Brownsville, Brown Co.,* K. T.,
Friday Morning, June
22, 1855.
Dear Father, —
Day before yesterday we received a letter from you dated Rockford, Ill., 24th
May, which for some unaccountable cause has been very long delayed on the road.
We are exceedingly glad to hear from you, and that you still intend coming on.
Our health is now excellent, and our crops, cattle, and horses look finely. We
have now about twelve acres of sod corn in the ground, more than a quarter acre
of white beans, two and a half bushels seed potatoes planted and once hoed,
besides a good garden containing corn, potatoes, beets, cabbages, turnips, a
few onions, some peas, cucumbers, melons, squashes, etc. Jason's fruit-trees,
grape-vines, etc., that survived the long period of transportation, look
very well: probably more than half he started with are living, with the
exception of peaches; of these he has only one or two trees. As we arrived so
late in the season, we have but little expectation of harvesting much corn, and
but few potatoes. The rainy season usually commences here early in April or
before, and continues from six to eight weeks, during which a great amount of
rain falls. This year we had no rain of any consequence before the 12th or 15th
of May; since then have had two heavy rains accompanied with some wind and most
tremendous thunder and lightning; have also had a number of gentle rains,
continuing from one to twenty-four hours ; but probably not more than half the
usual fall of rain has yet come. As the season last year was irregular in this
respect, probably this will be to some extent. We intend to keep our garden,
beans, and some potatoes watered if we can, so as to have something if our corn
should be a failure. As it is, the prospect is middling fair, and the ground is
ploughed ready for early planting next year. Old settlers here say that people
should calculate on having the spring's sowing and planting all done by the
middle of April; in that case their crops are more abundant. The prairies are
covered with grass, which begins to wave in the wind most beautifully; shall be
able to cut any quantity of this, and it is of far better quality than I had
any idea.
In answer to your questions: Good oxen are from $50 to $80
per yoke, — have been higher; common cows, from $15 to $25, — probably will not
be higher; heifers in proportion. Limited demand as yet for fine stock. Very
best horses from $100 to $150 each ; average fair to good, $75 to $80. No great
demand now for cattle or horses. A good strong buggy would sell well, —
probably a Lumberee best. Mr. Adair has had several chances to sell his.
Very few Lumberee buggies among the settlers. White beans, $5 per bushel; corn
meal, $1.75 per bushel of fifty pounds, tending downward; flour, $7 per hundred
pounds; dried apples, 12½ cents per pound; bacon, 12 to 14 cents here; fresh
beef, 5 to 6 cents per pound. Enclosed is a slip cut from a late number of the “Kansas
Tribune” giving the markets there, which differ somewhat from prices in this
section. It is the paper published at Lawrence by the Speers.
I have no doubt it would be much cheaper and healthier for
you to come in the way you propose, with a “covered lumber buggy and one horse
or mule,” especially from St Louis here. The navigation of the Missouri River,
except by the light-draught boats recently built for the Kansas River, is a
horrid business in a low stage of water, which is a considerable portion of the
year. You will be able to see much more of the country on your way, and if you
carry some provisions along it is altogether the cheaper mode of travelling;
besides, such a conveyance is just what you want here to carry on the business
of surveying. You can have a good road here whithersoever you may wish to go.
Flour, white beans, and dried fruit will doubtless continue for some time to
come to be high. It is believed that a much larger emigration will arrive here
this fall than before. Should you buy anything to send by water, you can send
it either to Lawrence, thirty-five miles north of us, or to Kansas City, Mo.,
care of Walker & Chick, sixty miles northeast of us.
A surveyor would soon find that great numbers are holding
more land, and especially timber, than can be covered by 160 acres, or even
320, and that great numbers are holding claims for their friends; so that I
have no doubt people will find a sufficient amount of timber yet for a long
time. Owing to the rapid settlement of the country by squatters, it does not
open a good field for speculators.
The land on which we are located was ceded by the
Pottawatomie Indians to the Government. The Ottawa lands are soon to be sold,
each person of the tribe reserving and choosing two hundred acres; the
remainder open to pre-emption after their choice is made. The Peoria lands have
been bargained for by the Government, and are to be sold to the highest bidder
without reservation. But Missourians have illegally gone on to these Peoria
lands, intending to combine and prevent their going higher than $1.25 per acre,
and then claim, if they go higher, a large amount of improvements, — thus
cheating the Indians. The Ottawas intend to divide into families, and cultivate
the soil and the habits of civilized life, as many of them are now doing. They
are a fine people. The Peorias are well advanced, and might do the same but for
a bad bargain with our Government.
[Here is drawn a plan of the Brown settlement or claim.]
There is a town site recently laid out on the space marked “village
plat;” as there are two or three in sight, it is uncertain which will be taken.
The semicircle is even ground, sloping every way, and affording a view in every
way of from twenty to thirty miles in every direction, except one small point
in the direction of Osawatomie; the view from this ground is beautiful beyond
measure. The timbered lands on Middle Creek are covered with claims; the
claimants, many of them from Ohio, Illinois, and the East, are mostly
Free-State folks. There are probably twenty families within five or six miles
of us.
Day before yesterday Owen and I ran the Peoria line east to
see if there might not be found a patch of timber on some of the numerous small
streams which put into the Osage, and which would be south of the Peoria line.
We found on a clear little stream sufficient timber for a log-house, and wood
enough to last say twenty families for two or three years, perhaps more, and
until one could buy and raise more. Here a good claim could be made by some
one. The prairie land which would be included is of the very best I have ever
seen; plenty of excellent stone on and adjoining it. Claims will soon be made
here that will have no more than two or three acres of timber; and after these
are exhausted prairie claims will be taken, the claimants depending on buying
their timber. Already this is the case, and many are selling off twenty,
thirty, and forty acres from their timber claims to those who have none.
_______________
* This is now Cutler, in Franklin County.
SOURCE: Franklin B. Sanborn, The Life and
Letters of John Brown, p. 194-7
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