Page:The McClure Family.djvu/222

196 and Samuel, father of Mr. Albert Mateer living (1913) Calwood, Mo.

In a letter from Callaway County, Mo., June 24, 1830, I read that Isabella Mateer was taken sick on her way out and that "Mr. Hannah took a carriage and T)rought her home." One would judge from the Augusta records that the Mateers, Mitchels, Doaks and Hannahs were related.

The following letters from William Mateer, son of James Mateer, and Jane Mitchel, to his first cousin, John McClure, are of interest:

"Caloway County, Mo., Dec. 20, 1827.

Dear Cousin,

I take my pen in hand to let you know that I am well and hope that these lines may find you and family well. In the first place would let you know that I had a tedious trip to this country. I was two months and four days from time I left home until landed on Salt river, and found this country much what I expected to see in every shape and form; found a great quantity of good land and a vast quantity of perrare, and some poor looking land. This country lays very level, but still roling enough to carry the water off the ground in a short time. I have been up the Misssippie 147 miles from St. Louis, and from there 75 or 80 miles up toward the headwaters of the Salt river, and from there across to the Missouri river. I have likewise been 200 miles up the Missouri from mouth and find the country much the same. Springs is very scarce, but I find the people that make use of creek water equally as healthy as them that have springs, and considered by some more so, but water can be had convenyently by sinking wells from ten to thirty feet. Stilling is a good business in country where a man has a mill of his own to grind his grain. Miils are scarce in this country; almost all horse mills, and then you must grind yourself and with your own horses and give the sixth bushel. You can get stills in country from 20 to 25 per cent lower in the gallon than in Virginia, and the head throwed in. Whiskey is two shillings per gallon by the