Barber Papers: “Poor McEwen” Spring of 1857

January 29, 2016

By Amorin Mello

Selected letters of the Joel Allen Barber Papers

… continued from Winter of 1857.

Cambridge Sunday April 12th 1857

Dear Son

It is some weeks since I have written a word to you, for the reason, that after I learned that you had gone to Superior & might be coming down to Lancaster, all my letters to you might fail of ever reaching you, so I have held on till I should learn something further from you. We have rec^d several letters from you, since your arrival at Superior, for which we were thankful, & I trust that when you got back again to La Pointe our old friend Esq Bell had a lot of my letters for you that would take a long time to read, i.e. if you should have patience enough to read them all through I wrote you last on the 8th of March & next day letters from you, one dated at La Pointe & one for Amherst dated at Fargo’s. Since that time nothing any important has occurred within the circle of your acquaintance. Every thing has jogged on in the old beaten track. We are all three well, & it is a remarkably healthy time all around us. There have been but 3 or 4 deaths in town since I came home. Deacon Reynolds aged 90 Lyman Seeley’s wife & Walter Wheeler [???s] wife & a boy of D.R. Evan’s. In Johnson no deaths that I can think of except old Mrs Hunt who died last week. The marriages in this town have been very few & none that you will know any thing about except Susan Harvey who was married last week. In Johnson very few, Calvin Whiting has lately married the widow W. (Albe‘s Mother).

Albe Whiting was a hometown friend and reoccuring character in the Barber Papers.

This has been a remarkable sugar season thus far, but we are probably through or nearly so for this year. Dow has made about 1150 ^lbs & has a lot more to sugar off. Amherst has tapped 15 trees where Mr Harvey who used to make sugar in our woods and has made about 250 ^lbs of the kindest sugar ever made in Vt as he used tin milkpans to catch his sap & boil in the great caldron kettle & every thing is done up scientifically. It would amuse you to see how the “Hops” put into it, as he goes into the woods at 7 a.m. gathers his work, over 3 or 4 times boils it down & draws it down on the handsled in the largest wine keg, at night, often after dark, & half the way in deep mud, sometimes breaking his draw ropes & nearly blistering his hands by drawing on the rope. Amherst has got to be a great swarthy half breed 5 feet 5 ½ inches high in his stockings & weighs 140 ^lbs as well & free from every ail as one could wish & if you do not see him soon you will never be able to handle him again.

We had a great flood last week as high as I have ever seen it, save a very few times tearing the banks terribly, carrying off fences, bridges, & doing all sorts of mischief generally. Our meadow will part with a slice from the trees just below the house to the large trees on our bank [????] the creeping rock about ½ a rod wide. You will be surprised to see how the meadow is going off, the more it wears, the faster it goes next time & it will not be long before it will go all off entirely. If it were like all other meadows, that gained in some other place as fast as it last elsewhere it would be more tolerable. But we shall have to grin & bear it, awhile, till we all make up our minds to let somebody else have it & try what they can do to save it. Another great objection to our meadow is its liability to have the soil carried off & great holes washed out, if plowed, & there is 1/3 or nearly of the meadow in this state & for want of plowing it does not produce more than 1/3 of what it should do.

Dow is still on the place, though he & wife are bad enough I do not see as I can do better. Jonathan Nichols has got back with his family to Cambridge, Irving sold out in Al. but on^?? is homesick to get back again.

You will get a letter from me with a copy of a notice from the Land Office at Mineral Point, & probably you will get a copy of the law as passed by Congress, before this reaches you, or I can cut it out and send it in this letter so that you can see it for yourself which I think the best way & you can also see Oscar’s [???], & as you have lately written to your Uncle Allen I suppose he will give you all needful advise on the subject.

On further reflection I will not send you the Law, you will get it in William’s Paper of March 21^st if it now goes to La Pointe as his father said he should direct it [???] Nov 20^th then. I think will be no trouble in your case, as you will see that all entries under that act

“where the purchaser has made affidavit & paid the purchase money as required by [?^d] [a?] & the instructions issued & in force & in the hands of the Regent at the time of making said entry, are hereby legalised & [???] shall issue to the parties respectively, Excepting those entries under said act, which the Commissioner of the Gen. Land Office may ascertain to have been fraudulently, or evasively made.”

Giles Addison Barber first visit to his son Joel Allen Barber on Lake Superior was during the Summer and Fall of 1856.

This is all the law governing your case & I think there will be no difficulty whatever about it. Your entry was made in good faith & you went to the Lake to earn something with which to improve your land & have forfeited nothing there. I was thinking that if you came to Lancaster I would go there & take you with me to the Lake via the Sault when I go up there in May or June. However if you do come I know it as soon as you get there, & if you do not I shall expect to find you at or around La Pointe in health & in good spirits I hope, & probably glad to see one from below, but not gladder than we should be to see you here.

Joel Allen Barber began surveying the Apostle Islands during the Winter of 1855 with his brother Augustus.

I am surprised to learn that you are going to survey islands so late in the season. Nothing that I can now say will avail any thing else I would caution against trusting too long to the treacherous covering over the dark blue waters. I hope you will have good success and get through without any fatal accidents to your self or to any one of your party. I shall feel great anxiety on your account, till I hear from you again, but shall try to comfort myself with the assurance you gave us in a late letter that you were careful to avoid all danger as much as possible, not only on your own account but on that “of your parents & dear brother.” I cannot expect to get answer to this before it is time to go up to the Lake, but that need not deter you from writing, if you do not come below, & if you do come to Lancaster you may expect to see your Mother there forthwith & possibly Amherst & myself. I do not yet know what I shall do with Amherst this season whether continue him at school put him in a store or to some trade. He would like to be a printer well enough, & it is not a bad business. Whether it would be best to have him go through college is matter of uncertainty with me. There are half as many spoiled by going to college as there benefitted by it. But I do want you to close up all your business around that Lake & come to your Uncle’s Office to study Law. Thode Burr thinks of it & his Uncle wants to have him. I wish you to take the matter into consideration. May God preserve your life & health and prosper you in all lawful undertakings

I remain your Affectionate father

Giles A. Barber

Amherst has shot 3 muskrats to day, prices better now from 15 to 25 ¢.

The death of Albert McEwen was mentioned in the Superior Chronicle and Benjamin Armstrong’s memoir.

I am very sorry for the fate of poor McEwen. I fear he is dead & that his fate will never be known. I think he was abandoned by his guides & perished alone.

Mr Young is still alive I suppose, have heard lately that he was worse.

U.S. Representative Augustus Young, U.S. President James Buchanan Jr, the Kansas question, and the Southern Confederacy were featured during the Winter of 1857.

You will see that Buchanan is the worst patron of Border Ruffians & the meanest tool of slave holders that has yet cursed the nation, appointing the worst fire eaters and none else to office in Kansas, & doing all the dirty work of the south crushing out freedom & establishing slavery all over the [?????] if possible.

Superior Chronicle

April 14th, 1857

SUPPOSED MURDER.

superior-chronicle-april-14-1857-murder-on-grand-footpath detail

“Supposed Murder” was a newspaper article published in the Superior Chronicle issue of April 14th, 1857.

March 19th, 1857, Barber Papers:
“I am much alarmed for the safety of Friend McEwen & think the prospect of his being alive is very small. The case deserves a rigid investigation to ascertain whether he was murdered by his guides, or was deserted by them & left to perish in the wilderness. The weather was favorable about that time & for some days after. I think he left La Pointe Oct. 14th the day I got back from Montreal River. ‘Poor Mc’”.

Considerable anxiety is felt by the people of La Pointe county in regard to the whereabouts of Mr. Albert McEwen, a citizen of that county, who started overland for St. Paul sometime during the months of October or November of last year; and of whom nothing has since been heard. Strong suspicions that he was murdered are entertained by his friends. The circumstances, as near as we can learn them, are as follows:

History of Northern Wisconsin
by Western Historical Co., 1881
“Ironton, which was settled at the time of the iron excitement, was situated on the south shore of the lake, one-half mile west of the Montreal River. The village was platted in 1856-7, by McEwan [Albert McEwen], Herbert, Mandlebaum, and others. Warehouses and docks were built, and the place thrived for about four years, when it was abandoned.”

Mr. McEwen, a gentleman from Detroit connected with the Indian Agency, and several persons from La Pointe county, with half-breed packers, started together last fall to go across the country, and traveled in company until reaching the head waters of the St. Croix. Here McEwen and the gentleman from Detroit procured canoes and, with two half-breed yoyaguers, determined to descend the river, while the remainder of the party took the land route. When the latter party reached Yellow Lake they found the half-breeds there, but could learn nothing definite in regard to McEwen and his companion; nor could the learn anything in St. Paul, where both these gentlemen had business engagements.

McEwen was known to have about $600 in notes and drafts on his person, and his companion $1,000 in gold. The half-breeds were seen a short time after in St. Paul in possession of large sums of money, principally gold. It is believed that they murdered these gentlemen while descending the river. The circumstances are strongly in favor of this belief.

Was McEwen’s party going “across the country” to the Office of Indian Affairs in Washington D.C.?

Mr. McEwen had resided in and about LaPointe for several years, and owns considerable property in that county. He was an explorer; and is well and favorably known throughout the lake region. The other gentleman was in the employ of Mr. Gilbert, superintendent of the Lake Superior Indians; and was returning to Detroit from La Pointe, where he had been on business connected with the agency.

Benjamin Armstrong organized the McEwen search party.

At latest advices a party were organizing at La Pointe to go to the St. Croix and arrest the half-breeds, and if possible learn the fate of the missing persons.

Early Life among the Indians:

by Benjamin Armstrong

CHAPTER XVII.

A Murder on a Trial at Yellow Lake.——Yet a Mystery.——Collar and Sleeve Buttons of the Murdered Man.——An Introduction to the Bear Family.

~ Early Life Among The Indians by Benjamin Armstrong, Chapter XVII.

In 1855 [sic] a man named McEwen came to me at La Pointe who told me he was from California formerly, but was then located at St. Paul; that he had been prospecting through this part of the country for some time for the purpose of finding a suitable location for business and to buy real estate but as the weather was becoming unfavorable for this work he had resolved to return to St. Paul and wanted to know if I could furnish a couple of good reliable men to pilot him as far as Yellow Lake, for when once there he could get on alone over old lumber roads to St. Paul. I furnished him with two men whom I considered reliable. They were two half breeds by the name of Gostelang, their first names being Belamy and Batese, and it transpired that they did their duty and left McEwen at Yellow Lake all right, at a stopping place kept by Joseph Cobaux (or Cavillion), and that McEwen remained at this place two nights and a day. I further ascertained that Cobaux advised McEwen not to follow the tote road as he had intended but to go by trail to Clam Lake and from there to Wood Lake, as it would shorten the distance some ten or twelve miles and that he would send a man with him as a pilot until he should again come to the tote road, which he would do at a place called Knute Anderson’s Meadow. Subsequent events show that McEwen took this advise but he was never again seen alive by his friends.

North Woods River:
The St. Croix River in Upper Midwest History
By Eileen M. McMahon, Theodore J. Karamanski, pages 64-66.
“Among the unsavory traders who entered the St. Croix at this time was Joe Covillion. He was a Metis who took over the former mission school at Yellow Lake and used it for his post. Located on the Yellow River just where it leaves Little Yellow Lake, the trading house was the scene of many drunken reveries and a key location in the first murder mystery in the St. Croix valley. In 1845 [sic] Albert McEwen hired Covillion to guide him to timberlands in the Yellow Lake region. McEwen had a large amount of gold coin he hoped to use to secure title to lands upon which a profitable speculation might be made. McEwen never returned from the trip. Covillion explained that he had actually not been with McEwen and he cast suspicion on a Chippewa who was alleged to have actually served as guide. Not long afterwards McEwen’s body was found stuffed in a hallow tree about ten miles from Covilion’s post. Preliminary investigation revealed that Covillion had in his possession a large amount of gold coins, McEwen’s watch, and a fist full of land warrants. Calmly the trader explained that he obtained these from the Chippewa in trade. Later that winter the Indian whom Covillion had claimed guided McEwen was found dead in his camp. Covillion, the owner of ‘considerable property’ retired to Taylor’s Falls, where he died in 1877.”

It seems that McEwen had written to a partner of his in St. Paul prior to his departure that he would arrive there about a certain time, and that his partner had become anxious about him after the time had expired. He wrote to me. I answered him telling all I could, which was his start and arrival at Yellow Lake. In a short time after this friend of McEwen‘s, whose name I cannot remember, came to La Pointe to ferrit out the mystery. I gave him what information I could and he set out, promising to let me know from Yellow Lake what success he was having. He did so, saying that McEwen had arrived at Yellow Lake and remained there two nights and the men that I had sent returned the next morning. I then sent two men to Yellow Lake, who could talk both English and Chippewa, and instructed them to talk with whites and Indians and get all the information they could and the route he had taken and follow it and find out if possible what had became of the man. They ascertained at Yellow Lake from the Indians that Cobaux had sent a man with him by way of Clam Lake trail. The men followed. At Clam Lake they found where they had a fire and had cooked a meal. The next sign they found was at Wood Lake where they had occupied an old lumber camp. Here they found blood stains but a thorough search of the camp only revealed a tin box in which McEwen had carried his papers and minutes of land descriptions. The streams and lakes were now frozen over and snow had fallen and further search had to be abandoned until spring. A search was instituted then which resulted in finding his body in a little lake at the head of Wood Lake proper. The head had been cut with an axe or hatchet on the back part of it. Nothing by which he could be identified was left except his clothing. His collar button and shirt studs and a valuable finger ring, which he told me were made of gold he had dug himself, were missing. I do not think McEwen had any money about him except what might have been left from ten dollars which he borrowed from me. The collar button and Shirt studs, or similar ones, were afterward seen in a shirt worn by a trader at St. Croix Falls, but there being no one who could identify them to a certainty, we were compelled to be satisfied with our own conclusions, but from what we had seen of them and what he had said of them, we were more than satisfied that they were the property of Mr. McEwen.

In the spring of 1841 my first real good introduction to the bear family took place. It was in the logging camp of Mr. Page and less than one mile from the present city of Hudson, Wis. The camp had been pretty well cleared out of its supplies, theyhaving been moved down to the place where the drive would begin. Only a few papers, scalers rule and time book and a keg part full of molasses were left behind. One afternoon after the landings had been broken and booming about completed, Mr. Page requested me to take a man and go to the camp and return in the morning, bringing the rule and papers and have the man bring along the keg of molasses. I took a young Indian about twenty years of age, named Wa-sa-je-zik, and started for the camp. It was nearly dark when we started and we had a mile to walk over a muddy trail. The boy stripped some birch bark from an old wigwam near the road and made a torch to use as a light when we reached the shany. When near he handed me the torch and picked up some wood to make a fire. I lit the torch at the cabin and found the door partly open but went in followed by the boy and dashed his armful of wood down at the fire place. At this we heard a rush along side the camp at our left that nearly scared the life out of us and raising the torch we beheld two bears, who had doubtlessly been attracted to the cabin by the scent of the molasses. They made a rush for the door where they entered but it was closed and wheeling about they faced us, their eyes shining with a lustre that we would much rather have seen in a painting.

Plate “Imprisoned with Two Bears” between pages 238 and 239.

But we were there; no door but the one the bears were guarding and no window where we could escape. We stood like statues for awhile eyeing our companions, while the torch was fast burning away. The roof was made of shakes and the eaves were about four feet from the ground. Escape we must or we would soon be in the dark with our black companions. We expected every moment to be pounced upon, for every spring bears, as a usual thing, are very hungry. It occurred to me that perhaps I could move the shakes enough to crawl through and handing the now shortened torch to the boy and at the same time instructing him to keep it waving to hold bruin at bay, I made a dash for the shakes and soon had a hole through which I could crawl and did crawl and shouted to Wa-sa-je-zik to come. The lad went through that hole like an arrow, and he was none too quick, for the bear espied the light of Heaven through the hole I had made and dashed for it, but missed his footing and fell back. By this time we had the shakes kicked back to place and Messrs. Bruin were our prisoners. We camped outside that night and in the morning got a rifle and killed them both. We took the hides and the best of the meat to the boys on the drive and had a regular pow-wow and feast to celebrate our adventure.

Did Benjamin Armstrong leaving a clue to connect Albert McEwen‘s death and stories about the bear family in this chapter?

I had several experiences with bears after this but never again was caught in their den. A black bear is harmless except when wounded or cornered and then they are a wicked foe. I once wounded one and before I could reload my gun he was almost upon me and we had a lively promenade around an old pine stub until I got my hunting hatchet from my belt and dealt him several blows when he gave up the fight and we had no quarrels over gate receipts. He started away uttering an occasional growl. I picked up my gun and finished loading it and I soon had his hide as a trophy.

I did not meet Wa-sa-je-zik again until two or three years ago when I met him at Granite Falls, on the Mississippi. He recognized me at once and began to relate the story and it seemed like meeting a long lost brother, when our encounter with the bears had been revived.

Cambridge, April 22^nd 1857

My Dear Son

“IN MEMORY OF AUGUSTUS H. BARBER of Cambridge, Vt. U.S. Deputy Surveyor who was drowned in Montreal River Apr. 22. A.D. 1856 Aged 24 yrs. & 8 ms.” ~ FindAGrave.com

This has been a sorgawful day to me, feeling more impressed with the awful calamity that befel over dear lamented Augustus and all our family in his loss One year ago to day.

I wanted to immerse myself in solitary seclusion from every body & every thing and mourn my sad bereavements, but that was impossible in the house so I went on the hill with Amherst & have been at work with him where we had none to molest or make us afraid. Time has done nothing toward healing the wound, though perhaps something in habituating me to my affliction, so that if my grief is not so fresh & new it is still none the less severe. There are many painful reflections & questions that are suggested by this calamity & 1^st whether it was an act of providence in thus snatching him from this life the only way of which we have any certainty & that naturally brings up the question, why was it? Was it for his good? or for the good of any other persons in the world? I know there are those who see, or pretend to see, some intended good in whatever they term the dealings of an [in?????] Providence, but my faith is not so strong in such things as to afford me any consolation in my affliction.

Could I be satisfied that an overruling Providence has removed our dear Augustus from this life, it would not be as painful to bear as it now is, for I should then be satisfied that it was not without wise & sufficient cause, whatever the cause might be, & I should humbly bow to that disposation however distressing it might be

Augustus Hamilton Barber was murdered!

It must remain a sealed book to us, how Augustus was hurried out of the woods, and why it was so ordained if there, was any ordination about it, till we meet him in another world, which I devoutly hope we may do though I am sorry to say more hoping than expecting. Could that blessed assurance, that we shall meet him in the future state of existence, pervade our minds, how death would be show of his greatest terrors. That we may all be enlightened, and be enabled to discover the truths, and guided in the path of wisdom & duty is my daily prayer.

It has been a great sugar season beyond any thing for a dozen years. Dow has made over 1600 ^lbs. Buck on the Carlston farm 2500 ^lbs. Some have over 2000 & some over 3000 ^lbs. Amherst has made some over 300 ^lbs with 74 milkpans & 4 buckets. We are surfeited with sweet this spring.

It is still a general time of health all around us.

