig looks first rate considering the fare she has is sour mild and pusly. I want a Johnny cake myself too. anything but living where you dont have no meal. Our folks are trying to get up some hay. there has been so much rain that they dont  get along a bit...We have commenced making pickles this morning...

6.3

   I see by the Westerly Echo that Missouri is sopken of out East. its all Missouri here no going to Minnesota scarce once in a while one to Kansas but all seem to think the most of Missouri.  I think its peoples duty to go there and try to make a free state of it as much so yes I think more so than to go off and pay money to foreign missions...

6.4

   Monday afternoon...Aunt Delby...took home my nipperkin (half pint) pail.  is going to make me some vinegar with a vinegar plant she has. it springs out a new one from the old one. then they take it off put it in a gallon of water with a tea cup of mollasses and in eight days you have vinegar...

Thursday eve 7 Oclock
Plumb Creek Oct 1st 1857

7.1

   ...I am rather tired to night. I have been helping Mr. Segar this afternoon draw corn. he helped me thrash. that is the way we have to manage out here. change work with one another. to morrow I have got to help Mr Box next day Mr Cruse then I shall be square with them all round. our wheat crop was rather light this year. only about 15 bushels to the acre. the season was rather wet. it run to straw mostly. we have had frost on the 28th and 30th but the corn is out of the way mostly with the exception of some that had to be planted one 2 or three times. I had about 3 acres of sod corn that was not quite out of the way but I cut it up yesterday and this fore noon. my sugar cane just begins to top out. it looks like broom corn. it grows so high that you have to look twice to se the top of it. the folks think a good deal of it out here. good many has little patches of it out here this year experamenting on it. Mary has seen some of the sugar and molases. she thinks it is very nice. Mr Cummings out towards Delhi has made him a mill to crush it with. it is made like a cider mill only the roollers are smooth. they crush it and get the juice out then boil down for molasses then boil it little harder for sugar...¹⁸

Neighbors

Harvesting

Crop Yields

7.2

   The mice and cattle plagued us very bad. they are possessed to get in to the corn fields. you have to keep one eye on your work and the other on the cattle. last week Mr Stephens cattle got into his corn and one of them died.  one of his cows and two others they dont think will live. our cattle was over there the same night.  Mr Jones went over after them. I met him down to Cruses and help(ed) him drive them home. I did not get to bed untill half past eleven...

7.3

   Friday noon...I went to digging potatoes. the gophers are eating them in the worst way. I shant get more than half crop say 75 or 80 bushels. I shall have plenty of corn and potatoes if nothing hapens and some to sell. I have onions turnips cabbage pumpkins croocknecks beets carrots and a fat pig in the pen that will weight pretty close to 2,00 lbs now and I have plenty of stuff to give him so you see that I shall have something to ear this winter if I am lucky.  I am going to get me two or three pigs this fall so I can raise my own pigs and have some to sell providing I am lucky.

7.4

   Sunday afternoon. I am going to Delhi to morrow to carry some wheat to mill and sell some chickens to buy bub some shoes. Prices we have over one hundred (chickens) all together and all we can get for them is 15 cts a piece. they sell chickens by the pair out west. so much a pair...pork is going to be high out there this fall. folks think it will be ten dollars a per hundred fresh by the hog.  corn is 30 cts now and it will be down to 25 in less that 4 weeks. molases 80 cts beef 5 and 6 Dolls per hundred lbs. flour is 2.25 to 2.50 per hundred eggs 20 cts butter 25 cheese 16 cts...

Produce

Dec 5 1857

8.1

  ...How I wish it was possible for us to help you but I dont see as we can now.¹⁹  hard times reaches Iowa. that is as far as money is concerned. money is out of the question here. if people are obliged to raise money they have to sacrifice the whole nearly. If we should sell every thing that is saleable that we own we could not raise fifty dollars and then how we should ever get started on life through the winter I could not tell. If I live to see another Summer and have my health at all we shall try to help you a little at a time...

