Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/39

 very much. ... I am very glad to hear you took Fred to La Fayette for he always wanted to go.

We came over the plains very well. When I wrote you at Laramie, there were 24 wagons in company. We traveled up the Platte till we overtook the Whites from Sullivan Co., Uncle Anderson's relations. There we divided and we went with them and traveled with them ever since. We called the oldest Uncle Jo and the company went by that name. I am at his house now. ... I am not settled yet but will be by the time the next mail goes out and then I will write what I am doing. I have not been here long enough to see what is going on. I like the country very well and I think I can do very well here. . . . We got to The Dalles on the 16th of last month. There I took a Steam Boat which runs to the Cascade Falls. There they have a road around the Falls for conveying goods to the lower end of the Falls, and there are other Boats that run to Portland. Portland is a thriving town of about one thousand inhabitants. It has sprung up in two years.

Davison and Partlow are talking about going to the mines this Fall. I can tell you in my next whether they go or not. I think I will go next Summer with Uncle Jo, but I can't tell till my next. The company is scattered all over the country. Smith is in Portland keeping Boarding House. Lucetta Redding is with them yet but there is a fair chance of her getting married to a Mr. Armstrong of Vincennes who travelled with us from the Umatilla. He is a fine man and well off and she will do well. Smith has done very wrong. He sold a wagon at The Dalles and brought it down to Portland and sold it again which will do him a great injury here....

I called on Mr. T'Vault but he was not at home. He has a very fine wife. ...I am going up tomorrow to see Mr. T'Vault. I heard that he had come home....

There are not many women in this country yet. Women can do better here than men. People who are holding claims want to get married. 'Tis the candid fact that if a man has a Family of girls he can get any accommodation he wants.

I suppose you have heard of a great many Indian depredations this year on the Plains among the Snakes. We were not troubled any but there were some before and behind us that were