I got a letter from our Aunt Martha a few days ago, saying that Mr Burr was then at Lancaster, was still no better satisfied with the place than when there before, but he was in progress of a trade, buying out your Uncle Thode’s interest in the firm of Howe & Barber, taking an inventory of the goods &c. He sent Thode home soon after getting there, on a visit I suppose, he Thode went to Brooklyn & brought Emily home from thence. Mrs B. feels rather unpleasantly about going to L. “because Thode has done so miserably there, yet knows it is all his fault”. I expect to hear from him again soon, possibly to night. Alvira promised to come up and make us a story of some time this spring, but a letter rec^d to day from her informed us that she cannot come at present. She is going in a few days to her husband within 10 miles of N.Y. City & has so much work to fit up a gal that is to be married next week that she cannot come wisely concluding that we can bear the disappointment better than the gal could that of not getting married just now while she is in the fit of it though she had seen her intended but 2 or 3 times & had not been acquainted with him over 4 weeks. Alvira enquires for you & says “how I would like to see him”

23^rd

I suppose it is about time to begin to prepare for my journey to the Great Lake & I am so perplexed about that & other matters so that I at times hardly know how to turn myself.

Your mother has so many schemes that I consider unwise & impractical that are daily urged upon me that I find there is no way but to take the course I think best under all circumstances. One is to hire out the farm & every thing on it for a term of years and move enough of our effects to Lancaster to keep house with & then go to building & improving the farm, at the same time leaving this place to go to hell faster if possible, than it has done for the 5 years that it has been farmed by somebody else, nor can any thing I say, convince her that whoever rented the place would do his utmost to skin it and rob it of every thing that could be taken from it. (& now she having read the last two or three lines is accusing me of committing this very stripping & robbery myself saying that I take every thing for other purposes & put nothing on the farm again by way of repairs &c) The fact is this. The expensive journey taken by me last year is set down by her as a pleasure trip & I am continually reminded of spending all I can get in traveling back & forth between here & Wisconsin as though I do it for the purpose of wasting the money & nothing else.

If I ever go to Lancaster to live on that little farm I want to make it a pleasant and attractive home. This considering the expense of building & fencing will require some money more than I shall have left in my pockets after I have got the family there, & to think of building without that means would be no wise & consistent as many other plans I hear daily “pro–pos–ed.” One of which to build on the scanty remainders (here my patience gave way). The trouble is, she wants to be present whenever anything is to be done, so as to exercise her undoubted & undisputed [p???ation] to “Benjamin” the business fully confident of her superior judgement & experience in all out-of-door work or mechanical or [????????] operations.

I rec^d a letter last evening from your Uncle Allen in relation to your land in Little Grant. He writes the substance of the act of March 2nd 1857 as rec^d by him from Squires, & who concludes by saying “all entries will be reqarded as regular & in good faith untill there is proof to the contrary.” Your Uncle says “who will therefore see that it is not necessary for Allen to take immediate steps to settle &c & for this reason I have taken no steps about Lumber.”

I had written to him to purchase lumber enough to build a house, thinking you would be down and need it to save your place. Whether you come down or not I want to hear from you again before I leave home for the west. Your Mother talks of going to Lancaster, but at times, especially at this minute, she talks as though she should not go, & that is the way the scale vibrates. Amherst & I went yesterday to cutting the small spruces that have sprung up over the pasture & grows to be pretty good sized trees some 6 or 7 inches through & we shall probably try it again to day. Amherst has now [?] rat skins having killed three this morning before breakfast, but one floated into the stream so that he would not get it by following it to the dry hill. He is doing great things with the little old gun, will work in the woods till supper & then go ball over the meadow till dark. My time is up. Give my love to the boys & believe me your ever affectionate father

G.A. Barber

Cambridge Sunday May 3^rd 1857

Dear Son

I again sit down to say a few words to you after a pause from April 22^nd to this time.

Not really knowing whether you are coming down to Lancaster, or not, I have not been so punctual as previously on account of the uncertainty of your getting my letters so that you must not impute my [rumapneps?] in waiting to any [dririmestion?] of parental affection or anxiety for your welfare. The last letter from you was dated at Superior March 15^th and though I have great fears for your safety I shall hope to receive more of your ever welcome letters assuring us of your life being preserved & health also. We are well at home, Amherst has gone to St Albans to day with Mr Kingsbury to return again to morrow. Our Alvira is here with us on a visit & we should have a good time of it, if we could only make her feel contented & happy. She came up last Thursday & says she must return this week. Her husband is at Spuyten Duyvil creek 11 miles above N.Y. on the East bank of the Hudson and she is soon going to join him. Your Uncle Burr has been to Lancaster & bought out T.M.B.’s interest in the stores & has come out in the Herald with the new firm of Howe & Burr, so that they are all bound to go to Wisconsin to live. I think I wrote you in my last that Thode had come home for a visit but I do not know whether he has gone back again. Your Uncle Allen writes me about your land &c, & I wrote you the substance of his letter. He also sent word by Mr Burr to me, that I need have no uneasiness about it, as he thought all was right now.

I rec^d a letter from Mr Hayes a few days ago Saying that M. S. Bright had returned from Washington, was told by Mr Stevens the Lawyer there that there was no doubt of our land suit being decided in our favor, there being no trouble in the case.

Augustus Barber got into “A Little Trouble“ and died soon after he decided to “Let ‘Em Rip“.

I am fearful that the expense of obtaining it will be half as Enough as it is all worth. Still I shall not regret having done all in my power to hold it, as I think it was carrying out what Augustus would have wished could he have permitted to foresee his untimely death, & given directions.

Our spring has been unusually cold and backwards, so that Hay is in great request, though not very dear. Dow has bought 2 loads at $8.00 per ton & may have to buy some more. Very little has been done at springs work yet, the roads have been badly torn & what grieves me most of all is, the banks of the river are wearing away so fast on our meadow & is [??] going off like shot & in a few years we think have no meadow left, but every body’s meadows are suffering more or less this spring. Well, let them slide, in 100 years from now I shall not care what becomes of them, for I hope now of my posterity will be situated so that it will affect them.

I have to day been to the funeral of Elias Chadwick’s mother. The old Meeting house was pretty full of old familiar faces, they had very good singing and preaching some like [Bes/Mrs?] Peet’s. I have been trying to get Alvira to write something in this letter to you but she declines, saying if she writes to you she wants to write a good long letter. How do you get along with your survey of the Islands? Are Baker, Jo & William with you? if so give them my best [????] respects & tell them I will be with them in a short time, & am some better of my lameness so that I work about on the hills some, cutting up the everlasting growth of small spruces that have sprung up.

They are quite thick in some places, especially in that part of the pasture toward [P????] where they make quite a forest. Some that I cut down will have limbs 4 feet long lying upon the ground and all the [??????] 12 or 15 ft shortening toward the top & when I get them off I find a good deal of good pasture reclaimed. Amherst works with me and is quite strong and happy, and generally ready & willing to do almost any thing if he can work with me. I am at a loss what to do with him this summer, think some of taking him to Pointe aux Tremble where the Dougherty girls went a year or two ago, about 10 miles below Montreal on the left bank of the St Lawrence. He would acquire more French there in 4 months than in 9 months at any of our Academies, and the expense would be no greater.

The new Dr. (Deming) has just gone by returning from Johnson where he has been to see [Du??] Dow who is very sick & probably cannot live through it. There has been but 4 funerals in this town before to day since I got home Dec 25th which I think is very well for as large a population as ours. We had a great [?????] in Feb. & two very great floods this spring, and now we are getting the water over the meadows again to night and probably we shall have one or two more before planting is over by the time the floods are over our meadow will be pretty well whittled down. I hope there will be a little left.

May 4^th

Giles was to join his son Allen on Lake Superior for a second summer and continue working on Augustus’ unresolved land claims and survey contracts with the U.S. General Land Office.

All alive yet. Some angry debate last night, because I said I should go to Lancaster if you came down there & then go up to the Lake in company with you. The intention being to put you through to Superior on a bee line, let what will happen, & that was what I had calculated on doing, so that I should not be more than a week or then days in reaching La Pointe, unless you should be down at Lancaster when I should go there & join you.

Another theme of warm debate is concerning the disposition of the farm. No 1 contends to have it rented for an annual rent with the cows, oxen, horses & every thing for 5 years & we all go to Lancaster to live on the farm there leaving this to be stripped of every thing the cattle & horses to die out and every thing on this place even if we are to sell it, & then go to Lancaster where there are no buildings, & have to build without [m?????].

May 5^th

I went up to Johnson to Mead’s & N. Hydepark yesterday & it began to rain hard & steady while there & kept it up till I got home bringing a load of lumber with me. Amherst came home & in the rain all the way from that Conglomerate Ledge 16 miles & when he got home you may be assured he made a sorry figure. He found Thode Burr at home, & all the family well as usual. They are not determined whether they will move to Lancaster in June or wait till fall, but rather thought to go in June. Thode & two of the Girls will be here to day, or to morrow, & then I shall know more about the matter. Amherst carried down this 13 pelts and realized $2.23 from them.. Am shot an owl up in the woods one of the large kind, wounded his wing so that he could not fly, had brought him down & kept him two weeks when he got away & went to the woods again. Alvira has gone up to Sylvia’s & to Johnson & is coming back in a few days. Amherst & Kingsbury saw Ryan Ballard yesterday, who Land he should come out & see me soon & probably send up some small articles to Hiram when I go up there. I am yet undecided as to the time of starting for your country. Take good care of yourself, and ever rely upon the paternal affection and solicitude of an affectionate father

G. A. Barber

J. Allen Barber Esq.

“Laura [?] Burr” in “her writing” is signed on the top margin of this letter.

Cambridge May 10th 1857

Dear Son

Again I sit down to give you the the assurance that we are all well, and are not unmindful of you our dear son. Especially do we feel the loss of your society to day & yesterday as Thode Burr, Emily, & Laura are here & we all feel how much our pleasure would be enhanced, were you of our number. Nor would your company have been less agreeable last week when Alvira was here & Hannah, Amy, Charlotte, & Levi..

11^th

I got broke off last night by the coming in of Dave Griswold Mary Ann Chadwick & Jim who has just got home from Wisconsin.. Mr Burrs folks are going in June to Lancaster for good. Thode goes one week from to day. He is going into your Uncle’s Office to read Laws, & how much I wish you would feel disposed to do the same & where now ready to begin with Thode, but says the objector (Mother) “There are 3rd & 4th rate lawyers enough now, more than can get a living,” “Every boy should learn a trade,” &c &c, all too tedious to mention. But I would advise you now, to so shape your matters that you can enter the office certainly this next fall, and go through with the study of Law as soon as practicable. I do think it best for you, or I would not advise it, at any rate a year or two or even three devoted to the study of Law would be far from time & labor lost, even if you should then never practice any but follow farming or any other kind of business. I do wish you would think of it, and if you can make up your mind, to try it, I think it will be the best thing you can do. I do not want to have confined to such a dog’s life as [??] you are getting around Lake Superior.

I would certainly try to convince that famous objector that 3rd & 4th rate lawyers would never be more numerous for any thing you had to [??] with the Law, but of this be your own judge. Amherst got home from St A. in the rain (I think I mentioned it in my last) and next day posted off to Johnson on foot to the exhibition a schedule of which I forward you, was there two nights & then came home on foot going down to Whitten’s after you r gloves making 4 miles extra travel 12 in all & then went to the top of the Gooseberry hill for snow, to warm sugar on for we melted some & cooked for By. who got back here some day. But with Amhersts hard work this spring; hs exposure, & tramps he is getting worn down thin and has a bad cold on him. Amherst heard at Johnson that Sis Hunt had left the Country to avoid the impertinent profanity of a Waterville girl. Certain it is Sim carried Sis down one Sunday & went back two days afterward without him, & he has gone suddenly away leaving his shop and business, & if that is not the reason, none can tell what is. The rumor at Johnson was, that he had vamosed to induce said female to bestow her billings gate or naughty words upon somebody else. Poor Sister! Though the rebellion caused snivelling, it did not wholly eradicate the old Adam, & perhaps his fall from grace was not so far as to break any of his bones… How are the Mighty fallen. The ground was covered with snow this morning, the weather cold & unpleasant so that T.A.B. & the girls have not gone from to day & of cards, which for mental discipline is the best game of cards I know of. Thode is the same old coon sitting on a rail. Daniel [?] Dow died last Sunday making 5 that have died in [??????] street with in a year & none in any other part of the village next old Mrs Hunt, while we lived there B [?????????????] in all the rest of the village.

Since my last letter we have had a [???????] the 3^rd this spring & 4^th since Feb 12^th & this last one has raised the very [????] with the meadows & banks, doing more damage than then meadow will repay in a long time. I have not been down to ours yet & scarcely dare to do so, for fear my feelings may suffer. I got a letter from Father dated May 1^st saying Cyrus had sown the wheat on my land, set out some apple trees; & was plowing for corn. There is where I want to be with means to erect suitable buildings & if we have anything more it will yield more profit there at interest than here in meadow land that is constantly giving us proofs of it fugacious nature.

12^th

The Barber family was planning to join their relatives in Lancaster, Grant County, Wisconsin.

This letter did not get finished so as to “get to go” up to this time. Thode & Laura & Emily left here this morning for home in high spirits, it is most likely the last visit they will ever make to Cambridge but if we all live to gether in Wis. it will answer every purpose.

Amherst & I went up to cutting spruce bushes as soon as Thode went away & “wrought [son?],” till 4 o’clock this P.m without dinner or any rest. We have so hard colds both of us, that we are unfit for labor, but the farther we get from the house the pleasanter it is, & this is the main reason why I am pursuing the bushes with such a vengeance.

I am afraid you would not be any better off if I should go on & fill out the sheet, & as Mother wants to go down to the store to night I will dry up.

The Barber Papers do not include copies of any letters from Lake Superior during the Spring of 1857.

Give my respects to all friends & accept of the best wishes for your welfare of your affectionate father

G. A. Barber

To be continued in the Summer of 1857…

Posted by Amorin Mello

Filed in 1850s, Barber Papers ·Tags: Albe Whiting, Albert McEwen, Batese Gostelang, Belamy Gostelang, Benjamin Green Armstrong, Edward L. Baker, Giles Addison Barber, Joel Allen Barber, Joseph Alcorn, Joseph Cobaux, Joseph Covillion, Saint Croix River, Saint Croix Valley, Wa-sa-je-zik, William W. Ward, Wood Lake, Yellow River

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Barber Papers: “A Southern Confederacy” Winter of 1857

January 27, 2016

By Amorin Mello

Selected letters of the Joel Allen Barber Papers

… continued from the Fall of 1856.

Sandusky Dec 22^nd 1856

My dear Son

You will see by date of this letter, that I have progressed somewhat towards home.

Ironton was the Barbers’ town-site claim, located near the Mouth of the Montreal, where Augustus Barber died.

Portrait of U.S. Representative James Meacham from the History of the Town of Middlebury: In the Country of Addison, Vermont by Samuel Swift, 1859, after page 388. “Much to my astonishment I now find that Mr Meacham is a habitual private tippler and is often such a condition from drink as to occasion general notice and remark […] Is it not wonderful our state has had a long list of such members, Mallory, Nole, Buck, Phelps, &c.” from 1856 letter in the University of Vermont Libraries’ Center for Digital Initiative.

U.S. Representative Alvah Sabin was mentioned earlier in the Barber Papers during the Spring and Summer of 1855. ~ Eighty-Three Years a Servant, or, the Life of Rev. Alvah Sabin by Alvah Sabin Hobart, 1885

I left Lancaster in company with E. D. Lowry for Galena last Wednesday morning & on getting to Galena found that the cars had not run for 5 days on account of snow, but they got in toward morning & at 9 AM I started & only got through to Chicago next day at night, when not running we were in snow drifts. I arrived here Saturday evening & am having a very comfortable visit with your Uncle’s family. Shall leave at 7 tonight for the East & shall make all speed for Vermont. Your Uncle’s folks are looking for Jay house tomorrow night to spend the holiday & then return again. There is something in the Tribune of last week concerning the termination of the Eastern RailRoad on the Northern boundary & laying it down as pretty certain that the road would be carried to the Mouth of Montreal River. If I can find the paper before mailing this, I will send you the article, & did I know that the road would be run to your town I would take all possible means to apprise you of the fact so that you might not dispose of your interest in the great haste. If you have sold none, when this reaches you, I trust you will act in reference to the above information, and I would advise you to keep dark, till further advice, & as fast as I can learn anything relative to your interests I will communicate the same to you. I have heard nothing from you yet, since parting with you at La Pointe, but hope to get letters from you when I get home. I have left money with Cyrus to pay your taxes, & will have him pay on Jo’s. Tell Mr. Wheeler, that I have learned the trouble concerning Hon Jas. Meacham that he & I talked about at his house. He had become a confirmed & miserable drunkard & drank himself out of the world. This is from one of his colleagues Hon A. Sabin, and is but too true.

Reverend Leonard Wheeler & Government Carpenter John Stoddard lived at the Gardens.

Give my last respects to Mr. Wheeler & family also to Mr. & Mrs. Stoddard & tell them that I have not escaped a hard winter as [?????? ?????? ??????] but do not fear starvation like I did on L. Superior.

The Barber brothers’ original contract for the previous winter’s survey of the Apostle Islands was not recognized by the General Land Office Records.

I expect you are all buried in deep snows by this time, so that you can do nothing at Surveying. The Snow was 2 ft deep at Lancaster when I left, but it rained all day Friday like July Showers & the ground is entirely bare about this place. Her Bay is frozen over. Keep a strict acct of all the expense of resurveying on the last winters contract, if you get a new one & undertake it, as I am informed that I can get relief from Congress by a special act, paying me all that it will cost to do the work over again, which will be as much for you interest as anybody’s of this please say nothing to any one.

Now My dear Son I again implore you to be careful of your life & health. Do provide yourself with enough to make yourself comfortable & easy & above all good warm clothing & bedding, be careful of exposing yourself, where you there is danger of being lost & freezing, or of getting through the ice. Do my son heed the requests of your parents & only brother who feel more interest for you than you are aware of, & who are in hopes to yet enjoy your society in a more genial soil & climate.

Chlorastrolite, aka Isle Royale Greenstone, is associated with Lake Superior copper deposits, and can found in copper mine waste rock piles and Lake Superior beaches. Chlorastrolite was first reported by C. T. Jackson and J. D. Whitney in 1847.

Joseph Alcorn‘s gemstone demonstrates a strong bond between the Alcorn and Barber families.

I think that one visit to Lancaster will be sufficient to wean you from the frozen, famine stricken, regions around the Great Lake. I overhauled my agates yesterday giving lots of them to the children, also specimens &c. I gave them some chrorastrolites & shall give them some more. They prize them very high. The stone that Jo gave Lucy & she to your Uncle, has been cut & set in two rings. 1 for Aunt Em & 1 for Lina… Aunt E’s ring cost $12.00 besides the stone. It is a splendid affair.

Do write as often as you can, for be assured that your letters will be always joyfully rec’d & read by your parents & Hiram.

Farewell my dear Son & may God preserve your life & health

G. A. Barber

Respect to the boys.