8.2

   I have never written to you how we lived for I knew it would worry Mother but we have snubbed it in true Western style. last Winter I came very near giving up but we received that money from home...and I do think it saved my life but only for one year. perhaps was it gain, who can tell. We had a cold Winter and a cold house without plastering of Clapboards with but very little meat no butter no sweetning. white bread and potatoes and stewed pumpkins was our living. I was so that my appetite was all gone at least for such things. our milk was gone but John bought Browny and he used to bring me in a cup full of the strippings when he milked and I began to recruit right away. the warm days came and I staid in my garden all the time I could and I was the strongest this summer I ever was since Clara was born...

8.3

   This fall I went and gathered hasle nuts so last night John Clara and me sat up untill ten oclock getting them out. what do you think of (sic. for). well to sell to buy me some lasses (molasses). I havnt tasted any since last Spring and some dried apples. we have no souring or sweetning of any kind use no tea or coffee no spices no grease of any kind except butter but I shall have a doughnut when the pig is killed and all the pork ham sausage &c I wish. once John went to Dyersville this week to get him a pair of boots but they wont trust such hard times. he bought the children two doughnuts and you never saw how well pleased they were. I have made butter enough so far to buy what little we do have. I have the sage for my sausage paid twenty cts for quarter of a pound. if I was going to be at liberty next Summer I would raise sage and red pepers for sale as well as for my own use....

Food-Preservation & Processing

Jan 23d 1858

9.1

   ....I am sitting by my own fireside to day and very pleasant it seems to me. havnt got settled as yet but hope to by Spring. havnt a chair or teacup in the world but I dont mind that if I can only be by myself... . 

9.2

   the times grow harder and lighter here every day. produce sells for mere nothing. wheat 30 corn & oats 15 butter 15 eggs 10 but groceries and dry goods high as ever..

9.3

   Sunday eve, Jan 31 1858...I never saw such time since I can remember as we are having out west. I have not had a dime of my own for the last six months and do not expect to have one for the next six to come.

9.4

   We are having beautiful weather as any one could wish for. no snow to speak of...some difference from last Winter...

9.5

   we have had two great wolf hunts²⁰ out here about 70 to 1,00 turned out. the first hunt on horse back with guns and other  weapons. on the second there (were) only about 40. they got 6 in the ring and drive them in to roughes grove and left them. they start from diferent places and come in a circle out center about mile and half from us where they have a flag raised so  they can see it for miles. they have drove them in from off the prairie so they are quite thick about here. Mr Roberts one of our neighbors got up night before last in his shirt he said an(d) chased them away from the house. pon my soul he days the beggars followed me right bang up to the house...

Saturday June 20 1859

10.1

   ...I have planted about twenty acres of corn and 7 or 8 of small grain. I finished planting corn yesterday rather late to plant on the sod.

10.2

   there is quite an excitement here now about horse thiefs. there is (a) regular band of them all through this state and Minnesota. Crime they are stealing horses all round us and the inhabitans are geting very desperate. they lynched a man about four miles from us last week. they had suspicion of him. some one lost two horses.  they went and told him he must produce the horses in so long a time and he did so and that was enough to satisfy them. he was one of them.  eight men seized (him) carried (him) about two milles to a little grove and strung him up by his neck and held him there to make him confes where and who the rest of the gange (was).   then they would let him down to breath.  they served him so several times but could not get any thing out (of) him.  they was so mad that they hung him up and left (him) to die but two of the men felt a little conscience smiten and went back and cut him down. he had about gone up. they think he will die any how. The sherif have arrested part of them...

10.3

   Paul I did not tell you about my going to Pikes Peak. well I did not go but I have seen men that has been and they give hard account of (the) country. they say there (are) thousands on their way back and some have actuly starved to death. it is the greatest humbug that ever was known in the west. hundreds have gone from around here sold out everything and come back with nothing. there will be a good deal of suffering amongst the emigrants. It cant be avoided. they are sending provisions on to them but afraid it will be to late for some...

Aug 1st 1859

11.1

   ....Well our wheat is pretty good this year so we shant have to buy flour I hope.  oats good barley good taters one and two in a hill sorghum good garden sass good all but the beans...

