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Butler Family Letters

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The Butler Family Letters is a collection of 70 original letters written by some of the pioneers who settled in Polk County, Oregon to found Western Oregon University. This collection was donated to the Archives in 1993 by Mr. Lawrence Butler of Atchinson, Kansas. Some of these letters had been transcribed in 1976 and were published locally under the title Letters from Polk County, Oregon to Monmouth, Illinois 1853-1863 (available at Hamersly Library).

The letters were written by members of the Peter and Rachel Butler family, and their friends and relations who left Monmouth, Illinois in 1853 to cross the Oregon Trail and settle in Polk County, Oregon. There, they joined friends--all of whom belonged to the Disciples of Christ church-- who had left Illinois earlier in 1850 and 1852 for the purpose of establishing a town and a university in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Addressed to their relatives back home, the letters are an invaluable primary resource for understanding the challenges of daily life faced by Oregon's early pioneers. The letters describe farming and agriculture; cost of living; deaths, births and sicknesses; mining discoveries; conflicts with Native Americans; national politics; and how much the pioneers missed their relatives in Monmouth, Illinois.


  Library and Media Services Western Oregon University
345 N. Monmouth Ave.
Monmouth, OR 97361
503-838-8418
or e-mail
libweb@wou.edu
Last Updated: Friday, 03 August, 2007 11:20 AM

 

Located in the heart of Oregon’s lush Willamette Valley, Western Oregon University is the oldest institution in the Oregon University system with an award-winning campus that blends welcoming traditional features with multimedia classrooms, wireless web access and a state-of-the-art library. WOU is home to the nationally-renowned Teaching Research Institute, the Regional Resource Center on Deafness and the Rainbow Dance Theatre with approximately two-thirds of its students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the rest in the College of Education.