Cambridge Dec 29^th 1856

My dear Son

It is now about 2 months since I left you at La Pointe, since which time I have not heard one word from you, whether you were in the land of the living, or had got cast away on your journey to Montreal River. I was very anxious to get intelligence from you while at Lancaster & could not feel reconciled to come away till I had heard from you. But having left directions with our friends there to forward your letters, if any came, to me. I finally ventured to start for Vermont. I stopped over 48 hours at Sandusky, & wrote you from there, on matters pertaining to Ironton, which will reach you long before this does. If you have not sold any shares, it would be best to rest easy till you see how the matter turns, but if the road is likely to terminate at the Mouth of Montreal River, some shark will be after all the shares he can get, & at the lowest prices. I left Sandusky Monday night (22^nd) at 7, was in Buffalo at 7 next morning & Albany at 10 P.M. Rutland at [morn?] Wednesday. Called on Mrs. Temple & Nancy Green, got to Burlington at 8 P.M. on the 24^th & home on Christmas at sunset, found all well and tired out with looking for me. Every thing looks as natural as ever, except that our Prairies are more rolling & the bottoms greatly shrunken in dimensions.

“In the spring of 1856 [Albe Burge Whiting] set out, traveling by railroad as far as St. Louis, and there took a boat which took him to Westport Landing, now Kansas City.
[…]
Mr. Whiting had a partner, B. E. Fullington, an honest, God-fearing, upright man, and their plan was to engage in farming–raising corn for the Government post at Fort Riley. Mr. Fullington soon became disgusted with the meager success that attended their efforts, and after one season returned East, leaving Mr. Whiting to conduct the business. Mr. Fullington agreed to furnish the capital while Mr. Whiting was to manage the business connected with the partnership. But Kansas looked better to Mr. Fullington after he got to Vermont and he came back the next spring to spend a long and useful life here.”
~ A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans by William E. Connelley, 1918, transcribed by Baxter Springs Middle School students, 1997.

While on the platform at Essex Junction, who should I run into again? but Mr. Bradly & Fullington direct from Kansas when he left Albe! Left him well, on the land they had claimed, another man a neighbor had gone into the shanty with Albe to [book/back?] it together this winter, & take care of their cattle

Matters are more quiet there now. Gov. Geary proves a better man than was anticipated. Prospects for Terr. Kansas are brightening. I sent you the message of the infamous Frank Pierce, from Lancaster, & hope your patience permitted you to read it through. Still it is the meanest vilest paper that ever emanated from our Government and will go down to posterity with its author excerated by all good & honest persons. Folks are well around. Levi & Oscar were here last night till after 9. Of course I gave them some specimens of copper, agates &c. Mary Buck from Galesburgh Ill. sister to Mrs. Kingsbury keeps the school, from 6 to 10 scholars, & enough for such a “marm.” Ed. Bryant teaches the best school at the Center. Pat Coldwell is in a Store at Waterbury. Dr. C.L. Fisher is teaching in Johnson. Helen Whiting is about going to “Kaintucky” to teach in a family. I do not mean of her own, but in a private school.

~ Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society, Volume 12, by Kansas State Historical Society, page 119.

I am going to Johnson to day & must be brief but will perhaps do better another time. If mails are regular you will get as many as one letter per week, while I have ability to scribble for I have learned by experience how good it seems to have letters from “friends & sacred home.” Again I caution you to take care of yourself, you can read my back letters for particulars. Your mother will write soon now when she knows where you are, & I will make Amherst do likewise.

Your affectionate father

G. A. Barber

[ca. 1856]

My Dear Son.

I hardly know whether to write again to you before hearing or knowing something of your situation.

It seems too much like writing to the dear departed. But I know that if it were possible you would have sent us news of your self before now. I feel assured that it is not your fault that we do not get letters.

I often imagine you shut in from the world by deep snows – perhaps you and your party frozen – disabled from work or even from the use of the pen. But the thought of the good Christian Missionary near you makes me hope that you would not be allowed to perish with cold or hunger and that, should any great misfortune happens to you he would inform us of it. How very long and tedious must the winter have been to you all and how often the vainly have I wished you had complied with our wishes and returned to spend the winter at home. Oh! How much more pleasure and comfort might we all have then.

I mentioned in a former letter my wish to go to Lan. next summer and my great desire to meet you there. I do not know that I will take the trouble and incur the expense of such a journey if I must come back without seeing you, so do not let me be disappointed. If you will If I felt sure that you would meet me there and would return with us to spend next winter I should feel that I had something to live for. But the thought of going there and returning to live in this old, desolate, neglected, forsaken looking place without you, with no prospect if there ever being any improvement in its appearance under the present administration makes me quite indifferent to life. I am very sorry that we cannot get another woman here – one who would be agreeable and friendly with me, or whom I could confide in as a good and honest dairy woman. I should then feel quite satisfied to leave the business with her, and less unwilling to return again. But your father will not let any one else come – tho he has had some very good offers.

How I do wish that you would come and live with me and befriend me & I really need to have one friend.

Good night

Mother

Cambridge Jan 6^th 1857

Dear Son

I have determined to wait in hopes to hear from you, before writing back again. It really seems strange, that we do not get something from you in all this long time, your last being dated Nov-. Your Mother & I wrote repeatedly while at Sandusky & I hope you get the letters, but why do I not get something from you?

Barber’s contract with the General Land Office to survey the LaPointe Indian Reservation was started during the Fall of 1856.

I am extremely anxious to know how you are & how you are getting along this winter, whether you have yet rec^d that long expected draft & whether you have done anything at surveying the Indian Reservation whether you are boarding at Mr Maddock’s yet, or what you are doing & have spending the long & hard winter. The date of this will show you that I have once more got home, and am now a dweller among the G. Mountains.

After being at your Uncle’s in Sandusky 10 weeks and I had so far recovered that I could walk across the river your Mother was away to have me start for home & I was hurried away before I was sufficiently strong to endure the fatigues of such a journey. On Sunday 27th ult I first ventured out of doors Monday 28th was stormy so that I could not go out & yet I had to start Tuesday, or trouble would endear, so I was off and that night at Midnight I was in Buffalo (leaving station at noon). Left B. at 9 A.M. & was in Albany 10 ½ P.M next Morning started at 7 & was snugly quartered at the Lomied of N.E.N’ Esq on the [????] by the college on Burlington. My feet & legs [???] badly swollen all the way caused by debility I remained there 2 nights & spent [???????] with them. Saturday we continued in the stage with [Sen/Tom?] Andrews to the Centre where we [??? ?????? ??? ??????? ???] house unfit to occupy, as his had “Batnies” all over the floor drying your Brother & I went to Mr Wetherby’s (in the Miner house) & stayed till next day when Mr Green brought his woman here & she & Amherst worked at the house while Mr G. went to the centre for your Mother. I was brought up toward night, and am a close prisoner ever since on account of my swelled legs & lameness but I am free from that infernal pain that troubled me at La Pointe & only feel a soreness in my walking apparature.

I could scarcely believe the fact was so, when I found I could put my legs feet down on the floor without excruciating pain, but I have reason to hope I have seen the last of that tormentor. My appetite is shrunk so much, my strength is returning & when I shall regain part of my flesh and my legs get sound I shall be nearly as good as new. I was reduced almost to a shadow by the “little gobbel,” but they did not make me any sicker than before as the Allopathic Medicines would have done. Their effect was produced silently, and though I was run down pretty low & weak I at no time felt any distressing sickness save in my legs till I imprudently ate too many preserved tomatoes that distressed me 2 or 4 days. But my greatest gratification was to get Amherst home with me once more, after he had been a wanderer & outcast for months in his own neighborhood. We found him living at Griswold’s where he was enjoying himself tolerably well & was useful about the storm & handed &c. He was all [?????] at our [????] house by the shore [devil?] that [punished?] in the [Kitchen?]

He always found a welcome at Atwood’s & was urged to stay there & too at [Supuien’s?] but Mrs P. in the woods wanted take paints to make him understand that they did not want him to consume much of their grub, I always knew she was a stingy old satan & now I think I shall request her whenever a good opportunity offers. I think he was as glad to see us, as we to see him, & that we will take as much solid comfort together as the nature of the case will present.

7^th

I shall look earnestly for a letter from you till I get one & though my letters may be a long time in reaching you I shall keep a stream of them running to your country that you may have something once in a while to refresh your memory of home and those so dear to you who are now sojourning here. There have been but few changes by death or marriage that I hear of since my leaving last spring. I wrote to you of the death of Mr Chase Old Mr John Safford died in Dec aged 92 years & old Mrs Darker also very aged. David Griswold & Mary Ann Chadwick were yoked at Christmas. I do not hear of any others in town, who have got married, that you know, but I will tell you if your patience will permit, a little something of one Rodney [Casde?] whom you will recollect. He was living with [Gad?] on the Mirriam farm & by chance became enamored of [Clena?] Scott & she as much of him, they were thick, & had the time set for marriage, but she finding some of his great [fertensing?], doubtful, flared up & was off entirely, whereupon he threatened 1st to go to her door & spill his heart blood on the door stones, next he threatened a suit for breach of promise, went down to Burlington to consult Lawyers & Morrisville & finally gave it up and fizzled out.

The poor boy is doubly consorted since, for he has got religious & been baptised into the Methodist Church, and has at last got married to somebody in Stowe. The tragedy is all over.

Major John S Watrous was formerly the Indian Agent from the Sandy Lake Tragedy and failed Ojibwe Removal. Watrous was now the final Speaker of the Minnesota Territory House of Representatives, Minnesota was granted statehood.

Major Watrous, Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, was in the cars with me from Sandusky to Cleveland & from him I heard some things from the great Lake later than I had formerly known. He was on his way to Washington, having his chair temporarily filled during his absence. He is dead against old Buchanan & his southern Masters on the Kansas question & probably uttered the sentiment of the party in the territory.

The winter except a few days of the latter part of Nov that were unusually severe has been remarkably mild with no snow to do any good till Jan 1st. There is now a sufficient quantity of 8 or 10 in. & sleighing is 1^st rate so that there are from 50 to 100 sleighs whirling by us daily, without giving us a chance to see their pretty faces, or knowing them. Your Mother is more than ever troubled & careful about many things, nothing suits. She says we are the poorest off of any family in town except Ed Davis’ folks, she wants to stay here & not have the farm let another year, but you know she is for lack of strength & power of endurance wholly uncapably of carrying on the dairy & there is not much prospect of my being capable of much labor. Dow is the best tenant after all that we can get, if I find him honest when I settle with him but his wife is a (but his wife is a) little tough and withal “narrow” home there can be that little peace in the funerals department of the house.

Amherst has promised to write something to go with this.

I remain your affectionate father

Giles A. Barber

Do write often about yourself your affairs & about everything that will interest me

Give my respects to all friends
Especially to Mr Maddocks

Cambridge Jan 10^th Saturday night 1857

My Dear Son

Contrary to my intention, I have let slip One Sunday without writing to you. My excuse for it is just this Your Uncle & Aunt Burr were here over Sunday and I could really find no very good time to write. But I will make amends as far as I can by being more punctual in future. We are all three quite well, have removed our quarters from the west room to the East room which as well as the west room is now papered and looks com-fort-a-ble.

Since I got home Dow has killed one 5.00 ^lbs [quarter?] & sold it at 8 ½ $42.50 & the Alcorn Cow very fat, & I wish you & your party had part of it instead of your everlasting “salt [rusty?] pork”. We sold 812 ½ ^bs Butter this week at 21 ¢ & yesterday I sold our oxen that we have had so long for $140.00 to be delivered tomorrow morning.

The second Vermont State House before and after the fire. “However, on the night of January 6, 1857, disaster struck. A special session to revise the Vermont Constitution had been scheduled for the following day. The stove was loaded with wood and left to warm the building before the legislators arrived the next morning. By evening the stove became so hot that the timbers near it caught fire. The flames quickly spread to the rest of the capitol destroying all but the granite sections.” ~ Vermont Historical Society

The State House at Montpelier was burned down last Tuesday. The fire taking around the furnace & getting such hold that all efforts to save the edifice were unavailing. The Library & State archives & most of the furniture were saved, the walls are not badly injured. The House was being warmed up for the constitutional Convention which was to occupy the Representatives Hall the next day, but they have gone into the Court House to hold their session.

Sunday 11^th

Reverend James Peet and Reverend William Augustus McCorkle established churches in Superior City.

I have not been to any meeting since leaving Superior where I enjoyed the labors of brothers Peet and McCorkle. Did think of going to day to hear Mr Whitney an old Methodist man who preached here some years ago, but finally concluded it would not pay. Rebellions are the order of the day & they are trying hard to inaugurate one at the Centre, but I believe without any success thus far. They are doing a tolerable business at the Borough & at Johnson.

“Old Benton” may have been Samuel Slade Benton (1777-1857).

They have tried their best for some weeks, have secured Old Man Daniels and made Sissy Hunt snivel once or twice. Old Benton says they can never make a one horse rebellion do anything in Johnson, & I am of nearly the same mind. The fact is, the people, (I mean those of any mind, at all) are becoming every year more loyal, & less liable to be excited to meeting & open rebellion. Mother finds fault with what I am here said about revival. I do not wish to be understood as discarding all religious notions whatever, far from it. I feel that we are called upon every moment of our lives for deep heartfelt gratitude to the great Author of our existence who crowns our lives with the richest blessings, that to feel our dependence upon him & realize that it is from him that we receive ~~all~~, every comfort, and all that we have, & do toward our fellow men as we would wish to have them do unto us. This I say in my opinion is, as good religion to live by as any of their newly patented article, obtained at modern rebellions & I cannot but think it will be much better to light our feet through the dark valley that we must all pass, sooner or later.

Of all the profession of religion, especially men, How many are there, who by their deal with their neighbors, or their every day walk, would evince any superiority of Character or better show for happiness hereafter than the calm stoid person who adores his God and submits himself & all he has into his care & keeping? Amherst has just returned from Meeting & says he read in a Montpelier paper that the collection of the State Naturalist was destroyed, but it was thought that the House could be rebuilt by filling up the inside, walls all good. I went to the Borough yesterday and sat as sole referee in a case between Jonas Gobs & school district & also between S. Stratton Jr & same, did not decide as there were 2 law questions involved in such case & I wanted time to look it over.

Agates, chlorastrolites, copper, and other mineral specimens from Wisconsin copper deposits along Lake Superior were collected by the Barber family before or during 1856. These specimens were gifted throughout New England to promote the Barber’s mineral and land speculations.

The winter has been pretty severe in Vermont thus far, down to 20* & 24* below zero. There is not much snow in the fields. The ground all covering but not deep. Sleighing good as ever was. Went up to Johnson last Monday & staid at Judge Tom’s over night & had B.E. Fullington told his story about Kansas to a crowded room (the Valley). Col Ferner, Col Stoddard, Tom Baker, Judge Caldwell & old Homer teased him with foolish questions, & would have kept him on the stand all night if they could, to learn whether wild game were plenty, whether [frungh him?] grow well & [??] the ladies were contented &c &c. Mr F. thinks Kansas will be free in any confident it will be so. I presented Herman’s wife with the handsomest Chorastrolite. I brought home with me the little fine spackled one that had a ball on the backside & I gave Aunt Ellen a very nice one both on condition that this would get them set in rings. I gave your Aunt Martha her [???] in all but one sent some to the little girls with some agates. I saw the stone out & set that Jo gave to your Aunt Lucy, & it is the right ring I have seen. I made up a package of specimens & sent up to the old Dr last week but have heard nothing from him.

Amherst is in extacy with his Embroidered Shirt & wears it all the time & to all places, Meeting, Lycum, & to work in every day. I have bought materials for another he will soon long rejoice in a pair of them.

The school is rather a feeble concern in our district this winter.

Kept (I cannot say taught) by a Miss Buck sister to Mrs Kingsbury on the Wetherby farm. Attendance of Scholars from 2 to 7 or 5. By the way we have some excellent neighbors Mr & Mrs K. both young and better mates for you & Am than for old people. Miss Buck’s folks at the foot of the hill are also very good neighbors so your mother says. At Old Grim farm there is Lucy & her 4 boys. Mr Green is on his place but is going off it, having let it out. Dow wants this place again.

Have just had a good supper of hogs face with we could have had you to make even our number. Oh Allen I will not answer to how you remain up in that miserable frozen region longer than till you can so arrange your affairs so as to get away advantageously.

This incident was the second of four times that the propeller “Old Manhattan” sank on the Great Lakes during the 1850s.

The November 9th letter featured the shipwreck of the sidewheel steamboat Superior, at the base of Spray Falls at Pictured Rocks. The Superior was carrying survey supplies for Joel Allen Barber and George Riley Stuntz to survey the LaPointe Indian Reservation.

Your mother in constant alarm about you, at times thinking you gone to join our dear lost Augustus & no more to bless us with with your presence here, but to day she has prepared 4 blinds for you & your comrades to wear in the gloom of Feb & March. We got a short letter from you dated Nov 9th saying that you & 4 others were to start that day for your work on Bad River. I saw by the papers that the Old Manhattan was wrecked on one of the piers at the mouth of the Harbor in Cleveland, total loss. This makes two of your regular boats of the 3 that used to churn the sight of the dwellers of Lake Superior now gone to ruin. ([????]) I saw that among the saved on the Superior was a Foster. I suppose the young surveyor you & I conversed with on our passage down to La Pointe. But there was a [??????] Foster lost whether wife, or sister to him or none related I knew not. I am going to send you a paper – when I can get one. I now send you Life Illustrated, this letter one from Amherst for this time. Hope to do better thereafter. I think it would be condusive to the interests of us all to sell the farm & place a good share of the proceeds at interest in Wisconsin. What say you? Do you want to come & help carry it on? The Secretary of the Interior recommends that the clauses for the graduation law requiring residence on the land be reproofed, which if done, will be all in your favor. I shall watch the Tribune eagerly for anything interesting to you & communicate all valuable information immediately.

Do my dear son be careful & prudent, father G.A. Barber

My respects to the boys, Mr Wheeler’s & Mr Stoddard’s families.

Write.

Cambridge Jan 18^th 1857

My dear Son

Since writing you last Sunday I have rec^d two letters from you, one dated Nov 9th directed to me at Lancaster & forwarded by father & the other dated Nov 22nd directed to your mother. You may bet high that your letters were gladly rec^d & that our minds were much easier about you than before. Still we should feel much better, were you here with us, to have a good warm bed to sleep on, and enough of the best that Vermont produces to satisfy your appetite, and with all the genial influence of our eastern society that I should think in some respects preferable to the general run of society about L. Superior. Still further there are rebellions in progress on all sides of us, and an interest in some of them would be quite an item in the adventures of the east over the west. They have broken out considerably with it at the centre, but I fear the infection is not genuine, and that it will not result in anything very good. They have got enough to talk in meeting so far as this “if there is anything on religion I am determined to get it” &c. Elias C. & wife & Mrs F. Wetherby and some others have had something to say, & the Minister has labored very hard to get all creation on his anxious seats. Mad. Heath is on tiptoe among them, almost an apostle. I went down yesterday to the Borough to give my decision in an arbitration, carried your mother down to Thode’s where we staid all night & went to Meeting to day A.M. to Meth. Chapel P.M. to Cong. House. They are getting hot among the Methodists & trying to do something judging from the groans & grunts of one of the ministers while the other was hoping rumbling the howls of distressed or enraged wild animals.

John Chase got home yesterday from California have not seen him, but understand that he talks of going back again in March. Did you ever hear what Emily Ellsworth did with herself? I never heard till a few days ago that she married a Doran one of the [Paddis?] out in “Senate Ireland” nearly two years ago.