11.2

   when I have a new dress I will send you a piece. I have not decided which to get a red one or a yaller one. I think as I cant afford but one I shall get the two colors combined. havent bought a yard of calico or any other dress material since we came to Iowa. I have made over patched and repatched untill every thing in used up...

11.3

   I must go and help John pull some pusly for the hogs. I guess between us they will not starve. I forgot to tell you what bad luck I had with my poultry. I have not a single young duck and but two hogs killed and Johns red one has gone up or down. I guess he ate some corn that was strychnined for gophers.

11.4

   Friday, July that last I do not know what date but that does not make any difference in Iowa. I know one thing that is it is the height of harvesting and haying and I am flat as a pancake. been tied up in the house a week ago to day with a sore foot. they call it a carbuncle. . .last night I put on a soap and sugar plaster and that seems to bringit to focus. . .all the way I can get round is with a crutch I made myself

Home Remedies

11.5

   I have my wheat all down but the question is when shall I get it up. I will trust in providence for that. I have about ¾ of an acre of oats to cut then comes my haying but I will not wory you with my croaking...

Sunday Oct 15th 1859

12.1

   ...the cars leave Nottingham for Manchester to morrow 8 or 9 miles west then a week from to morrow they go farther west.²¹

12.2

   we are going to buy a mate to fred and we have got a yoke of oxen named bob and tom. now for the frost. we had one every month but one that was July. We had one 4th of June killed every thing then we had one the last of august caped the climax killed every thing dead as door nail. I had about 20 acres of corn mostly sod corn. I shant have twenty bushels. wheat crop good 60 bushels. oats I sowed one bushel and had 20.  barely 1 ½ and had 7. potatoes 90 bushels and the best I ever saw...Sorghum little over ¼ acre 30 gallons splendid better than the sale molasses.  we have cabbage beets carrets turnips &c and some for our own use. 4 hogs fattening and 7 shoats to keep through winter if we dont eat them all up. if I could have 2 or 3 hundred dollars 2 months ago to bought oats with I could have mad a spee (?) in the operation. they could (have) been bought then for ten cts a bushel.  next spring they will bring 75 cts quick.

Livestock

12.3

   now for the market  prices. wheat 52 cts and flour $1,60 to $2,00 per hundred.  corn none in market. heard of one or two loads of poor soft stuff sold for 25 ct. oats 22 cts. beans white $1,30 cts onions 50 cts Sorghum 50 ct per gallon potatoes 20 ct per bu beets 35 tomatoes $1,00 per bush crab apples $1,00 butter 12 ½ cts cheese 9 and 10 cts eggs 8 cts per doz pickels 4 Dolls per bbl. I must stop for the present for prairie fire is comeing down on us full split and the wind is blowing a perfect gale.

Prairie Fire

12.4

   Monday eve Oct 23d...and now for the prairie fire we had week ago yesterday.  I went to window and looked out and it was about 1 ½ miles of(f). I could (see) nothing but smoke and it looked awful dark. I  grabed the hoe and scythe and started for our south road about 20 rods from the house. when I got there the fire had just reached the road. it came in the shape of a V and the flames roled higher (than) the waves on the ocean. it looked awfull to me. I was so frightened that I shook like a dog...it had crossed th road. I run for life and put it out and followed it up the road ten rods or so untill it was past our land. I hurried back but it had crossed the road in another place and was within ten feet of the fence. Father Ellis and Mother and Ann was fighting of it like mad (as the english say) with foot mats rag rugs old pieces of carpet coats and petticoats &c.  we fought  it to the corn field then it had to side burn about 20 rods then it had a clean sweep for the hay.  stables and house chicken coops hog sties all made of hay and poles but the house. Father and me stayed and fought it and the women folks cut it for the stacks and raked up all the old stalks they could. Mary she come just as the fire was comeing round the fields. she grabed bed close of(f) the bed carpeting any thing she could lay her hands on...had all wet ready for action. on cane the fire and how they kept if of(f) the stock the Lord only knows. I was (so) frightened that I dare not look that way. if it had not (been) for the female department everything would burn. they fought like heroes. Beaches and Joneses folks had fought so hard they would come out of the fire and smoke and throw them selfs on the ground. they thought they was going up. I did not fight hard as that but I fought hard enoughf to burn of(f) my whiskers and hair so I had to have them cut. I looked rather red around the jaws...

