Salem O.T. Jany 8th, 1858

Dear Brother

When I went home in the holidays I received a letter from you
informing me that you had received that Power of Attorny which
pleased me, for I was fearful it was lost it was so long before I
could hear from it I am in hopes you have sold the land. I will
now tell you why I hope you have sold Eilijah D. Butler is lying
very low with the Consumption and I do not think he will live till
Spring, you know he used to blead at the lungs while in Illinois
he has been working along till I think he has gone into the
consumpsion if he should die before the land is sold you are well
aware that it would be with some dificulty that it could be sold I
have never heared from you since I wrote to you about the
distribution of the Estate in this country. I hope you will have sent
it long before you receive this but for fear it has not gone, may be
I had better write to you again what I want. We have agreed here
to give mother our thousand eight hundred dollars besides what
property she has had set off to her which amounts to seven
hundred and fifty six dollars and seventy five cents making in all
$2556.75 which will be a yearly income to her of $250.00 without
tuching any of the principle, and then divide the remainder among
the six heirs here, which will be about one thousand dollars each
including the Real Estate here and that you in the States take that
amount out of the funds thare. That is our thousand dollars each if
you have not I wish you to get up something authorising the Probate
Court of Polk County Oregon Territory to make such a distribution
have it signed by all the heirs in the States and send it to me. I also
wrote to you giving you the nos of the land here, so that you could
send a Power of Attorney to sell but have not heared from it since.
I can not send you the nos now for I have them not with me. I will
send you a receipt that Elijah D. Butler had and brought with him
from Illinois thorugh mistake, the balance of the relations are well
as far as I know, and all doing well it is now the 8th of Jany and the
ground has not been froze hard enough to bore up a man this winter.
the longer I stay in Oregon the better I like it, if we had all the indians
and Mormons out of the way we would begin to do something the
Country East of the Cascades is one of the finest grazing countries in
the world at this time and one of the healthyest it is far more so than
this valey. I see that your banks are all breaking. So are our banks
but the more you break our banks the better they pay that is the kind
of banks I like. I believe I have not seen a paper dollar since I left the
Missouri River all most five years since. Write to me often.

Verry Respectfully

Ira F. M. Butler