I have got the watch repaired by Scott, who says it is now as good as ever it was. I would be glad if I could get it into your hands. Furs are monstrous dear this winter as you have doubtless seen by the papers. Mink skins [Prim?] are worth $4.00 a piece. Muskrat from 10 ¢ to 20 ¢. Martins must be worth $5.00 or $6.00. How if you had the [Shonis?] to purchase some furs this winter & spring you might buy some at prices that would pay you a good sound profit. I have no doubt but you could get Sable for 1.50 to 2.00 & mink for 1.00. Otter skins are generally called about here $1.00 per foot measuring from the nose to the end of the tail. They ought to be cheaper there.

Our district school wound up yesterday for want of scholars having had but 2 the last week. Julius G. & Martin P. & in day Julius alone. The teacher was the greatest failure of all.

We are getting very cold weather about now, but how cold I cannot say, as our thermometer has got broken by your Mother’s hanging it up on the side of the house for the wind to blow down, instead of hanging it inside the door casing where I had kept it so long. I feel lost without it & shall get one when I go down to St Albans which will probably be within one or two weeks. Think to day the coldest of the winter so far, at any rate it was cold enough for comfort coming up from Thode’s to night.

Monday Morning Jan 19th 1857

We are having a great snow storm to day, so thick as to make it quite dark.

We are all well, living very com-fort-a-ble in our close quarters & expect to be more so soon for I got 5 new curtains Saturday & you know they are always essential.

Your Mother says you must get some kind of fur and cover your mittens & also fur as much as you can to keep out the pinching frost. I am afraid you will suffer for clothes socks &c (by the way, you had better save the tops of all your socks, that are new and good down as far as they are good & have them footed up again & if you are short for yarn to mend with you can ravel some). The Stage will be here soon & I must close.

Have I told you that Charley Turner & Helen Sabin are married? Even so, & they are in [clover?].

Give my respects to the boys & you may rest assured of my eternal regard and paternal solicitude.

Giles A. Barber

Cambridge Jan 26th 1857

My dear Son

The Rebellion at the Centre was a split among religious and political society in Vermont. No public records have been identified.

I wrote you yesterday one good long letter & because there was something in it about the 1 horse “Rebellion” at the Centre and some other things to tedious to mention your Mother destroyed it last night after I went to bed. So I have to repair the damage as well as I can this morning, but writing in such a hurry I cannot think of half I want to write, & shall only send you a small apology for a letter this time. I have suffered much in my mind on your account for a few days, fearing that you & your party must have undergone great distress from cold weather. It has been colder within a few days than ever before known in Cambridge. At 11 o’clock last Friday night the mercury was at 40* below 0, next Morning at 38* below. And you may be assured I should have felt much better if you had been at home with us in good quarters. Oh Allen I hope you will not find it necessary to spend another winter in that region of frost and famine, but will spend your winters henceforth in a country of more genial in climate, society, & Grub.

If I were assured of our safety from freezing & suffering for want of clothing, blankets, or provisions, I should rest much easier about you than I now do. Still I know you are in a party of good fellows & in the midst of kind friends who will be ready to befriend you.

Everything remains about as usual in Cambridge. On the whole I think the town about holds its own. The dairymen are growing rich on the high prices that Butter & Cheese are selling for, & well they may. Dr Safford has sold $150.00 worth of Butter from 3 cows & supplied his family with Milk & Butter beside. H. Montague at North Bend has realized $50. per head from his cows (20) but to make this out he counts his calves, & [Pork?] made from the dairy. Our dairy has done better this season than ever before but as I have not settled with Dow I cannot yet state the nett proceeds.

The rebels convicted are as yet only two, Mr.s E Chadwick & George Reynolds, they have a few more on trial, & are seeking indictments against lots of others. Mr Dow takes this & will probably mail it at Richmond so do not think strange of that. I wish to say one word of Amherst. He is at home & does not much, but chops all the wood we burn, runs about to mill & too meeting.

He is attending the Lycum at the Centre & writes some very good pieces for them which exercises I think worth a good deal to him. He grows like a weed & will soon be as large as you. I persuaded him to write to you, as you will see if the letter soon reaches you. I had nearly forgotten to tell you that we are all well, living cozily in the East Room secure from cold & hunger, & only wanting your presence to enable us to feel quite at home again. I said wrong. There is one gone from us forever in the world. I cannot yet feel as though any place was home so long as he is gone. But my time is up and I must close by writing you, health & prosperity.

G.A.B.

Cambridge Feb 1st 1857

Dear Son

Another Sunday gives me an opportunity to sit down to give you a brief narration of things transpiring in this outer world. Though you will see that nothing really worth mentioning occurs from week to week, yet to you who are without the visible world & the pale of comparison almost any thing from the old home of your childhood will be interesting. Within the past week the weather has been much milder & even quite pleasant till yesterday, when we had a terrific storm of wind & snow, but from what quarter I could not determine, as the wind blew all ways. The roads are all full & traveling almost suspended. Amherst & I got all ready to go to St. Albans but the storm increased so fast that we did not start, so we went over & staid with Oscar till this morning & I went down & made Mr Heath a visit, found him just as he was one year ago, unable to speak except in a low whisper, says he under goes much pain in the region of the heart. I went to see Uncle Enoch, how he progressed in the divine life, for there has been a desperate effort made to enlist him on the side of “the Lord” & much said about his being in deep distress &c &c found no changes, except that he is ready to talk candidly & give his views on religious matters.

Our last letter from you was dated Nov 22nd & we are growing very uneasy at not hearing anything from you in all this long time & especially when we consider what an awful cold winter we are having. Oh Allen my heart is pained when I think of you at times, when the sky is convulsed with storms & when it is so cold that mercury congeals, that you should be up there suffering for aught I know, when you could be so much better off elsewhere.

The Rebellion here blown over, almost a failure. 2 or 3 concerts as they are called & as many backsliders reclaimed, constitutes the amount of damage done to the Kingdom of darkness, rather small potatoes when we consider who have been here at work for the salvation of souls, for we have the word of the good folks that no less a person than the 2nd on the glorious [Frinsty?] has been here for weeks at work, to say nothing of 3 methodist ministers & Luther [Brevoter?]. When will men & women cease to insult the God that made them by their impious & blasphemous fooleries to cheat mortals into this or that church under the specious pretext of saving their souls.

“Kinni Butch” may be a variety of Kinnikinnick; a blend of herbal medicines used for social and ceremonial purposes in Anishinaabe culture.

Marm says of this last sentence, that it shows that I am in a some what excited state or I would not write to you so much on the subject. Kinni butch, I do not know how to spell this word, but you do, but I claim to be tolerably free from believing & falling in with every new thing that comes nor am I greatly given to running after every new minister, lecturer, or concert singer that happens to favor the world with their marvellous works. “Oh the folly of Sinners” & (I wish Saints were wholly divested of the article) I was up in Johnson last Wednesday, saw some of the old familiar faces. There are some sick, more in that village now than in La Pointe & Douglas Counties in 6 months, & yet when the west is mentioned a Johnsonian will start with alarm at the bare thought or name of so sickly a place. Mrs Tracy is soon to wind up her pilgrimage, (consumption). She had been sick, was getting smart, a girl in the house, broke a [flaid?] lamp, set her clothes on fire, Mr & Mrs T. got their hands burned in putting out the fire. Mrs T. held hers in cold water all night, & took such a cold that she must die in consequence. Poor Helen Pillsbury whose health has not been the finest for 2 years, was still able to work & keep about her usual [????tions], till this winter feeling it her duty to “come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty” in their feeble rebellion. She overdid herself or exposed her health, so that it is found that her life will be the penalty. Poor Girl, she is going as I fear the way of Merrill & Mary, & yet that damnable, mean, thievish help “Vet” must live to be a curse to his parents & to the world.

U.S. Senator James Rood Doolittle. ~ United States Library of Congress’ Photograghs and Prints

Joel Allen Barber’s uncle U.S. Representative Joel Allen Barber was a member of the State Senate in 1856-57.

It is an economy of Providence that I cannot comprehend why such persons who bid fair for usefulness in the world, who are a pride & blessing to their friends & all who know them should be removed from this world, while others who are a pest to their friends & the world & not worth the powder to shoot them, should remain as secure, as though death could not reach them. But God knows, & perhaps we may hereafter, understand what to us now appears so dark and mysterious. I see by the Tribune that your Uncle Allen was not elected U.S. Senator, but J.R. Doolittle was. I know not whether I wrote to you what your Grand father wrote about your Uncle, that he was going to take Thode Burr to Madison with him & get him a place as assistant Clerk if he could, & further that he (Father) was afraid that Allen would never get home alive, his health was such, but I should have more hopes of him while there than when at home, for he would be more likely to do something for himself & get better Medical advice. I hope he will do something in season. Amherst & I shall go to St Albans to morrow or next day & stay a day or two & make a call or two on the way in Georgia & Fairfax. I expect Mr Burr is going to Lancaster this month, to determine upon his future course whether to finally go there to reside & go into business, or to give up all thoughts of it, and settle himself down quietly in this country for woe or weal.

It is yet a matter of uncertainty what I shall do with the farm another year. Dow wants it another year & in some respects he is as good a man as I can get, and on some accounts he is quite objectionable. He is a very industrious man & a good hand to take care of the stock, make pork &c his wife is not 1st rate for Butter & cheese, but middling. Dow is too much disposed to [skin?] the farm, or keep, more land under the place than can be manured & is rather too tight & [fizzish?] while his woman is quite & altogether too much so besides your Mother & she have been at variance almost through the entire year, & in this case I think Mrs. D was very much in the wrong, & that she is a little stingy nervous, wilful jade. It would be idle to think of ever living in the house with them another year.

Think some of hiring a good Man & girl & carrying on the whole ourselves. This is your Mother’s notion but I have before now heard her declare that she would not be burdened with the care of so much work. I would so far as I am concerned rather sell the farm cows & all and go to Lancaster to live on our little farm, where our dear Augustus did so much to make it valuable & attractive. When Offered $35. per acre for the place, I looked at those young apple trees planted by his hands expressly for our advantage & comfort & said to myself that $50. per acre shall not deprive me of it at present. I shall like to know your mind upon these matters, but of course cannot in season for the coming spring. I have some thoughts of getting Mr Perry to take the farm if he will do so. Then I should feel all safe. Your Mother & Am are drawing a pattern for his embroidered shirt that is now making, & after his is made, you are to have two made. Am is toasting cheese & stuffing himself with it. I wish you had a shake in that, as well as your abundance of good fat beef pork sausages, butter & milk. Oh My Son, I think of you whenever it is cold or stormy, & when I lay me down at night in a warm bed or sit down at home or abroad to a good regular meal of victuals gotten up by the hand of a woman, other than Nancy.

Am is doing quite a business in peeling muskrats, he shot & caught 17 in the fall & sold them for 10 ¢ each. He has just peeled 3 more & is on the qui vive for more. They are worth 20 or 25 now. If I get to St Albans I will start a paper or two off for you, and some for others in your country.

May God bless & preserve you

G. A. Barber

Cambridge Feb 8th 1857

Dear Son

Another Sunday has come around & I am again trying to place on this sheet a few scratches, that you may know that we are all well at home, & that we are not forgetting you our poor exiled son.

“The boys“ surveying the LaPointe Indian Reservation and the Apostle Islands with Joel Allen Barber are:
Joseph Alcorn
William W Ward
Larry Marston
Edward L Baker

We were very glad to receive a letter from you day before yesterday, that had been nearly two months on the passage, dated Dec 13th at Mr Stoddard’s. We have felt much uneasiness on your account for a long time it has been so very cold, & have been afraid that you must have suffered; but our fears are happily relieved by learning that you are doing so well and survived but such a band of invincibles. Who could have fears for such a crowd as Jo, William, Larry Marston’s? I am very happy to add Baker too! I am really glad to hear Mr. Baker has got back with you again & hope it may be for his advantage, that he braves the perils of another polar winter, & I am confident it will be for yours. You will see that I was mistaken about your Uncle Allen’s being elected Senator. But I was not more so than many others. I see by the Grant Co Herald that there is a bill introduced into Congress, to make good all entries under the Graduation Law without any further requirements, & there is little doubt of its passage.

This will be a good thing for you, if it becomes a law…

U.S. Representative Augustus Young ~ Findagrave.com

Amherst & I went down to St Albans last Monday & drove Kitty and got home Friday, had to stay longer than we expected on account of storms, winds, drifts &c found all the folks well at Mr Burr’s. Went down to the Bay & found all well there but Mr Young, who was quite feeble, but much better than I had expected to find him. He is now confined to the house during the cold weather, but I should think he might get some better in the spring. I would like to see him in LaPointe County about two months next spring & witness the effect of that climate on him, & I would see it if he was alive & I were able to take him there. I carried down some specimens to him that pleased him much. Little Augustus Stevens is living with Mr Young now & will probably remain with him while he lives.

Uncle Amherst W. willed $100.00 a year to Mr Young during his natural life, and $50.00 a year to your Aunt Betsey as long as she lives. The rest of his property is given to various benevolent purposes. The interest of $10,000.00 to the Episcopal Institute at Burlington. The interest of $1,000.00 to the Brattleborough Insane Asslyum. & the use of remainder principally to support Preaching at East B. All this is well enough. If he thought a few thousand could pave the way to heaven, it was his duty to down with the dust when he found he could hold it no longer himself.

Do any portraits of Augustus Barber produced by Merrill & Wilson still exist?

While at St Albans I took the Ambrotype copy that your Aunt Martha had taken from our daguerreotype of Augustus & had a good likeness taken, that I have done up for my Mother & shall send to Morrow also One on Mira that is set in a gold pin for your Mother, one other put up in a case, both good copies, & 10 other copies all ambrotypes one of which I shall enclose in this letter for you, that you can keep till we can furnish you with a larger one in a case. That Daguerreotype taken by Merrill & Wilson you know was good & these copies are most of them copies are equally so.

“Hiram Hayes, a pioneer of Superior, worked his way from Town Clerk to District Attorney and went to Washington D.C. While he was working there at the Census Bureau, the war broke out and he was commissioned a captain and quartermaster.”
~ Zenith City Weekly

Daniel Shaw was the Register officer at the U.S. General Land Office in Superior City. Eliab B Dean Jr was the Receiver officer working there with Shaw.

I got a letter from Mr Hayes last Friday saying that he had called in November and tendered the 120 acre warrant & $58. in gold to the Land Officer & was told that they would attend to it. So as to send off the entry in their returns that Month, & again in Dec. he called and wiged repeatedly that it should be done & was all along told that it should be attended to, but at or near Jan 1st when again pressing the subject upon them, he was told that an appeal was taken by the Dutchman and sent to Washington for a hearing there. This is the state of the case. I had some little confidence in Mr Shaw as an Officer but but cannot have much now, since he has conducted in such a manner in my Land Suit. As to E. B. Dean I was always satisfied that he was a d‘d scoundrel any way it could be fixed, & the history of his transactions in Madison goes very far to justify such an opinion.

The Barbers appealed to Washington D.C. from multiple angles to resolve their land claims and surveying contracts with the General Land Office.

I feel as though in duty bound to go to Washington to see to having every thing done there to protect our rights, that can be done, I am fully satisfied that somebody beside the little Dutchman is the person or persons in interest now pushing it up to Washington where they hope by some trick to cheat us out of the Land. I wrote yesterday to Elder Sabin to have him attend to it for me but he his now Lawyer & may not have time to do anything… Mr Hayes has written to a Lawyer in Washington but who knows how far a Lawyer in Washington may be trusted, when sure of a fee on one side & perhaps a double one on the other, & there is no doubt, that who ever carries that case to D.C. will have nothing continued to effect his purposes. I am surprised to find that all that has been done, goes for naught & that the case is yet undated. Still if I have a fair chance I should not fear, but if there was anything unfair, or any undue advantage being taken, I ought to be there, I suppose it would cost about $40.00 to go.

All is very quiet in the religious world at present. The rebellion has not amounted to any thing serious after all the noise & confusion in the Saint’s Camp. Madison Heath is bent on pulling down strongholds and setting up the standard of the Cross, & as one of the first steps in the warfare he & his frau came up & made us a visit last Friday night & undertook to [sumed?] me upon matters of faith, doctrine, &c. I am thankful for his good intentions, but would prefer to listen to him “after a little” than now, when it is a new thing to him, & he scarce knows what he is about. We are having a great thaw, the snow is nearly gone in the fields and pretty well done to in the roads.

The river is very high & threatens to break up.

Mr Burr talks of going to Lancaster two weeks from to morrow, but is very faithless about liking the place well enough to ever go there to live. If he does not like, he will take Thode home with him, and go into business of some kind in St. Albans. He is in great purplexity. When at St Albans the other day I got some papers and sent to you, P.B. Van, Esq Felt, Charly Post, H Fargo & Pat O’Brian, and a new Ballou’s Pictorial to my good young friend Stick in The Mud. I have many other good friends about the Lake that I remember with much pleasure, and would be glad to recompense for their uniform kindness toward me.

Ballou’s Pictorial was published during the 1850s in Boston, Massachusetts. ~ HistoricNewEngland.org

I am glad that you make your quarters with Mr Stoddard some of the time. You could find no better place in that country. Give my respects to him & wife, also to Mr Wheeler & family & Mr Davis & family if there. Give my best respects to Mr Baker & all the other boys & be assured of the best wishes for your welfare & happiness, and success in business, of your ever affectionate Father

Giles A. Barber

Has Gen. Lewis even sent you that contract?

Cambridge Feb 12th 1858

Dear Son

This week is about gone & have not yet written one word to you. I hope you will pardon the neglect. I have not much to write that you will care about reading. Still I intend to furnish you with some thing from home every week, i.e. if it ever reaches you.

The most important item of news is that we are all well as usual (myself excepted) & that has been so long stereotype that it has ceased to be news, & yet I presume it is none the less welcome to you. My health & strength are gradually on the gain, & for a week past my swelled legs have been much better.

I went up to Dr Chamberlin (as I wrote you I intended) last week Wednesday and stayed close in his house till the next Sunday night, & rec^d great benefit from his ministrations.

He pronounced my trouble, as wholly arising from debility & torpor of the small veins and absorbment in my feet & legs & immediately applied bandages & a wash of Alcohol & [Garm My sch?] I was well satisfied with the Dr’s performance & think he did as well as any who make more noise in the world. It was very gratifying to him, having a patient from a distance. Consequently his steps, always very short when in good spirits, were reduced ⅓ in length and quickened ¼.

Many “good old fellows“ of the village called to see me & I had a very agreeable time of it, besides being greatly benefitted by the long protracted visit.

I have been improving since I came home! Amherst is my Dr now he rubs & bathes my legs 4 times a day and applies the bandages with considerable skill & alacrity.

Amherst chops the wood at the door & is quite a chopper his time is occupied with that, Skating, playing pasteboard, & backgammon, reading & some study. I have promised him that when he gets the front yard filled with good stove wood I will go with him to Georgia & visit every body there, from Hon A. Sabin, down to those little ones growing up around my old associates & friends. Such a visit will be very pleasant to me & would do him no harm, but if my legs do not get well or better than now I am afraid “I cannot get to go” this winter.

There is a great temperance agitation throughout the State this winter, & hired lecturers are traversing it in all directions “but as the movement” began before I got home, & I have been unable to attend, any meetings, it it is impossible for me to tell what particular object of the temperance people are driving at.