Neighbors

12.5

   Mr. Campbell one of our nearest neighbors south of us killed a bear last week in his corn field. he rode up to him (on) horse back (and) fired one barrel. his horse throwed him of(f). the bear closed in with him. he beat him with his gun until he broke the breech of(f). then he used the barrel untill he killed him. the bear hurt him some on the arm and leg so he had to have a Doct. the bear weighted 200 lbs and he sold him to Esq Gillman at Notingham for the sum of twenty Dolls. I would not mind being scratched a little for that amount. there was a bear seen on hickery grove a few weeks ago...The Almoral folks have seen signs of one up their. he carried of(f) Mr Harsons beehive...

Sunday Nov (n.d.) 1859

13.1

   ...John works like a nigger and its all to no purpose. there is something to drag us down the whole time...the frosts have set us down from where we began. John has to work out to get corn to feed his hogs for they must be fatted to pay our fencing and breaking bills and I do his work. I have dug nearly all the potatoes between 30 and 40 bushels worked in the sugar cane patch one week pulled white beans carrots &c gathered all the seeds and husked a load of frosted corn cobs every day. There was no corn to it for the hogs 11 of them that just kept them from squealing while they was eating and that was all the good it did them and I am so glad that I can work that I wont change the West for the East yet. Its nothing to work if one has the strength to do it and I have been tough as a pitch knot untill I had this hard cold that laid me up for three weeks so I just kept the family from starving. there was two days Mary had to cook and then Clara did the rest. I had the sick headache once toothache once and the cholera morbus one day. that was all the time that I have lain by from my work that I can remember since sis was born...

Health

13.2

   ...I have to work like a niger this fall and seems rather hard to farm it and then work out to buy corn to fat your pork on. I get four bushells of corn for a days work and the hogs will eat about one and a half a day but I have got a little on the start of them now about twenty bushels...

13.3

   Bears are quite plenty here now. I hear of one being killed every few days. they have burnt over the prarie and timber so much in Minesota that they have left and the Indians have followed them to(o). there is about 60 or 70 out two miles from Delhi come down a hunting the bears. they are only five or six miles from us.

13.4

   the Nottingham folks dedicated their new school house last tuesday. they had a grand time. the Governors Greys a military company from Dubuque was out also the Buffalo Band. the ladies had a fair the proceeds to go toward buying a bell and in the evening they had a ball and supper also extra oyster supper. they also had a grab bag full of little trinkets 10cts a grab...

Seventh Day Eve
January 28th 1860

14.1

   ...Sally says she cant have time to write to night she has so many dishes to wash. she has four plates one bowl one tumbler and two tea cups and saucers. we have five in all now but we have only one tea cup and saucer for months and months and months but we enoughf to eat and drink thank the lord so wee dont mind about the other fixings. wee have about half a barell of Sorghum yet and wheat enoughf to do us as the hoosiers say. potatoes and vegetables of various kinds...

14.2

   I have been drawing wood this winter. I bought a lot of dead and downed wood just as it stood and lay on the woods for six dollars. I have sold nine dollars worth and have enoughf  left to last me two years. I made a ten strike that time but it is the first time since I have been in the west. I have lost a two year old steer and a yearling heifer this winter and come pretty near looseing another. it got caut in the manger. I happened to go out early that morning so I saved him. I lost one the morning before in the same place. we have a very good school this winter. Clara and Ellis goes every day. we have a female teacher Miss Lease...

14.3

   I have been to Nottingham to day. brought home lots of things. I suppose you would like to know what I bought...3yds of overhall cloth 20 cts worth stocking yearn 25cts worth sugar a pen holder and pencil for C(lara) and a pencil for Ellis. I stopped and cut Mary some wood and she give me some sausage and doughnuts to eat and candy for the babies.

