LETTERS OF JOHN D. MOLER, Letter to his sister, dated 4 March 1860 Transcribed and submitted by Marysue Eulitz, (c) 1999 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- KSGENWEB INTERNET GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In keeping with the KSGenWeb policy of providing free information on the Internet, this data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other gain. Copying of the files within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- John Columbus, Ohio March 4, 1860 Dear Sister I have concluded to address you once more from Ohio. You probably think it strange that I should move West, probably it is wrong. I shall try to justify myself.- We have hardly made a living for the last two years- society is not very good- we would have to labor hard and remain poor and when our children would grow up they would have to be corn hoers and dish washers for somebody else- and be so much attached to the scenes of their childhood that they would remain here whereas if we now emigrate west there will be a chance for them to doo something even if their parents doo not. And besides my own family I would like to doo something for my brothers and sisters. One of the verry best things which they can doo would be to move west but they are too timid to leave their mothers neighborhood, but I think they will go too. Henry is quite anxious to go now - but will be compelled to stay here a couple of years yet. It is but eight hundred miles there and it takes but a short time to go by railroad.- I conversed a few days ago with a Methodist Minister that resides in Kansas. He spoke in the highest terms of the fertility of the land, the (unreadable) briety of the climate and the hospitality of the people, he said you could not go amiss for members of church. I was offered 1000 acres of land said to be equal in fertility to the Sciota bottoms for #2000.- If there is any person in your neighborhood that would like to better their condition that you can recommend I should like to have them come on. Our children are all well and so is their mother. I weighed the children today. No. 4 weighed 16, No. 3 weighed 26, No. 3 weighed 38 and No. 1 weighed 47. And your humble servant 195. Mary weighed about 125. We are going to Kansas by steamboat. We are going to take out household goods and kitchen furniture along and also our waggon and buggy and our dog and four horses and a box of fruit trees besides many other thinks too tedious to mention - there is several religeous revivals in the neighborhood at this time - it will not doo for me to go to meeting now for fear that I will hear those old familiar tunes and it would be harder to break away from the scenes of my youth. There is but a few of our old neighbors living in the neighborhood any more, Whites are gone, Cherrys are living in Columbus. Mrs. Merrion is dead, so is Mrs. Morill. Ed Stuard went the same way. Henderson have also left. Huffmans have some of them removed and some died. this world is a world of change - if we doe right it will not take longer to go to heaven from maryland or Kansas that from Columbus and the place of endless punishment is as near one place as the other.- There is in Kansas wild turkes and some wild Indians as well as deer and border Roughians.- It is a commong saying that the trash have to go west as their places are filled by better citizens, but I guess it is a mistake about these times. Gov. Greiner says Kansas is filling up with a live inteligent and enterprising sort of people. the hoop pole and shingle merchants have no business in Kansas, there is no timber for them to trade in, they will have to stay in Ohio. The tobacco raisers will have to stay in Maryland, the sugar and cotton growers in the South and the calico makers in the New England States- the stock raisers and freedom seekers will go to Kansas- would it be very gratifying to you to visit us in Ohio and find us all huddled together so poor that we could not stand without leaning against something. I was going to make a comparison but will not the time. -----------------------------------------------------------------------