I think that in Johnson & this town those who formerly were most open & vindictive against the cause, have no subsided into acqueiscince with public opinion, and have become ashamed to be seen tippling or opposing the law. Even Uncle Enoch has ceased to rail constantly about the abridgement of his liberties, and would give his old hat if it (alcohol) could be kept for ever from George, who has now got to be a complete sot when he can obtain the “outter” so as to go to bed before noon or hide himself in the haymow. Last fall he George set out in the evening for Montpelier with his skin full of rotgut & about 10 oclock he was found lying in a puddle near Morgan’s Store by Graw who alarmed the villagers. George was got into the tavern & his horse & sulky were found near by the Academy. The horse feeding quietly in the Morning George came to & to put the best look on the [can pisned?] himself sick, went to bed & had physicians attend him all day.

There are rebellions progressing in a few places about the country. St Albans Bay, Bakersfield, the South East part of the town and that neighborhood in what was once Sterling near Sanford Waterman’s. Ralph Lasell is said to be one of the trophies they boast about.

The most curious thing aster is the strange predicament in which Judge Stowell of the Borough finds himself, he being a widower has for some over a year been playing [policies?] with one widow Goodrich a daughter & only child of David [T?????] & the day of the wedding twice fed upon the cake made & [Risd?] engaged but his precocious son Henry threatens wonderful things if his father marries the widow.. A suit is threatened but he Judge contending to worry the young widow & keep her easy so that she will not move in the matter, although Frank her father is swift for compelling him to marry or fork over. Stowell is in trouble. The ravings of French about town amaze him.

13th

Yesterday I went up to Mr Green’s visiting & drove my own team (Kate 2nd but my hands and arms are so weak that I shall not dare to try it again. I could do just nothing at holding a horse that was disposed to go too fast, or where I did not wish to have it. Kitty as we call the mare, is a larger nice beast, strong as a Moose, a good traveler, kind & true in every place, & would be just the creature we should want to carry on the little farm in Lancaster, for with her could every thing be done easily. But then shall we ever occupy that farm? Or shall we always have to clamber up rocks & hills, so long as I live? There is manifested in a certain quarter the same disposition to withhold any opinions or wish in regard to that question as there, save when it is known to be in direct conflict with mine.

(Night.)

I have been down to Mr Heath’s this afternoon & made a short visit, found him about as he was last winter, still unable to speak louder than a whisper. He is able to be up most of the time and to ride about some when Madison can go & drive for him… Mad has a fine fat gal baby, a perfect wonder to its grand parents. Marion has no such good luck (or all luck ) to boast of. The weather has been very mild till day before yesterday when the Ther. was down -12* Yesterday it was -24* & this Morning -16* & prospect of a cold night again. Sleighing that has been poor most of the winter is now tolerable & teams are constantly passing as in older times.

14th

Last evening Uri Perry & woman made us a visit. Martin & Jot living at home with them. Wyman is still in Ill. Susan lives at North Bend, & Amanda married last fall to a young man named Bosworth son of a rich Merchant in Boston, so the story goes.

The Defendant & wife have just made us a short call, their boy now able to talk, is a very fine looking smart fellow. We have been having some talk about Weston’s coming here to work for me next season. I shall see him again & ascertain what we can do in the way of agreement. I got a letter from Cyrus last monday asking about the disposition of the little farm another year. He says he put up 166 baskets of corn for me the basket ½ Bu^s which would be so many Bu^s of shell corn. There were [??] Bu^s of wheat for me, which Cyrus got ground at your mothers request & sold at the store at 24 pr lb for which he account to me.

Honorable James Buchanan Jr was the newly-elected fifteenth President of the United States (1857-1861). Buchanan’s vice president John Cabell Breckinridge was already involved in Chequamegon land speculations. ~ U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

It is still a source of unhappiness to me that you are doomed to pass the long gloomy winter around that gloomy Lake. I should feel much better if you were down at Lancaster or in the good little State of Vermont, where you could enjoy your friends and some of the comforts [???] I could wish all the comforts of civilized life. But you are Surveying and prosperous I know you are making a better winters job of it than you could any where else were it not for the sufferings you must [??????????] made go in [isading?] in the snow [?? ?? ?? ??? ????ing ????] of sleeping at [??????] Such cold nights & mornings as the last week has given us makes me humble for you & your party, and perhaps miles from any lands or aid in case of any [????] of prusing or seeking to which you are in your situation. So [??????????ly] exposed [?????????] I am anxiously waiting for more letters from you to know how you are braving the perils of your third polar winter, & I had thought that [?????] you went up to Superior i.e. if you have to go there for your drafts, you would just do us a ½ a doz letters to make up for past remissness in little writing. I wrote a while ago to E.R. Bradford of Superior for information in relation to Superior [????] Starving populations I want to hear from there once in a dog’s age even if I do not like the inhabitants quite so well. I have been in hopes that some of your paper would get along so that I could by them learn what was going on in the copper regions but as yet none have reached me, & probably will not this winter. I hope Mr Tylor & his friends will be able to sustain themselves & their paper too, in spite of the combined powers of hell & its minions on earth, Buchanan, & all the unterrified & unwashed & E. B. Dean in [???] to the bargain.

Amen.

Summary of the Topeka Constitution, aka “the Kansas struggle”, from CivilWarOnTheWesternBorder.org:

Date originally drafted: October 1855
Stance on slavery: prohibited
Suffrage for women: none
Suffrage for African Americans: none
Suffrage for Native Americans: “every civilized male Indian who has adopted the habits of the white man”
Settlement by free African Americans: prohibited by an “exclusion clause” that was approved by Kansas voters
Status: failed to achieve federal recognition by January 1857

U.S. Senator Stephen Arnold Douglas ~ Library of Congress

The Kansas struggle seems drawing to a close. Matters have arrived at that stage when a final settlement of the great issue is most able. The prospection now favorable for the cause of freedom & for the abolishment of human bondage from the territory forever, & if that glorious result is finally obtained, it will be through the influence & talents of Douglas, the Northern Senator, who was mainly instrumental in opening the country to the inroad of Slavery, nor is it certain now that his [???????? ???? ?????] in his espousal of the Kansas Free State cause than long were in 1854. Still whatever may be his policy in things on the right side over in his political compass, I am thankful enough for such aid in this time of need. Probably no other man could have caused the [???????] to abandon the President as he has done when the d’d old [??????? ??? ????] is fairly laid on his back & the darling [??????] of his administration by which he had hoped to secure to himself the adoration and support of the entire south ~~[??????]~~ in wild as of the great unterrified & unwashed of the few states then if Douglas will conduct himself properly I should not care so much if he was the [????????] aspirant for the Presidency. Senator said lately in the Senate that within the year there would be 19 Free States to 15 Slave States, by the admission of Minnesota, Kansas, & [???????], as [????? ????] states. The Southern [??????] are alarming and talk loudly of a Southern Confederacy. The Democracy generally throughout the Southern states are in opposition to their stupid Presidents on the Kansas question, & nothing but Douglas’ carrying his point will save this party from utter defeat & ruin. While at the same time the party will be rid of its most obsiquious satans of southern [????] if the Poor devils and find any place to go to. Perhaps they may get up a [????] of Secession party to catch the scum of the Democracy.

Do write as often as you can and as long as you can. That is one great fault with your letters. They are too short & do not tell [??] half about yourself business & prospects, that we would be glad to learn.

The Barbers made many friends among the Lake Superior Chippewa Mixed Bloods.

“Hon. John W. Bell, born in New York City in 1805, in his eighth year went to Canada with his parents, learned to be a watchmaker, a ship builder and a cooper, and came to La Pointe in 1835, where he has since resided. He carried on the coopering business first, for the American Fur Company, and then for himself established a trading post, became interested in mining stocks, and filled various county offices, having served as county judge and register of deeds a great many years. In later life he was postmaster at La Pointe. He was married in 1837 to Miss Margaret Brahant, in the Catholic chapel, by BishopBaraga. He died in 1888.”
~ Fifty Years in the Northwest by Elijah Evan Edwards, page 250.

William Herbert was a merchant in Ashland selling supplies to Ironton, and previously a copper prospector for the American Fur Company during the 1840s.

When you are at leisure you must begin and write little by little, till you would get a respectable letter [?????] size & length. Anything would be interesting from the lake region even to the health of any of the Indians or half breeds, how my old Sombre friends [Chochiguenion?] Newaga & old [Renase?] & George Day ([?????]) are & how my Superior stranded friends are passing the winter. Does the Judge indulge in a good drink occasionally? Are Mr Maddock’s people all well? Does Mr M work with his gang on the Pointe this winter? Is Houghton stock rising? Have you got your $800. [?????] begun yet? I trust you will know too much to be drawn into [???????] arguments, I am willing he should make as much as pleases out of his wildcat town, but I do not want you should have anything to do with it any way or any how. How does Dr Ellis get along with his Mill? Do the hard times pinch operations & speculations around you this winter? Is there any less Whiskey consumed than previously? Does Dawson deal out the stuff with remembering to wet his own whistle? Is Herbert blasting around La Pointe or is he down at Ironton? & finally how are things in general all around you? When you are engaged in surveying I cannot expect you to have much spare time for writing, but I repeat the request that when you have the time to spare, you will give us longer letters so you must remember to write as often as you conveniently can, and when you do write, give us a letter long as a strong or as long as Amhert’s [???????] whiplash.

15th

“IN MEMORY OF AUGUSTUS H. BARBER of Cambridge, Vt. U.S. Deputy Surveyor who was drowned in Montreal River Apr. 22. A.D. 1856 Aged 24 yrs. & 8 ms.” ~ FindAGrave.com

Yesterday a little sister of Ballard’s was buried. She died of Scarlet fever, that is prevailing in N [????]. Ballard is at homer’s tells great stories how he sold property in those new towns [Samtagia?] & [San Colana?] (that he was concerned in taking up test summer with [????] her, ward [???]) in N.Y. City & how he rec^d payments in real estate in Brooklyn. If he got any such property in Brooklyn, it must have been when the tide plains on some very distant part of a salt marsh for it does not look very [??? ????] that he would [? ?? ?? ??? ???] The eyes of Brights his so as to sell paper [??? lots for [???] valuable [?? ???????] I [??? ?????? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ????] make my visit to my old [???? ] in [??? ???] as I now contemplate doing. You have [??? ??? ???? ????] your [???????] should for you or [????? ???] you [???? ???? ?????????] to have along [???? ????? ?? ???? ?? ????] How have you informed me [??? ??? ??? ??????? ?? ????] & [???? ?? ??] the grave of your dear Augustus. How [??? ??? ???] his previous remains are at Lancaster. [? ???] in Cambridge & [???] I would [????] I could prevent on you to leave there, never wish to see the Lake again or anything about it, but so long as Augustus is buried on the shore of that [???????? ????] I shall feel as though there is as some thing that [???? ?? ??] and [?????? ?? ??] have it so long as I stay.

This very long letter may be dismal for you to take at one dose. So if you find your strength failing before you are through, reserve parts for another time when you feel better able to wade through these 8 pages. Give my respects to all friends. Tell John [C?????] I give my respect to his good old father, & to tell him that I do not forget my old friends. Tell Mrs Maddock I wish I could convey one of my large cheeses to her. I think cheese would suit you very well [?????] and prosperity & believe me your ever affectionate and anxious father

G. A. Barber

Cambridge Sunday Feb 15 1857

My dear Son

I again sit down to give you a short history of matters & things in this glorious land of liberty, of laws, Bibles, & Sabbaths. In the 1st place we are all well, & when I write that word, that means so much, I cannot but wish that I knew, it could with equal truth be applied to you. Our last from you was dated Dec 13th & in that two months following, so very cold here, how much you have suffered, or how you have endured the cold, fatigues, & privations of a surveyor’s life, is a subject of much solicitude in your paternal mansion, as well as among your numerous friends in Lamoille County. But I hope soon to get another letter from you assuring us of your safety & welfare, down to a much later period. I hope the winter has broken in your region as it has here, & that you will have a better time for prosecuting your surveys.

The Graduation Act of 1854 was an obstacle for the Barbers’ absentee land claims in Grant County, Wisconsin.

Last week I wrote something about those who had purchased under the graduation law having their titles confirmed without further requirement, & that such a law would probably pass, but now it looks “like” it would not pass that the purchasers would be held strait up to the mark &c. Your Uncle Allen says you had better build a house, for that is what you need, & will add to the value of the farm all it will cost, & save your paying out the [??? ?????] to save what you have already paid which would be $201.38 if I have figured right & then you would have no house or improvement. Perhaps the Law may be passed or some relief granted to the many who would suffer severely if the Law as it now stands is enforced.

Your friend Levi with Oscar have been over here a good share of the day, & have been viewing by day light the agates & curiosities I brought home with me.

This is the 3rd good visit from Levi since I got home. His health is much better now than formerly, but if he is not well this spring I will try to have him go up & visit you.

Our winter is on its wane & spring like days are upon us & yet I have not settled what will or shall be done with the farm. Dow wishes to remain, & would so far as he is concerned be as good a man as I could expect to find any where but his little woman is a small specimen of she tiger as venomous as hell, to all whom she dislikes.

There is now talk of having Mr Perry & Wyman for tenants though nothing certain yet, shall know soon.

The Barbers appear to have taken legal and private action against Daniel Shaw and Eliab B Dean Jr at the Superior City General Land Office for interfering with Augustus’ land claims.

I wrote you last week of the appeal having been taken from the Superior Land Office. I have since written to Elder Sabin again enquiring how it stands now, when there will be a hearing in the case & whether my being present would be of any advantage &c. If the Officers at at Superior have done anything to my prejudice, have left out anything material to my side of the case, or presented anything on the Dutchman’s side that should not be in or in any way connived to wrong me out of the Land why then I ought to be on the spot ready to meet it. I want to prevail in that suit, after all the opposition, delay & rascality I have encountered from the other side. I would sooner trust a dog with my dinner than any of my rights or interests in the hands of such a man as E. B. Dean & I know not as Shaw is any better.

When I wrote to you last we were having a heavy thaw that broke up the Hudson and did $2,000,000 damage in the City of Albany alone & immense damage at Troy & other places on the river & on all the rivers south as far as heard from including Cincinnati where there was great damage done, by crushing boats &c.

That thaw took cold Sunday night, & it has been down to 20* below 0. since, but to day we are having another thaw & raining so that sleighing will be “pone” after this if there is any. The Legislature Extra Session convenes at Montpelier next Wednesday to do something to provide for a place in which to hold their future sessions, & such a stripe as will be manifested the present week, the state never saw. Among the towns claiming the future State house are Montpelier Burlington Northfield St Johnsbury, Rutland Woodstock Windsor & Bellows Falls. The principal stripe will be between Montpelier & Burlington & I should not wonder if the latter should carry the day. Of course all below Hydepark are for B. & a general desire through the state has long been expressed for a removal of the Capitol from M, but possibly a sympathy for M. may operate on the minds of the Members thinking it hard to take it away when they have built & spread themselves so much thinking their fine Granite house was as durable as the Green Mountains. On the Contrary it can be said that M. has had the S. House 50 years and that is a long time, & should be the reason of giving to some other town. When I write next Sunday I may be able to tell you more about it, though it is not likely the question will be settled by that time.

I sent you in my letter of last Sunday a beautiful Ambrotype copy, from the Daguerrotype of Augustus, which I hope will reach you in safety. I sent one to my Mother in a good case & one to Alvira like yours, & Am. is going to send one to Helen Whiting, who has written him some of the most touching & beautiful letters in relation to the death of our dear unfortunate Augustus. I knew she was a girl great powers of mind, but did not think she would interest herself so much in the griefs of our family. I wish you could read her letters to Amherst. She is now at Greenupsburg write to her Greenups Co. Ky. in the extreme N.E. part of the State, teaching in a family school.

I got a letter from your Grand Pa last Friday by which we are advised of the continued good health of all the good folks in Lancaster up to Feb 4th He says that they are now talking of building an Academy there. Mr Myers who married Marthy Phelps has offered to give $150.00. and teach German & French two years. He is a wealthy, educated & refined Gentleman from the faderland & by his liberality I should think would shame some of the close fisted skinflints who might by such liberality have made Lancaster a “heap” smarter place than it is now.

16th

You cannot imagine how Hiram enjoys his new Red embroidered shirts, they can keep him him warm enough in winter weather without anything else. Hoping to hear from you soon I will defer writing more till another Sunday unless something “turns up.” You have so many letters sent & so few mails, they must come in chunks or gobs as Jo Doane says. Give my respects to all the boys & friends in La Pointe Co!

Your father Giles A Barber

Cambridge Sunday Feb 22 1857

My Dear Son

I will continue to trouble you with my letters, if I do not get anything from you & I hope to have you receive as many letters during your prolonged, painful absence from home as there are weeks, and though I am unable to fill them with matter interesting to you. Still I know from experience that when in exile, in a distant strange land, any such mementoes from home & those dear to us, bring all the familiar faces of friends visibly to mind & for a moment almost make us forget [????] the distance that stretches out between us. I suppose there is no item of news that gives you more pleasure than the two short words “All well” when you understand that it applies to our family & yet you have had it so often reiterated, that were it anything else, it would have become quite stale, if not absolutely painful. We want to get such news from you oftener than we do, or rather we would be very happy to know of your continued well being & be so near you that the knowledge would be more direct, than hearsay.

Your Mother is constantly apprehensive of dire misfortunes to you, of suffering, from cold, hunger, fatigue & privations. Yet, after all, I cannot help feeling much solicitude for your welfare fearful of the effect of this unprecented cold winter upon your health as well as comfort & convenience. Still no letter from you of later date than Dec 13th. Hope to get one very soon, with good news from you & the young men of your party.

For about 3 weeks the thaws have been so severe as to carry off all the snow except a little in the woods & the mud was like April, but we have some snow fallen again that has laid an embargo on waggons. The river has run over the meadows during the past week.. A thing unusual in winter.

As yet we have made no disposition of the farm for the coming year. Mr Dow has done much better in a pecuniary point of view, than either other tenant. I was looking over matters with him last night & find that the product of the Dairy, &c has been sold for $616.00 to say nothing of 18 Bu’^s Wheat, 150 Bu^s Potatos, a good lot of corn & Oats 7 yearlings the cold, &c &c. The cold is a very good one, worth as much as any one I ever knew of its gender, but as I may have to pay Dow for ½ of him I am confident about “letting on.” So far as I can see, the man has been honest enough, is a very careful man with cattle & horses, a good judge of both, is a sober, temperate, cool, calculating Yankee. And yet his wife is a different sort of woman from what I should like to have around, & has not treated your mother & Amherst as she should considering the obligations she was under to do otherwise. She is a little waspied, petulant, conceited, niggardly body, as one would meet in a summer’s day, not strictly confined within the limits of truth, somewhat nervous & in case of trouble in domestic matters rather inclined to sick headache & hysterias. But she keeps things in much better shape than Mrs Dickinson did, every way & in the main, would wish to pass off for a very nice little woman. It is hard to think of having her another year, after all her insulting talk to your Mother, & perhaps equally hard for her to ask to stay, after so often saying that she would not do so, on any consideration. I have no trouble with her & will not with her or her husband while they are around, or I have any thing to do with them.. Another Man Harrison Putnam cousin to Aaron was here yesterday while I was gone to Johnson, wishing to take the farm, but whether the change would be advantagous is problematical. One thing I have set down as a fixed fact, it is one of the last places in which I would look for perfection, in a tenant, & as all are wide of the mark it only remains to take them making the [????] affirmation.

