Polk Co. Oregon Ty March 15th 1853
Dear Brother & Sister
I received your kind leter of the 20th Dec I was verry glad to hear
that you and family were all well and the friends in jenerel but
was sorry that you could not tell who were coming to Oregon this
spring of our connection Isaac received one leter from Father &
one from I.F.M. Butler & T.H. Hutch but they did not give much news
they all wrote the same thing except a litle that Elizabeth wrote
about her litle boy I recon he is a bounswer but I love to read her
fun you may tell her that our litle girl is as perty and smart as
children ever get to be.
we are in good helth at this time and the connection are all well
as far as I know we have had the plesants winter I ever saw it has
ben dry and warm since the first of January hardly raned anough to
mak the grasf grow the Farmers have bin ploughing and sowing wheat
and some oats and making garden ever since the first of Febuary I
have sowed some wheat and some oats and planted some garden I am
going to sow some more oats and I think I will plant some corn We
can rais thirty bushels to the acre I saw severel small pieces of
corn last last fall that would make forty bushels to the acre we
can have corn bred as much as we want and every think else if we
will raise it Some of our neighbors had letis the eighth day of
March large enough to eat Peech trees will bare the third year from
the sead and apple trees in proportion wheat will yeald from 20 to
forty bushels per acre oats from fifty to seventy five potatoes as
much as you please and all sorts of garden vegetablys
pork and beef wheat and flour is verry high pork is worth forty
dollars per hundred beef $12. flour $12 wheat $3.00 per bushel oats
two dollar potatoes two dollars all merchandise is a litle higher
than it is in Monmouth Merchandising is good buisnesf here Isaac is
at work at TH Lucas for one dollar and fifty cts per day he has not
made much since he got here he can do well this summer wages will
be higher than they are at present I shall commence work in a week
or two at four dollars per day I think I can get five dollars per
day in one month or two I am going to work out the most of the time
this summer I intend to have thirty acres of prairie brok this
summer I have got as good prairie land as you have in Ills I have
about four hundred and fifty acres of land three hundred acres and
twenty of it prairie land if Father and the rest of them comes that
talks of coming I may sell my claim and gow with them to where they
can find vacant land but I will ask a big price for my land I have
got a valuably claim but I have a right to a hole section and if I
can sell as as to beter myself I will do so there is plenty of
vacant land in the umpqua and over nxt to the Sea cost there is
some fine country thare I will try to answer your question about
the sickley women that come to oregon for their helth I will say
that as far as I know about nine out of ten get their helth
Elizabeth Lucas & Susan Marshal ar geting thier helth verry well
Elizabeth looks much beter than I ever saw her before Stephen
White is not expected to live but a short time some thinks he has
the liver complaint and some think he is poisned William Reynolds
has come in from the mines and has the Skirvy but he is geting
beter I think he will get well I will not have time to write any
more at present I would write to Father if I knew he would not
start to Oregon this spring if he has not started tell him to write
soon as you get this leter and write your self as often as you can
you dont know how glad I am when I get a leter from any of you
direct your leters to Bloomington Polk County if Edward Grounds and
Isaac Smith have not started to Oregon tell them not to talk any
more about Oregon it is uselesf to be all ways talking and never doing
no more at present but remain your brother
E.D Butler
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