LETTERS OF JOHN D. MOLER, Letter to his sister, 13 May 1861 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Cresco, Kansas, May 13, 1861 Dear Sister; Last year was a very unfavorable one for our State- there was scarcely enough food raised for the support of our people, but things are quite different this year. Last year was exceedingly dry, but this spring there is plenty of rain; wheat looks quite well and so does gardens and the early corn and there is no limit to the grass. My family and myself are quite well satisfied with our change from Ohio to Kansas for there we would have to remain poor, but here we can be as well off as almost any of our neighbors, in fact we have more land under cultivation than any one in this vicinity. After this year I expect to rent out our land and devote all my time to stock raising, and I suppose there is not a better stock raising country in the world, for the amount of pasture is unlimited and will remain so for a generation of time, for timber is so scarce that the country never will be thickly settled, and as a consequence farms will always remain large and our soil cannot be surpassed. Our educational advantages are not verry great as yet but they will be as soon as we get our State machinery well into operation, for (let me explain) one section of land (640 acres) in every eighteen is to be sold and the proceeds loaned out and the interest to apply to paying school teaching, and then the United States government donates land for the support of two Universities, besides the people can tax the owners of land here living in other States, for the purpose of building school houses and support of schools, if it is considered necessary, and I know we will doe it, and here let me say that in my opinion there are fewer fools in the State according to the number of people than any place I know anything about. Almost every family takes several newspapers. But we labor under a great many disadvantages, for instance, our mail only comes once a week and our towns are too far off. We have a large number of towns but there is not a single house in the largest number of them, in fact our Legislature had to pass a law to prohibit more than half the land to be laid off in town sites.- Our nearest town of any importance is Lawrence, forty miles from here, but it is a real live town, and Leavenworth is eighty miles from here. We buy our things at one of the above named places. Goods are as cheap there as they are in Cincinnati, but it takes from four to seven days to go and return with a load (2 horse waggon) and as there is no taverns to stop at, we have to doe our own cooking and sleep in our waggons, and strange as it may appear we soon like it,- we drive so as to get to a creek so as to have water for our horses and water to make coffee and stop probably on Indian land miles from the habitation of white people, think and talk of different times and scenes, cook our meals and eat and lay down and sleep as safe and as comfortable as we would at the best of taverns- a person can travel in the way I have tried describe and in fact every body travels that way, Preachers, Lawyers, Doctors and Merchants all travel the same way. - It does seem lonely sometimes to be riding by myself (and I have considerable business) to be entirely out of sight of a house or a tree, nothing to be seen but the grass beneath and the Heavens above, or perhaps the Indians and a few prairie wolves or Dear and Prairie chickens, but I know it is the country as the Supreme architect left it, and we will not complain for we know God might have mad a better and more beautiful country, but I think he never did. I have not voted since I have been in Kansas. Parties are verry unequally divided here. There is not more than one Democrat to every ten Republicans, but understand me correctly, there is but verry few Abolitionists. For my own part I detest them more than eve I did. I look upon a horse thief and slave stealing in the same light. We hang the horse thief, and in Missouri they hang the slave stealer. Had I better say anything about our National difficulties. I will risk a few words. I am and will be sorry to see the South go off to themselves, but if we cannot live peaceably together it will be best to part and perhaps we may live on more friendly terms apart than together. It may be possible that things has been decided at Washington before this time. My nearest neighbors on the Northwest are Indians, the same tribe of whom Black Hawk was once a chief, who you will recolect once undertook to exterminate the white people of Illinois, but you know he did not succeed, but they are now quite friendly and say they will walk knee deep in blood to defend the white man. After Black Hawk was defeated the President directed that he be taken to all the principal cities to show him the strength of our nation, and when he returned to his own brethren in Iowa, he told his tribe of all he saw, of our numbers and our strength and our beautiful Cities, but said he, I saw nothing so beautiful as our own Prairies on fire, and I can saw with him, it is a almost sublime sight. We have enjoyed good health since we have been in the West. Our children are growing finely, they the girls are out milking now. Ally has about a hundred young chickens. (In another handwriting) They want to know whether I am writing to Aunt Hannah or to Aunt Han. They want you to remember them to your own children and they are going to gather you a large number of kinds of seed of Prairie flowers. In looking over the above, I notice quite a number of mistakes and I am ashamed of the writing, but I am in quite a hurry for I have been off with (end of letter)