Our Extra Session of the Legislature is battling for a location for the future State house, with what success I do not learn since the 2nd day, when an informal ballot was taken in the senate, each Senator giving his ballot with the name of the town he would prefer for State Capitol written on it, whole number voting 29, of which Burlington took 12, Montpelier 11, the remaining 6 for 6 different towns. I fear that a foolish sympathy for M. because they have had the capitol so long inducing them to build extravagantly will induce many to vote against removal, without considering that Burlington has never had but 1 Session of the Legislature (in 1802) while Montpelier has had it in uninterrupted succession 49 years, or a half century. “Let her rip” I hope to survive it, let it go either way, but my [??inx’] are for Burlington.

“Plain truth to speak” there is nothing of consequence to write, any how either about Cambridge or Johnson folks.. Times are barren of news I take the Semi Weekly Tribune in which we have murder & robberies committed in the latest fashion, by the garrote applied to the victim. Some humorous articles entitled “Witches of New York” in numbers the last of which rec^d is 9. They bear evident marks of coming from the pen of Mortimer Thompson author of Doesticks.

Oh there is one thing you will rejoice to hear & I should have informed you since. The sugar that you & Mother prepared for the N.Y. Market has been sold & the cash rec^d when I was at St Albans on the [??^d] inst from Mr Ladd. It shows how much better it is to do things scientifically than otherwise for this sugar something about 300 ^[??] brought the astonishing sum of $15.00 after paying freight & Mr Ladd had hard work to get that. Such Sugar as that is now worth up to 12% [cts?] here at home. I got a letter from Mr Sabin Friday relative to that land claim now before the General Office at Washington, expect another soon to let me know when a hearing may be had.

I suspended writing till Amherst had returned from the P.O. in hopes he would bring a letter from you but disappointed in that I go at it again to finish it up ready for the mail. I ought to correct an improper that I got on my mind & imparted to you, was that young Chadwick was an infamous character. He is on the one that Mr Lowry had seen in Milwaukee, as he has never lived there but is & has been in Chicago ever since he went there three years ago. I know not but I have made this correction before. Give my respect to all my friends in Siberia. Be a good boy, keep a stiff upper lip and take good care of yourself. Write whenever you can. Remember that unless Congress passes some law for the relief of Graduation purchases, you will have to come down & build a house on your land, sure as fate.

May God bless and preserve you

G.A. Barber

Dear Son

I take it for granted that if you live till spring you will go to Lancaster as it will probably be necessary for you to attend to your land as soon as possible. Now if you do not think you can come home after you have been there, I feel as tho’ I must go there myself and see you. I do not see any thing to prevent my doing so, now, and if nothing happens to prevent I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you.

If you can come here next summer I should defer my visit until some future time ‘tho I should like much to see L. and some of its inhabitants before long as I may like the place well enough to wish to stay. Tell me what you think of the place.

Your affectionate Mother

Cambridge Sunday March 1^st 1857

My Dear Son

Do you get any letters from home this long cold winter? If you do you are more fortunate than we have been, for since my parting with you we have had but 4 letters 2 dated Nov 9^th 1 Nov 22 & 1 Dec 13^th & now there is a tedious period of 77 days in which we have known nothing of your health, your welfare or sufferings, or even of your existence. You may be assured that we are growing very impatient to get letters from you, & think they will arrive soon, & in the meantime will console ourselves with the thought or rather hopes that you are yet alive & well, that we shall yet have good tidings from you, when the mail are to be carried around the shores of the Lake & through the forests.

There is nothing new, to write to you to day, only the same old story that we are all three well as could be expected under the circumstances. Our snow went off the 1^st week in Feb and we have only a few days good traveling since.

The snow is gone in the woods so that we can get around with perfect ease anywhere, & the prospect is that it will be the best season for Sugaring that we have had for 10 years. Amherst & I are thinking of rigging up another small sugar place up in the woods east of the Gooseberry Hill, & making a few pounds of the delicious article. Sugar is now worth from 10 to 12 ½ cts and they are ready to contract for it at 10 ½ now. There has been some made the last week, though but few have commenced as yet.

Wyman Perry talks of starting in a few days for the Great West, he is here now, & I am advising him to go to Lancaster, thinking there will be a land call for Carpenters [?????] to build all the Buildings that are to dot the graduated lands.

I have just been reading three of the last letters written by our dear Augustus home, & to see the high hopes he had of doing well there & the indomitable energy that led him on, as he & any body else might have supposed, to affluence & and an honorable position in the world, and then to see all those bright hopes & prospects crushed in an hour & what is infinetely and painfully worse to lose him who was the light & hopes of us all. Oh the thought that he who was suffering such hardships and privations in hopes of seeing brighter & happier days should be stricken down in a strange land, far from friends [?????] home, called in a moment to bid adieu to this bright earth, to all hopes of seeing friends & home & keep to the dark watery grave & into that unknown future world, where realms are forever sealed from the knowledge of the living, the thought I say is almost insupportable. May God keep you from such a fate my dear Son. Do be careful of your precious life & health & if our dear Augustus is gone where we may never see him again, we have his good examples, his virtues, & his valuable letters & papers, that are worthy of our highest regard & from which we may still derive instruction & benefit though he is as I [?????] believe in a happier state of being.

I do believe there was never any young man or any man in Cambridge whose death caused such a profound grief throughout the entire circle of his acquaintances as did the Melancholy death of our dear departed one, & well may humanity mourn his loss for he was one of [???] noblest specimens, & the loss of one such is more to be lamented than that of a regiment of senseless fops & rowdies who are suffered to curse the earth with their hated presence. That we may all meet him, in another & better world is a fond hope to which I most fondly cling.

Monday 2^nd March

I believe this is somebody’s birth day. Oh that you were here to spend it with your parents & surviving brother. How much joy it would be to us all, yourself included I trust. We had a letter from Alvira last week by which we learn that She has been something of a rambler since September 1^st for she says that with her husband she went to Wis. as far as Beaver Dam, thence back to Chicago & from there to Quincy Ill. down on the Miss 200 or 300 miles below Galena where they remained till into January when they returned, to Winooski. Brink has since gone to Troy N.Y. to work & [??] is boarding, talkings of coming up here to stay a while this spring in sugaring. Would not you like to be here with us. We are all hands going to getting in at the Cruping Rock to fill an ice house at Bush on the Carlston [???] to day, & that brings to mind the changed condition of our neighborhood. Kingsbury owns the Wetherby farm & lives in the farther house, & two French families live in the Wetherby house. George Busk owns & lives on the Carlston place. Mr Green has let out his farm and moves away this spring. Atwood does not keep a boat so that all communication with them is cut off except by ice (I went over there last night with Am. crossing on a small ice bridge yet remaining at the road & Oscar returned with us) & by wading as Am & Oscar used to do last summer to get together. The school has all dwindled out, there not being more than 20 scholars in the district, beside French children, & taken altogether it does not seem like a very desirable place to spend a long & happy life.

The river is taking off the banks at an alarming rate & within a few years will have carried the whole meadow away.

If this reaches you & the many more I have sent out on Monday Mornings you will have some reading to do & I hope it may stimulate you to write oftener to your

Anxious and Affectionate father

G.A. Barber

It is now in contemplation to build you some good substantial clothing from the beset of [Gibon?] a business coat some pants & a vest, shirts, socks, mitts gloves &c &c & I am going to have about 12 or 15 pr of good stout pants made to carry up for such as may prefer to buy good articles, rather than the twice or thrice ground over rag cloth that scarcely lasts a fellow home. If you come down to Lancaster you will find your & Augustus clothes there to make you a decent rig up while you remain there. I believe I will write to Norman Washburn to engage some lumber for you to use about your house. He lives on the [??????] & is an agent for some body who deals in lumber about 10 miles from your land… Perhaps I will engage a quantity for myself to use at some future day on our pretty little farm at the village.

The Mail will be along soon, so I must have this ready. Once more I say be careful of your life & health. May a Merciful Providence protect you & bless you in all your lawful undertakings.

Giles A. Barber

My respects to the boys & all friends

Cambridge Sunday March 8th 1857

Dear Son Allen.

Why do we get no letters or word from you? It does seem as though we should have had something from you, within 85 days if you had been in the land of the living.

Are you still alive & well? If so, why do you not write? Or are there no mails from where you are, to the habitable portions of the globe? How does this long silence happen? I write these questions as though you could answer them in a few days time, not realising that it may be a month or two before they reach you & that ere that time I may get letters from you fully explaining all the delay of letters & tidings from that winter isolated region of the earth… I have great fears for the safety of yourself & party, the snows have been so deep and the cold so intense, & that if you are alive and well you have been unable to make any progress in the survey for the above reasons. I see by the G. C. Herald that a party of “Engineers on the N.W. Land Grant R.R. have suspended work till spring the great depth of snow & intense cold of the winter offering insurmountable obstacles to their progress.“

I also see an article in relation to graduation lands that is favorable to you, I will cut it out & enclose it to you. By it, you will see that if the law passes, it will have to be shown that the Lands were not entered in good faith, before they can deprive you of yours, & that you will probably have no trouble with having to comply with any requisitions whatever unless perhaps you may deem it best to show that almost from the time of the entry of [?] lands you have been engaged in surveying on the Public Domain & have even designed to improve & reside upon the lands by you entered.

Mr Caleb Blake has just called and staid 2 ½ hours, on his way from the Borough to Lowell where he & family reside. Jo is in New Jersey in an architects office & is going to rival old Greece & Rome in the building art. Mrs Blake is yet living & enjoying a tolerable degree of health, for one who has been sick as long as she has. Tom Edwards came in here last night about sunset & was very sick, greatly distressed with [Albe?], thought he would have to stay all night, but finally went home preferring to get there while he could, have heard nothing from him since, presume he will do a good days work to morrow. Last Sunday [L?????] Parker daughter of Otis Parker (usually called “Cienta”) was buried, she having cut her throat with a case knife, cause probably insanity from severe pain in the back of the head & in the neck. The family is now residing in Belviders.

Amherst’s red embroidered shirt was may have been a ribbon shirt from the Lake Superior Chippewas.

I got a letter last Tuesday from your Aunt Martha, who says that Mr B. had not gone to Wis. yet, had written to have Thode come home, was waiting till he came, so as not to pass him on the way & then it would chiefly depend on Thode whether they even went west or not, as they are very anxious to settle down somewhere, & have him willing & contented to stay with them. I expect Thode will be at home soon & have that matter settled. It will hard for the poor boy to leave his dear Miss P. & come to Vermont, & that very thing may have some influence in determining their residence. I wrote yesterday by Mail & to day by Kingsbury to St. Albans & by to morrow night shall get answers to them, & to 3 o’clock, the folks i.e. Marm & Am have just got home from Meeting. I chose to send him hoping he would imbibe more good than I could expect to do. He wears the embroidered Red shirt as bold as any half breed to meeting to mills.

I know not but you are tired of receiving so many letters from me, but I do not yet believe “that receiving so many letters will make them of less value than they would be if rec^d more seldom”, as have heard argued this very day, but it would not be proper for me to state by whom, whether Am. or some body else that thought so much of saving 3 ¢ postage, nor did I think “He (yourself) is not concerned about us & needs not to hear from home so often.” I have written every week but one, since getting home & if there has been great delay of mails, you will get letters by the bundle when they do come & then perhaps you will need a good stock of patience & time to enable you to ever get through them. One thing you may rely upon, the perusal will not pay a great profit.. but you will see that you are not forgotten, if you are out the civilised world. Especially by your

Affectionate father G.A. Barber

Do be careful of yourself
My respects to your companions
And to all friends & acquaintances
Write! Write!! Write!!! oftener if you can.

March 9th 5 o’clock a.m.

All well. Weather cold.
Hard South East Wind. Got Sabrina Chase last night to make you some clothes, & some pants to take up to your country to sell. Mrs Tracy of Johnson was buried yesterday. Deacon Reynolds father to Harry Reynolds died a few days ago aged 91 years.

When shall I hear from you again????

Allen.

We wish very much that we could hear from you to know what you are up to & how you passed this winter & spring. But we hope to get some thing from you soon. I wish you could be here to make sugar with me this spring. I intend to tap a lot of trees a way back in the woods & care it on my self. Wouldn’t that be fun!

Should you wish not be bashful about going to help the squaws that sugar there shall you? I cannot write any thing more at present but I will write when we hear from you.

A.W.B.

Cambridge March 19^th 1857

Dear Son

The Barber Papers do not include copies of any letters from Lake Superior during the Winter of 1857.

We were happily surprised last night at receiving two letters from you, one a good long one to me dated at La Pointe Feb 13^th & the other to Amherst dated at Mr Fargo’s new house on the 22^nd ult.

The Barbers had plans to purchase supplies for Ironton from merchants in Ashland including Albert McEwen.

I rec’d also 3 other letters one from your uncle Allen, one from your Aunt Martha & one from Hyde back on business. I am much alarmed for the safety of Friend McEwen & think the prospect of his being alive is very small. The case deserves a rigid investigation to ascertain whether he was murdered by his guides, or was deserted by them & left to perish in the wilderness. The weather was favorable about that time & for some days after. I think he left La Pointe Oct. 14th the day I got back from Montreal River. ‘Poor Mc’

In your Uncle Allen’s letter I find a notice from J. C. Squire Register of the Land Office at Mineral Point dated March 2^nd in which he says

“you are hereby called upon to produce testimony to perfect your title to the land entered by you on the 25^th day of May 1857 at this office for Certificate of purchase No 25532 for actual settlement & cultivation under the provisions of the act of Congress &c &c. If such testimony be not produced at this Office before the 1^st day of June 1857, it will be regarded as an abandonment of your claim to the Land & the case will be reported at the General Land Office, in order that steps may be taken for throwing the land into Market again after proper notice.”

Your Uncle says

“I presume Allen had better make some improvements on his land before June 1^st or by making [affe?] that he does not intend immediately to settle & that he desires to pay the bal. $75cts per a & enter in the land, he can do so. I presume some one has complained, who wishes to get the land.

— Congress passed an act authorising patents to issue in all cases where complaints is not made before June as I understand. If Allen will come down & make some improvement probably that would be the cheapest & besides he would have the money on his land.”

Now you have the sum & substance of the matter i.e. if you ever receive this & you will probably do in relation thereto as you deem most expedient.

Cyrus has P. the taxes on your land this winter $15.50 & says “a School house tax has been raised in that neighborhood the cause of it being so much.” Your land will be worth enough more to pay for it. Thode Burr has not got home yet he is in Howe & Barber’s store. Mr Burr has not gone out there as yet but started for N.Y. yesterday with Emily on business for some other man when E. will stay 3 or 4 weeks. Sugaring has begun & it is very nasty rainy weather today.

While in Congress (from March 4, 1853 to March 3, 1857), Honorable Alvah Sabin served as chairman for the Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business in the Thirty-fourth Congress.
“The Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business monitored the business of Congress during its early years when unfinished business was terminated at the end of each session, and it recommended procedures to accomplish the work of Congress leaving as little unfinished business as possible.”
~ Guide to House Records

I am glad to learn that Mr Hayes has got through with that Land Claim, if it be really so. But why should he write me that an appeal was taken & cause me the trouble of getting Mr Sabin to attend to it for me in Washington? I have got 1 bag [pr,?] good [Gihow?] pants made to carry up to the lake. Cut & made in the best manner, lined with heavy cotton, pockets of sout drilling. Shall have 2 coats made for you 1 a very fine [Gihow Prown?] & I do [Grey?] for work. If anybody wants good durable pants they will do well to see of me.

I have not much of consequence to write at this time more than you will find in the foregoing. We are all well & com-fort-a-ble.

I have a lame knee, made some worn by going to the top of Billings hill with Amherst & Oscar last Sunday. They were going & wanted one to go to point out to them the different places to be seen from there, & as it was one of the prettiest days in town I went with them.

Amherst is going to carry on a small sugar place where Mr Harvey used to make sugar. Them is a great stripe for making sweet, by everybody who are snatching for Buckets & everything pertaining to the business.

It is about mail time & I must dry up.

Give my inputs to all friends.

Affectionately yours

G. A. Barber

To be continued in the Spring of 1857…

Posted by Amorin Mello

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Barber Papers: “Let ‘Em Rip” Spring of 1856

October 24, 2015

By Amorin Mello

Selected letters of the Joel Allen Barber Papers

… continued from Winter of 1856.

Johnson April 5^th 1856

Dear Son

I grow more & more uneasy every day about your lands. If you get The Grant Co. Herald up there you will see what has got to be done before May 11^th. The Herald of March 22^nd is out again with two articles in relation to the prefecture of Lands entered under Graduative prices & in one of them says that all lands [forpect?] to Government will be advertised for sale to the highest bidder & if not sold, will be then in the Market at $1.25 per acre. That purchasers under the Graduation Law cannot pay 75 ¢ more per acre & hold nor even can they go now and pay $1.25 to save it, but it must go into the market & sold at a land sale if anybody will buy it. My first efforts will be on reaching Lancaster to see that a dwelling is made on your land & something done by way if improvement & it will be absolutely necessary that you should come there yourself as I view the case.

Barber’s sketch of his Left Hand Point land claim from the Winter of 1856.

If you still have that Pointe of Land in your grip & can leave it for a short time, come & come at any rate if you can possibly without too great a sacrifice, for I cannot bear to have you lose so much money for nothing. Can you not leave your Point after making some moves in the matter without having it squatted on by some one else? Or can you not get some person you can trust to stay on it for you after erecting a cabin on it? You will of course know more about it than I do & must act accordingly. Nothing of great importance transpiring here abouts. Day before yesterday [Vst.?] Pillsbury & Luther Carpenter were hauled up for damages done to Ben Atwell’s Barn on the mountain by cutting down the timbers to the scaffold destroying 1 good horse rake & some hand rakes & 25 buckets & other damages. They had to pay Atwell cost & all $19.12 & on a state prosecution $10 fine each & 3.50 cost each making $46.12 as the price [????] for their sport.

It has got to be warm & snow is [going?], not much sugar made yet. I have got a new tenant on the farm Stephen [Dow?] from York side. Hen. Griswold has become sole owner & occupant of all [red drops?]. Do not go and hang yourself on that [???]. Old Fuller yesterday bought out Bixby’s farm (the [Fod?] [Lathrop?] [place?]). [Belden?] of Eden has [ba?] the Bixby place in the village. Mr. G.W. Hill is nearly gone with consumption. Sir Transit [????]

Augustus was “in a little trouble.”

I [recd?] a letter 2 days ago from [Aug?] dated [Mar?] 4. Written when he was evidently (or as Dr. [Ferhas?] says evidentially) afflicted with the blues. He wanted I should procure some hundreds of Dollars for him to invest in lands & I shall try to get it if possible.

If I can get $1,000. for him, yourself, & myself to invest jointly I will do it.

The [avails?] of the old farm well laid out for lands at the west would soon double while the farm would be gradually going off with the action of the water on the bank & yielding not so much as 4 percent interest on its value.

But Mum will hear to nothing but laying out hundreds of Dollars to fix it up. Well she may have her way about that & that only. I am not for having her jurisdiction extended over all the west while [surveying?] the [distance?] of the world here in Vermont.

Remember your lands. Remember. Shall I meet you at Lancaster about 25^th of the present month? All well.