14.4

   they have a splendid school over a hundred scholars. it has been quite sickly in and around Notingham this winter. putred sore throat and typoid fever. some six or seven deaths...

14.5

   they talk of starting a union store out here. they have their meeting the fourth of next month. the farmers want to get the highest market price for their grain and pork and so on and get their groceries at the wholesale prices at St. Louis and Chickago. Father Ellis sold his minks skin last week 13 of them for $19,50 cts. He has been to his traps to day and brought home 2 more. that is office seekers salary 3 dollars per day...

14.6

   now for Markets prices. wheat 81 to 85 cts per bu. oats 28 to 30 Corn 25 to 30 cts beans 80cts to $1,00 potatoes 30 beets 30 turnips 25 carrots 25 flour 2.50 per hundred pork 3 ¼ to 4 ¾ cts by the hog. 8cts tried 12 cts candles 15cts lb lard 9 or 10 cts eggs 12 ½ butter 12 ½ coffee 8 lbs to dollar sugar 11 to 14 lbs for !1,00 dried apples 12 cts per lb peaches do (ditto) mackerel 10 cts lb codfish 9cts whitefish 15 cts caught in Lake Erie. wood $2,50 cord lumber common fencing and sheeting fine 15to 17 dolls per M. flooring and siding 28 to 32 laths 25 per hundred shingles $2,50 bunch...

14.7

   We have subscribed for the New York Tribune. Mary pays 50 cts and Father and me 25 cts each. it is a company concern.

Sunday Jan 30 1860

15.1

   ...John need not make game about my washing dishes for he got in a bowl and I dont own any such article. I have six plates too. we are the poorest folks you ever say but I would not own it to any body but you...if we should sell every thing we could not pay our debts. Renselleer is very kind to us. I dont know where we should have been if it had not been for him. he let John have his oxen last spring. John was going to fat them to pay for them last fall but the frost took the fat things away so R told John he would wait another year. he sent us 26 papers they were of all kinds. some pictorials Frank Leslies New York weeklys &c. they are directed to Clara. she felt pretty Big. Mary paid our breaking bill. she holds us up by the seat of the breeches so we have not come down yet. she has let John have money a good many times. we should have straightened ourselves out if we have had a good corn crop but we are waiting for our good luck to come all at one time now, and when it does rain porridge our basin will be right side up I hope. Now with all our perplexities we cant be what the world calls very good. I am glad we have some one to pray for us for prayer is something rare in the West. I heard one last 4th of July and two besides that the year before but...dont despair about         us. the angels have their hooks in us and we shall be drawed in yet I trust. Why John does more in keeping from drinking gambling &c than Paul would to preach the gospel pray and all the rest of the good things 50 years. John dont chew tobacco now either. He laid off the first of January and we drink tea and coffee now in its stead, quite a good exchange for me for we have to go without milk...

Money

Newspapers

Religion & Churches

15.2

   my hens lay. I sold 2 dz. yesterday. now if I could have your price for them I should be well off for rations. John brought me home a big rooster last week but it took as much to keep him as one of the hogs so I sent off one of my ducks and changed for a little white one and took off the big ones head. John paid twelve and a half cents for him. he weighed six pounds.

Earlville March 12 1860

16.1

   ...John has been quite well but the poor fellow met with a sad accident yesterday. he was in the woods splitting rails with another man—he went to take an iron wedge out of the log and the man with him accidentally struck his hand. broke the middle finder so that it lay upon the back of his hand. the others were badly mashed...

16.2

   ...I went (to a party) last Friday night. there were over 150 present. had a very pleasant time. It was a leap year party. I took a  married man for my partner and his wife took for her partner the very one I should have taken under other circumstances...out west young and old married & single all go together—dancing, whist & chess playing charades &c is generally the program of the evening. It is fashinable so no wrong done...

(n.d., but evidently written between
letters of March 12 and 18 1860)

17.1

17.2

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17.4