Yours in heart

G. A. Barber.

Johnson April 13^th /56

My Dear Allen

“GRADUATION ACT OF 4^thAUGUST, 1854.
This law cheapens, with certain limitations, the price of public lands which have been in market for specified periods to the actual settlers, who are required, before making the entry, to file their affidavits that the purchase is made for actual settlement and cultivation.”
~ United States Congressional serial set, Volume 1117, page 482.

Having had the satisfaction of reading some letters from you of late I now sit down to thank you for them – tho without one thought that I can convey to you an adequate expression of my gratitude for your [??? favors stifl less?] for the continued assurance of your good health and favorable prospects. I am glad to learn that you have had encouragement to persevere in the prosecution of your “claims” and now imagine you doing your utmost to make yourself a house – temporary though it may be – which will some day repay you for all the trouble you have had about it: and I hope much more. Do you intend to build an “Octagon Concrete” house? Or is there no material and no foundation for such a [build.?] Suppose you will have to clear it off and drain it before you will decide on that point. I imagine you will have some [allushectors?] to destroy before you will get peaceable possession. I suppose if you succeed in holding that you will have to give up the land you bought in “Little Grant” as whatever title you could have to that, would seem to be acquired by “preemption and actual settlement” – the reduced price alone depressing on those conditions. Well, no matter if your present “grab” is worth half as much as your exited fancy has you to believe. I know that the letter you have rec’d from home will have a tendency to unsettle your mind and perhaps to send you “packing” to Lancaster, but from such advice come to you too late to be of any use. Indeed, what written advice or sympathy does not when it takes two months to get an answer to a letter?

I, too, have been in something of a “quandary” about a place to stay in while all my family are absent, seeking their fortunes or spending them. Father wished to have me remain in this old house and continue to keep boarders.

I could not agree to that, as I knew how much work there was in it, and how little strength there was in me. Besides, other reasons pertaining to the house and its capacities made me unwilling to stay here. I could see no better way for me than have our goods moved back to the farm and to make it my home there. This did not suit the convenience of the Meads because they could not afford to be troubled to sleep above stairs or to remove any of their things to give me a room. [So?], [their?] minds and interests being previously about equally balanced between staying and going. That turned the scale, and they [prached?] up and were off before we had any warning, scarcely.

But, as good luck would have it, a stranger came with good recommendation and I have the assurance that the woman will be a very agreeable person to reside with – this. I have not yet seen her, but feel hopeful.

They have no children.

“In the spring of 1856 he [Albe Whiting] set out, traveling by railroad as far as St. Louis, and there took a boat which took him to Westport Landing, now Kansas City. He had secured some preliminary training as a civil engineer, and it was his purpose to find employment in that line. After a week at Westport Landing, he, with his partner and a passenger, started West with a team of seven yoke of oxen drawing a covered wagon filled to the bows with supplies. This little party started for Fort Riley, and after about three weeks arrived in the Republican Valley some fifteen miles from the fort and just beyond the outposts of civilization. Mr. Whiting had a partner, B. E. Fullington, an honest, God-fearing, upright man, and their plan was to engage in farming – raising corn for the Government post at Fort Riley.”
~ A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, Volume 3, page 1313-14.

Presume I shall be lonely, but mean to have work enough to occupy my hands while there and leisure to spend with my friends there at home as well as to visit them at theirs. I shall expect Aug. at home next summer – read a long letter from him to Albe – who, by the way has stared for Kansas – in which he says he shall come to Vermont next summer. Oh! Shant I be glad to see him? [If?] you could come with him. Shall not be so certain of his coming as to be very much disappointed if he does not, as it is my lot to bear his appointments. I am sorry to have Am. go away with his father to such a distance, but I believe he will be much better off to be there than he would to be left with me, as in my care, as he has become selfwilled and independent of my authority to an eminent degree. Hope he will not go to the lake as I do not think he would be of any use there, he is so unused to labor or hardship.

He has not been entirely free from a cough since he had the whooping cough last spring until within three weeks – it seems to have left him free.

My health is quite good tho I cannot endure severe exercise. [?] have best one boarder and no fired girl.

Have a few things to send to you and Aug. – meant to have [???] but my girl [???] away [on?] a visit for a week and as been gone nearly [forever?] – so I could not get [time?] to [grew?] and hurt much for you as I should.

Your Affectionate

Mother

J. A. Barber

Johnson April 13^th 1856

Dear Son.

Yours of March [16^th?] is rec’d together with one from Augustus by same mail, dated March 11^th and you may be assured that it affords me joy to hear of your bright prospects, good health & spirits, courage & perseverance I hope you may finally achieve the object you have in view, and have the satisfaction of distancing all competition for the golden prize. But from what I have been writing to you for some weeks about your land in the town of Little Grant. I shall expect to find you at Lancaster when I get there or at any rate before the 10^th of May, if it is necessary that you should be there & commence a residence on your land prior to that time. I have written to your Uncle about the Matter the 2^nd time and am looking anxiously for his answer every mail. I cannot see the justice or propriety of your being obliged to make a residence on the law at that particular time when it is taken into consideration that you were only just of age, had exhausted all your means in making the purchase & was forced to seek some employments to raise the necessary means for building and making improvements on your land, & farther than all that, being so young, & unprovided with any means of housekeeping or living. & worst of all, nobody to prepare & get you “bread & milk” when you should happen to feel longer than usual.

Instructions received by the General Land Offices regarding graduation entries of land.

I cannot believe that your land will be forfeit in default of making proof of residence at the time appointed, but it will not be prudent to run any risks about it, if possible to prevent it. I have not yet fixed upon any day for my setting out for Wis, but hope to be ready soon. Perhaps it is all nonsense to take Amherst out there this season. But Augustus & you have said so much about having him go there that your mother (even son) thought best to have him go, & I of course was not unwilling to have it so, but of late you & Aug. do not seem so much in favor of having him up at the Lake, I suppose because you will not know what to do with him, & I should be loth to have him there in burden to you when it costs so much for subsistence if he could do nothing to earn it – But he is nearly in [reading?] [now?] & I rather feel as tough I would choose to have him with me than leave him to the whims and [caprice?] of any woman whatever there would be too many wonderful projects “work on a farm” “Learn a trade” “go into a [store?]” “fit for college” “rest a while certainly two or three years from his studies.” and all the other 1001 notions of a nervous person, who has now within the last ½ hour been complaining of his going off, not from any other consideration but that he were not going when he would not earn anything, or not enough to pay his way. If I work on my little place he can help me & he can do work for others or find some employment or he can go to school to H. B. Woods. I shall feel better if he goes, than if he stays. I have been reading a very long letter today from Augustus to Albe, but Albe is gone to Kansas & left directions that any letters from you or Aug’ to him should be shown to us & then forwarded to him. Everett got home last week, with improved health though not sound yet. He met Allen in Ohio & spent 2 days with him. A. was in good spirit. Minister is so unwell as to give up preaching. Woodruff is failing & will live but a short time. Nothing of consequence to write. Had sugar at the old place & at Columb’s Friday (Fat Friday).

Yours in haste

Giles W. Barber

Cambridge May 30^th 1856

My very dear son Allen

“IN MEMORY OF
AUGUSTUS H. BARBER
of Cambridge, Vt.
U.S. Deputy Surveyor
who was drowned in
Montreal River.
Apr. 22. A.D. 1856
Aged 24 yrs. & 8 ms.”
~ FindAGrave.com

One week ago today your letters bearing bearing the heart-crushing intelligence of the sudden Death of our beloved Son and your dear brother were received by me. Oh, may God save – preserve the others to release to me, and may he support us all to endure our great afflictions. Greatly as I suffer under the stroke, my heart bleeds for the absent ones on whom the blow has fallen with equal severity. Augustus was dearly and worthily beloved by us all. Can it be time we shall never again see his face – never receive the dear letters full of bright hopes and cheering anticipations. Oh, he was too much beloved by all who knew him. Why could he not have been spared to bless his family and the world in which he could do good.

My friends [???] tell one that no death has caused such universal sorrow in this vicinity as his. Many of my friends have called to sympathize with me and to learn the particulars of the sad accident.

Superior Falls at the mouth of the Montreal River, as featured in the stereograph “View on Montreal River” by Whitney & Zimmerman from St. Paul, circa 1870.
~ Wikimedia Commons

Mr. Dougherty with [Sen.?] Robinson came down on Tuesday to see me. Aunt Martha and Mrs. Chadwick came Wednesday – M. stayed till this Friday morning.

Mr. D. took your letter of the 13 May home with him intending to address his congregation on this mournful subject on next Sabbath, I cannot bear to be present.

I did not get your first letter – addressed to Johnson dated April 28^th mailed May 10^th until the 23 – the one dated May 13^th mailed 14^th about two hours afterwards – or in about 10 days from date. I would not write to any one till today – but supposed you had written to your father at Lancaster when you wrote to me last. (13^th) If you did not I fear he had started for the lake before the dreadful tidings reached him. Can it be that each one of our severed family has had to bear the grief alone – separated from all the others. How much I know you must have suffered! By your suspense before you could reach the spot where he was lost – and then, during the shocking scenes which followed. I suppose I can imagine but little what your feelings were or what mine would have been had I been present. I am so thankful that you were not with him and that I still have a dear-[kind?] son in this dark and gloomy world – May we all meet again, feeling this chastening affliction to be from the hands of a merciful God. May we be drawn together as a family by a [closer?] tie – even by the bonds of our common affliction.

I hope you will remember to write me as often as possible as I shall feel more concern now for the absent ones than ever before. Am anxiously waiting a letter from “father” that I may know where to direct to him. I want very much to have Amherst come home and stay with me this summer. He would be a great comfort to me if he could be contented to stay here, and would feel that he aught to try to make his mother less miserable. In doing that he would find his reward in being more happy in time to come.

I must close this and prepare to sent it to the office if there is a chance today, shall write soon again. No doubt you have got the letter I wrote to your dear, departed brother, since I came here. If so there is nothing of importance to write now.

Your affectionate Mother

[Incomplete copy of letter]

[ante May, 1856]

This is the last letter available from Augustus to his family before his death on April 22nd, 1856.

A week in Lancaster or Johnson would be worth more to me than an interest in –––. But a copper mine first of all if at all and then for a good time generally.

Augustus had at least three locations: a farm near Lancaster; the townsite of Ironton at Saxon Harbor; and a copper claim located at or near Amnicon River Falls State Park.

I have some chances for a location that some would gladly embrace, but I mean to have a right on so I let them drive their trains without making a move or showing that I care a fig for the whole country.

There is a conspiracy, or combination of old preemptors here who have no right to make claims. Their object is to secure each member a claim on the North shore, and to drive off and keep off by knives and pistols any who may wish to make legal preemptions on the lands they choose to appropriate to themselves.

Was Augustus murdered?

There may be some fighting up here this season and there is certain to be considerable laming before the business is settled. Let ‘em rip.

I can send half a dozen to Jehanum in about as many seconds, but don’t want to do it & will avoid trouble if possible but butcher knife companies must not meddle with any claim when I have made one.

“The 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien set aside 320,000 acres of potentially valuable land west of Lake Pepin for ‘half-breed’ members of the Dakota nation. The move set off a series of events that would enrich a number of early Minnesotans, none of Indian heritage.”
[…]
“Henry Rice, a Minnesota territorial delegate to the US Senate, hadn’t forgotten the Half-Breed Tract. In July 1854, he convinced the Senate to offer the mixed-race claimants a deal. Each could get up to 640 acres of unsurveyed federal lands by giving up their claim to the Half-Breed Tract. Those eligible would receive ‘exchanging scrip,’ certificates that could be used to buy land.”
~ Minnesota Historical Society

Allen, what think you of the [expedring?] of making yourself a location on the famed Half-breed Tract which is to be surveyed and brought into market immediate?

It lies west of Lake Pepin and is as fair a tract of farming land as lies out of doors besides being regarded as very rich in lead.

You never saw such an [Elganim?] as a portion on the Lake appears to be.

I do want to go down and get you out to see more of the North West – not that I wish you to come up here against your inclination, but I want to travel with you, to see what we have not seen and talk over old times together while we rub up each other’s ideas about the things of the present and the future.

If you want a farm in the west and don’t like Sp. just consult Uncle Allen about the “modus operandi” of securing a farm by preemption and then take a look at the country I have mentioned, as there will be great snatching.

My love to Grandmother, Uncles, Aunts and cousins and my respect to the ladies if they inquire – not without.

Augustus H. Barber

To be continued in the Summer of 1856…

Posted by Amorin Mello

Filed in 1850s, Barber Papers ·Tags: Albe Whiting, Amnicon Falls State Park, Augustus Hamilton Barber, Ironton (townsite), Joel Allen Barber, Lake Pepin Half Breed Tract, Lake Superior Copper, Montreal River, Saxon Harbor, Superior Falls, Wisconsin Copper

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Barber Papers: “In a Little Trouble” Winter of 1856

October 9, 2015

By Amorin Mello

Selected letters of the Joel Allen Barber Papers

… continued from Fall of 1855.

Minnesota Point Jan [23rd?] 1856

Dear Parents

It is sometime since I have wrote to you and for a fortnight or more
[???] [two lines on this copy are illegible] [??? ?????]
On arriving at Lapoint we found sheets from home and a good lot of newspapers.

We left Lapoint Thursday afternoon [on a firm of ?????? ? ?? head?] of [?????????] Nagonup the principal chief of all the Chippewas, Augustus and myself [??? ??? ?????] drawn by by two dogs on a dogtrain. At [????? ???????] were joined by one of Nagonup’s [??????].

Photograph of Naagaanab (Minnesota Historical Society).

“Chingoon” was Zhingob (Shingoop, Chingoube), the Balsam, who was Naagaanab’s cousin, and considered the hereditary chief of Fond du Lac. He’s the same person as Nindibens in the Edmund Ely journals. The Fond du Lac bands often had seasonal camps at Brule River and Flagg River. Maangozid was Zhingob/Nindibens’ brother-in-law. Zhingob and Naagaanab were both Catholic, dressed like whites, and largely allied with Chief Buffalo’s band and the mix-bloods at La Pointe.

They were on their way to Washington. Several of them are going accompanied by a gentleman from Lapointe as interpreter. The first night out we stayed in a wigwam with old Chingoon and his interesting family. Friday night we camped. Saturday reached Iron river. Sunday left and [comfortable?] – Monday came here. Augustus has a sore througt, not severe – otherwise we are well as usual notwithstanding our tramp of over [100?] miles. I must now quit writing and try to find one of our dogs which has strayed over to [???].

“On the 5th day of August, 1826, Lewis Cass and Thomas L. McKenney, commissioners on the part of the United States, made and concluded a treaty with the Chippewas Indians at Fond du Lac, Lake Superior, by which the Chippewas granted to the United States the right to search for, and carry away, any metals or minerals from any part of their country. […]
Under the old permit system, many locations, three miles square, were made on Lake Superior;- several on and near the Montreal river – some on Bad River, south of La Pointe – three on the main land, opposite La Pointe – two or three were made near Superior City, on the Nemadji, or Left Hand river, and one settler’s claim about twenty miles north of Superior.”
~ Mineral Regions of Lake Superior: As Known From Their First Discovery to 1865, by Henry Mower Rice, 1865[?].

Perhaps you wonder what we have made this journey for – perhaps you hope we are going below but that is not the case. Why should we [?????]. It is warmer here than at many places two or three hundred miles south of here. True – one or two thermometers froze up at this place but others did not while at Fort Snelling, the spirit thermometer inside the walls indicated 44 degrees below zero. Augustus wanted to see to his preemption and I had nothing to do but to come along with him. I also wanted to find out a few things concerning a place that I should like to preempt. I suppose there is not a better copper show on the south shore of the lake, but the land is not surveyed and my only sure way to get it is to settle on it and stick to it until it can be legally claimed.

The town lines will be run next summer.

“The dutchman” may have been Doctor Charles William Wulff Borup; a Dane from Denmark. During the 1840s, Borup was involved with copper mining here. Borup had since left Lake Superior, and was now in St. Paul starting Minnesota’s first bank and publishing banknotes.

Augustus is in a little trouble about his claim. It appears his declatory statement never reached the land office. But I guess it will all be explained and made right. The dutchman who was to contest his claim has left the country and would stand no chance if he was here. We have a land office here now which saves a great many journeys to Hudson near St. Paul. We shall go back in a few days and commence surveying around the islands. Now don’t fancy that we cannot survey in the winter, for we have tried it and know better.

Detail from the Stuntz/Barber survey of T47N R14W.
“J.H. Bardon, a Superior pioneer, stated that ‘at Copper Creek and Black River Falls, twelve or fifteen miles south of Superior, and also near the Brule River, a dozen miles back from Lake Superior, Mr. Stuntz found evidences of mining and exploring for copper on a considerable scale carried on by the American Fur Company, under the direction of Borup and Oaks of La Pointe, in 1845-46. A tote road for the mines was opened from a point ten miles up the Nemadji River to Black River Falls.‘”
~ Duluth and St. Louis County, Minnesota; Their Story and People: An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial, Educational, Civic and Social Development, Volume 1, by Walter Van Brunt, 1921, page 66.

The Barber brothers have apparently already started surveying at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, and at the Bad River Indian Reservation. No record of these field notes are available from the General Land Office archive.

At Bad river we were at work during the coldest weather, and only lost two or three days because of cold but when the thermometer was up to 20* below zero we worked right ahead – sometimes in swamps where we stepped through the snow into the water,
[last line on this page of this copy is cut off]

The weather for a week or more has been fine. Cold enough to cover us with frost but not severe.

Provisions are very scarce – no flour or pork can be had.

They will begin to bring them through from St. Paul in a few days. Flour it is hoped can then be bought for $20 per barrel. Fish are not exactly plenty but they can be obtained for money or labor which is not the case with anything else. The country is flooded with dry goods, [p??y] articles and everything but provisions because they can be bought on time but eatables could only be got by paying cash down.

Geology of Wisconsin: Survey of 1873-1879,
Volume III, 1880, page 342[?].

Geology of Wisconsin: Volume 3, page 341.

Geology of Wisconsin: Volume 3, page 345.

Barber’s “little map” of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore was not included in this copy of his letter.

The Fon du Lac mine has commenced operations with tolerable fair prospects. It is the only mine in operation this side of Montreal river. Augustus’ claim is on the same vein and for aught anyone knows just as good besides having abundance of water power. All the copper excitement since I come to the country has been directed toward the north shore. This morning I signed 2 petitions, one to congress for the early survey of the north shore and another for a road down that way. I have made a little map of the islands and last summers survey and some other things that I will enclose.

The Fond du Lac mine was located near a small tributary of the Left Hand River. Augustus' claim may have also been located in this area of T47N R14W.

The Fond du Lac copper prospect was located near a small tributary of the Left Hand River on this map detail from T47N R14W, near Pattison State Park. Augustus’ claim was along the same vein of copper but had not been surveyed yet; perhaps it was at Amnicon Falls State Park.

Augustus has begun a letter to send with this. He has just come home with letters now about his claim.

No more at present from

Your affectionate son

J. Allen Barber

Direct to Lapoint
Minnesota Point
Superior County
Minn. Terr.

Sunday Feb 10^th 1856

Dear Mother

Augustus has written a letter, and left it for me to enclose and dispatch so I thought I would ship in a few lines before sending it off.

Augustus started today with a young man and two dogs for Lapointe. I shall probably go there in a two or three weeks to return immediately. There are two men going down with a tamlins pony team with provisions from St. Paul for Augustus. The men are going to work for him and I shall probably bring the team back and use it a while. I have at last fixed my mind on a place that I mean to claim. The location is a point at the mouth of Left hand river, known as Left hand point. It contains only 5 or 6 acres in low & swampy and covered only with bushes coarse grass and floodwood. Nothing but the fact of its being a part of Superior city is of any value whatever.

Barber's sketch of his land claim at the mouth of Left Hand River. This is now <strong><a href=

Barber’s sketch of his land claim at the mouth of Left Hand River. This location is now an industrial neighborhood of Superior on the Nemandji River.

As it is $1,000.00 per acre is not an overestimate of its marketable price at present. It joins or is part of the grounds intended for the Railroad buildings when the survey was made here this point was cut off by the meander lines instead of meandered. Therefore according to the [rearns/records?] no such land exists.

The Eye of the North-west: First Annual Report of the Statistician of Superior, Wisconsin, page 8.

A resurvey is to be made and I mean to fasten it by a preemption which is the only way to obtain it before the land sale. I may get cheated out of it and I may throw away my time and money but such chances are scarce and should it transpire that my claim is good I want to have my dish right side up for once. I have written for Uncle Allen’s advice and should I ever find it advisable to drop the matter I can do so without forfeiting my preemption right.

More Proprietors of Supeior from The Eye of the North-west, pg. 9.

The Eye of the North-west, page 9.

The Superior Company with Company with which I shall probably have to contend is rich, influential, and on good terms with the administration. All that can be done by fair means or foul to defeat any claim will probably be done, but some things can be done as well as others, at any rate we shall see what we shall see.

So my head is so full of business just [snow?] you will please excuse the shortness of this letter and look for more when I have more time.

Your affectionate son

J Allen Barber

Superior Feb. 17^th 1856

Dear Brother

A wonderful overview of a Lake Superior Chippewa sugar bush was published in our Ishkigamizigedaa post.

It is sometime since I have written anything to you but you have heard of me so often that I suppose it makes no particular difference. It will be nearly sugaring time when you get this.

Makak: a semi-rigid or rigid container: a basket (especially one of birch bark), a box (Ojibwe People’s Dictionary) Photo: Densmore Collection; Smithsonian

I have once more got into a country where sugar is made but not by white men. The Indians make pretty good sugar which is generally done hard and [sinted?] dry and put into birch bark “mo’kucks” holding from 50 to 75 lbs. This bark is also used exclusively for buckets, store trays, gathering pails, &c. The timber in this country is not as equally distributed as in Vermont. The land is mostly covered with evergreens but there are some located portions of country where maple abounds. These “sugar bushes” as they are called are often quite extensive covering several sections and and [they?] only at intervals of 8 or 10 miles, but this is just as well for the Indians are both migratory and gregarious in their habits.

Detail of an Indian Sugar Camp (T48N R5W).

Detail of an Lake Superior Chippewa “sugar bush” from the Barber brothers’ survey of T48N R5W.

I hope you will eat plenty of sugar next spring and take some of the girls to a sugar party or two like I used to. I am doing nothing now most of the time but shall have business enough in a few days when I begin to build my house that is if I conclude to grab for the price of land I am now watching. I am waiting to hear from Uncle Allen and for some other things to transpire. There is not a man in the country whom I could trust that could give me any reliable information such as I want. I want you to hurry and become of age as soon as possible and come out here this spring and make a preemption.

Harvey Fargo was featured in our Penoka Survey Incidents series.

Stephen Bonga was featured in our Barber Papers Prologue post.

There are some good places left yet, but don’t get married before you make a preemption for it might not be convenient to take your wife out into the woods 30 or 40 miles to live on the place as you would have to do in order to “prove up.” I am going to get up an ice boat before long which will be very useful as I mean to do considerable boating yet this winter, and I might use it to carry lumber and other things up and down the lake. With such winds as we have had a few days ago I could easily go to Lapointe and back in two days. I suppose Augustus got a party started by this time and he will be at it himself in a few days. I am living with a man named Fargo, you have heard of him before. We are living in Stuntz’ store. Board at the hotel is ten dollars per week. Old Steven Bonga is living on the point, he has been something of a traveller having been to Montreal, Hudson Bay, [Oregon?], Prairie du Chien, and all intermediate places.

He is half indian and half negro so you may suppose he is not very white.

Portrait of Stephen Bonga (<strong><a href=

Portrait of Stephen Bonga (USDA Forest Service). Additional information about Bonga is available from the Wisconsin Historical Society.

This terminus at Left Hand River may have been associated with the Chicago, St. Paul, & Fond-du-Lac Railroad Company.

A railroad has been laid out from here to St. Paul and my claim covers the terminus at this end. There have two or three new towns started into existence along its route in imagination. Perhaps they are [surveyed?]. This making towns in a new country is a great business.

What happened in your good town on Christmas and New years eve
Were there any stockings left.

I want to inquire about lots of girls and boys in Johnson and Cambridge but I conclude you will tell me as much as you can in your next letter so with respects to all enquiring friends I remain

Your affectionate brother

Allen

Superior, Douglas Co. Feb. 25^th 56

Dear Parents

Detail of Superior City townsite at the head of Lake Superior from 1854 Plat Map of Township 49 North Range 14 West.

Detail of Superior City from T49N R1W.

Night before last I got a letter and some papers from Augustus also 2 letters from home which he had read. They were dated Dec. [21st?] & Jan 2^nd.

Sad and startling was the news of the death of George Hill. Who could have thought three years ago that such a dark future lay before that family. Every day some sad event warns me of the uncertainty of life. Men have died here who had no friends to mourn their loss, and their death is hardly noticed. I always ask myself why was it not me instead of them and will not my turn come soon. Yes, let it come soon or late as the world reckon, and it will be soon to me.

There is just as much danger or accidents in this country as in any other and no more but as to health there is no better place in the world than this. You seem shocked at the idea of surveying in the winter, but it will be nothing but fun to survey during the rest of the winter. It has been moderate pleasant weather now about two weeks. The snow is going off a little lately and it seems a little like spring. We had some pretty cold weather about new years but we shall have no more such. The lake is more open than it ever was known to be at this season before.

~~It is not clear why~~ ~~the Lake Superior Chippewa chiefs went to St. Paul during the winter of 1855-1856, or why their visit was delayed.~~ [The answer may be found in Leo’s The 1855 Blackbird-Wheeler Alliance and Photo Mystery Still Unsolved posts.] Their business was likely unfinished business from the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe.

It sometimes freezes across at Lapointe but now it is open within six or eight miles of here. Flour is only $20 per bbl_‑with prospect of falling lower. The Indians chiefs have returned having only been to St. Paul where they found a letter telling them to delay their visit a while.

Poor creatures! They are fooled around by traders and speculators who are with the government in robbing and dwindling them. Any thing like a full account of their wrongs would astonish even them. About my claim I have not [???] today. There is another man after it and it will be no easy thing to carry my point.

Valuable property is troublesome stuff in this country. There is a townsight three miles from there now in litigation for which there is a standing offer of $200,000.

I am still living with Fargo on Minnesota point. I expect to go to Lapointe before long with Albert Stuntz who is going down with some supplies for Augustus which he brought from St. Paul.

It is too dark to write

Good bye

Allen

Superior, March 4^th 56

Dear Parents

Not much has happened in this vicinity worth recording. The principle circumstances of note is the burning of a house and all the worldly possessions of a poor [Indian?].

Detail of Minnesota Point during Stuntz's survey contract during August-October of 1852.

Detail of Left Hand River from Stuntz’s survey; where Barber’s land claim was located.

I have heard nothing of Augustus since writing last but expect to when anybody comes up the lake. About my claim I can say but little my chance is but dull still I don’t mean to give up so large a prize without good reasons.

I have had it surveyed and the notes sent to the Surveyor General with a memorial stating the facts and asking him to [appraise?] the [notes?].

The price contains over 8 acres (8.695).

Perhaps it occurred to you that I am was 22 years old last Sunday. Well such is unquestionably the case although nothing was done to celebrate the day only I had my hair cut for the third time after leaving Vermont. I think I shall have to go to Lancaster this spring but unless I get ousted here it will be difficult to leave.

Albert Stuntz led the Penokee Survey.

I wish I could multiply myself by about a dozen in order to hold several valuable claims which are not occupied by any one who can legally hold them. I can’t write here two children [pretting?] and several people [telling?] Albert Stuntz and family are here today. I am perched on a sawhorse writing on a work bench loaded with all manner of [marbles?].

Evening – quiet once more since dark I have written a letter to the Surveyor General to accompany a memorial that I have been circulating. O I wish there was a person in the country that I could depend on to assist me in regard to that claim. There are one or two that I counsel with who know no more than I do and then I do as I think best.

I expect [Lowener?] to find out I have no show, and that will be the last of it I shall [not feel?] that I had lost it for I never had it, but if I don’t get it some body else will get 15 or 20 thousand dollars worth of land that I want.

Provisions are still high and will be higher again before navigation opens which cannot be expected before the 1^st of May. Flour is $20/barrel, fresh pork 18 ¾ cents per lb, beef 20 cts milk 20 to 25 cts per qt. &c, &c. Eatables must be higher because there will be little or no sleighing after this over the barrens between here and St. Paul. My mind has been on the [rock?] so much today that I am not in a mood to think much about home so please excuse the shortness and dryness of this letter.

I remain your affectionate son

J Allen Barber

Went to Iron River Thursday 13

Returned 15^th

Superior , Douglas Co. March 11 1856

Dear Parents

The new General Land Office in Superior City was a bastion of corruption. Daniel Shaw was the Register here. Shaw’s Receiver, Eliab B. Dean Jr, will be featured in future posts here on Chequamegon History.

Yesterday I read a package of letters from Augustus containing one from him & from home one from Albe and one from [Caldridge?]. As Augustus was in town (Lapointe) when he recd. your letters I suppose he has answered them so I cannot tell you much news about him. I am still staying with Fargo – not doing much but hoping to get pay for my time and expense by securing the prize I am after. There is some excitement in town about it, but mighty little is said to me. The Register at the land office gives me good encouragement and says a preemption will hold it. I have taken some steps toward building on it. Today I bought a sack of flour ½ barrel for 12 dollars, I shall get some fish from Lapoint where they are very plenty and cheap and then I shall be almost ready to try housekeeping alone.

Journal of the Senate, Including the Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate, Volume 34, Issues 1-35, page 7.

I am sorry to hear of the disastrous results of the low price of hops. Although farmers must suffer in consequence yet I believe speculators will make fortunes out of it. If I was in the business of raising them I should stick to it. No articles is so liable to fluctuations in prices as hops but it is well known that the risk fails once in five years on an average so they must come up sometime.

The Barber Papers provide vicarious details about the economics conditions along western Lake Superior during this pivotal time period. For example, this letter from Barber contains practical information about the fashions of white men surveying in this frontier, which contrasts dramatically with those of a stereotypical survey crew during the 1850s.

I see you are inclined to believe our country and climate are more in hospitable & forbidding than yours. Such I believe is not the case. We have had some very cold weather but the changes are so moderate and so seldom that we pay but little attention to the weather – in fact we call most all of it very fine weather, as it is. The lake is a great equalizer of temperatures and our cool lake atmosphere in summer causes showers to fall from all the warm, sweaty winds that come here to wash their faces in this big blue pond. People in this country go much better prepared for cold than they ever do in Vermont. I have not worn a boot since leaving Lancaster. We wear shoes in the summer and moccasins in winter.

Boots won’t do for surveyors – they carry too much water unless we stop to empty them after crossing every stream or marsh.

While speaking of clothes perhaps I might as well go on with a few more items of the same sort.

Shoes for this country should have no lining or binding as they are quicker and ae not as stiffwhen dry. We never apply anything to soften them and nothing can preserve them from wearing out in about two months of hard service. They [sell?] about $1.50 per pair. We can get plenty of wool hats which are the only ones we wear.

All manners of shirts can be bought, even the very best quality of red flannel ones, which are universally warm, outside, i.e. by common folks.

The gentry of Superior dress most distressingly.

It is difficult to get good socks any where on the country. I have worn out 6 or 7 pair this summer and lost some more – they cost high bests we don’t wear. I have none. The only cost I have is of [Gihon?] cloth and made by Mrs. Sheldon. Cost are not much more except as an extra garment to wear occasionally.

Good durable pants I find it difficult to get. They are generally poor [ashnet?] and not half put together. Good your mittens would be very acceptable but for want thereof buckskin or blanket mittens are generally warm.

You speak about bringing Kate [in?] to Wisconsin. My advice is to it without fail if you intend coming out to live, nothing should prevent it if I were in your place. The horse that Uncle [Jay?] brought out with him is smarter and tougher than any one he can find to use with him. There is nothing that I regard as more necessary for a family than a first rate horse. I think [Kelty?] will be a very good serviceable animal for work besides being one that you might be proud to ride [after?] over the prairies. Probably Augustus has told you what he thinks about Amherst and other boys coming out here to survey. Butler was so badly disappointed in this country that I have had but little thoughts of [enough?] any one else to come here. Such a disappointment I think would be the fate of 4 out of every 5 that try the business.

A person to be a surveyor must be able to travel all day through the woods and sometimes carry a pack. I would not prevent any from coming here as there is generally business enough besides surveying. A surveyor can make no greater mistake than by hiring any but the best of men. Perhaps Augustus has not told you that he will be out of the business as soon as his present job is done and will devote his time to the improvement of his claim &c. I should like very much to [have?] Amherst here but I dislike to have my parents left entirely alone. As I have [???] two half [sheets?] – when I only [illegible] mind up for the [present?].

[Incomplete copy of letter]

To be continued in the Spring of 1856…

Posted by Amorin Mello

3 Comments »

Barber Papers: “Come up here!” Winter of 1855

August 22, 2015

By Amorin Mello

Selected letters of the Joel Allen Barber Papers

… continued from 1854.

Charlotte Wis. Jan 21st 1855

Dear Parents

You may not like the looks of this small paper but the fact is I have no other, my last sheet of large paper was used for my last letter to you and if I had been aware that I was not going to have any other I would have mentioned it so as in some measure to have modified the shock it must occasion. This is [onerely?] preface as I have not yet been to the office for your letter this week being somewhat distant having no time except today when it is tremendous cold and blustering.

Albe Burge Whiting was a friend from Johnson, Vermont, and later in life became a prominent settler of Topeka, Kansas.

I have three letters ready to mail one to Grandfather one to Uncle Cyrus and one to Albe Whiting. I have written but very few letters this winter except to you, for in fact you have monopolized most of my time for writing. The weather has continued just the same – mild, open, and clear untill today when we have a hard northwind. Prairie fires were running last night in Iowa in many directions and some in this state.

There is not a particle of snow – the brooks are icebound and the ground is frozen and cracked up like it never cracks in Vermont. X X X

Well I have been to the PO and found no letter – shall expect two by next mail. It is snowing some today (Jan 25th).

My health continues as good as could be expected under like circumstances. At the two last places where have the unvarying diet is fried pork and hot biscuits and nothing else to speak of.

Had Johnny Cake yesterday noon, made with all the bran in. It was about the best thing I have seen in the West. I went to a party a few nights ago. It was a miserable trashy affair, nothing but a great barbecue for supper, early, and then dancing untill daylight.

All the rough characters in the country were there. I went at a late hour and retired at about half past 9 oclock, satisfied that I shall not want to attend another such very soon. At Lancaster, the parties are about right, but out here they are a pretty good index of the newness of the country.

It is now impossible to get this to the P.O. unless I go myself and as it blows and snows a perfect old fashioned snow storm I think I shant go but will keep this for another time X X Sat. 27th

Am boarding with a Vermonter two miles from the school house. He is a real Vermonter named Howard one of the best and smartest men on the prairie. He has a good farm which he wants to sell. If any body wants to buy a farm out this way just tell them of this. It will be advertised in the Herald soon. It is a good farm and contains 260 acres, tillable land and firewood enough for two families, the best and most extensive start of fruit in the country. 250 apple trees 20 green gauge plums and innumerable gooseberries [redberries?] currants strawberries and some grapes. The house & barn are new and well built but small. He asks only $2000, is doing well here but wants to leave for other business.

I wish Albe Whiting would see this place; less than half would have to be paid down – good title given.

[Gov.?] Dewy has bought out Cassville or part of it. Prairie La Porte is changed to Guttenburg. Do you know where Sullivan Pierce stopped. He was in company with Hyde coming out but they got separated. Have just been out to the chicken trap found five all alive any fluttering. We killed those and retired and they [lineanes?] have just turned to the [fiels?] again. [scribble] Sunday Three more chickens caught. Went to meeting with Howards folks in a sleigh or rather on a sled – no meeting pretty cold – snow scarcely sufficient for sleighing. If I get a chance I shall try to send some to Lancaster.

I have three more weeks to keep school. 4 more places to board. I like Howards and his folks best of any people on the prairie. They are pious and attend to family worship regularly.

Monday

Have just been to the Post office and got two letters one from you and one from Augustus – He writes nothing except a few business items.

In haste

Yours affectionately

Allen

Johnson, January 27th 1855

Dear Son

Yours of the 11th arrived night before last and contrary to my usual custom I have deferred answering over two mails, but it [will hi?] forwarded now some days sooner than it would have gone by trail, for Ames Dodge will take it along to Galena and by him I shall forward those vests that I bought in the fall for you & Augustus on the very [day?] that I rec^d your letter saying that Augustus was to be in Lancaster in a few days. Though he has not come & probably will not for some time, [Still,?] you may [be?] your Choice out of the two and send the other to him in the spring if there any going up to the Lake. There are as many who prefer the one as the other, and though I intended to give Aug his choice [????] the danger of his being [wronged?] by your having it [for ?in to ????] he did not take one & you the other. The vests are something nice, only that the style is new and there will not probably be many among the “[Badgers?].” Amos is here after [his monday?] due him [??] estate from Dr [M????] & gets between 700 & 800 & takes west with him. He hails from [Boise?] City, [90?] miles from Dubuque, but he says that he should prefer the Northern front of Ill. or the southern part of West Iowa. Were you or Aug^s at Lancaster I should try to have him go up there, but he would not go [southwest?]. I know of nothing very new or strange that has happened of late. There is a funeral in [Locon?] to day, of Daniel Mills who lived beyond the Main. You have seen the poor man I suppose. A very hard working & honest man was he.

It is a general time of health in Johnson, I know not of one sick person now except Rob’ Hill who is evidently on his [last?] legs, though around the streets every day. The poor devil had a [time?] in the fore part of Dec. and has been rapidly going down with the consumption ever since. He can have one source of consolation beyond what most men are blessed with, that there will be no excess of grief at his death, and another, that nobody or even the world will ever be able to discover the road that [his?] departure will occasion, & still another, that for his dearest & best friends & companions whose comforts & happiness are undoubted, his strongest & most earnest desire, there will be a greater abundance and at a greatly [demenostred?] price of the blessed creature that has so long stood between [???] & all [witch?] cares. Yesterday Dr C. & I removed two loads of corn fodder and eight loads of hay which with two loads, drawn [before?] makes all the hay I have left, [ample sufficient as?] I think to carry me through with [???] & the old cow. I have some more [slulh?] to [draw?] & two or three loads of wood dry wood in the shed [&?] the [??????] & farming tools, sleigh, waggon, &c to it [??] home yet. Mr Clark from [Miss.?] has moved into the old house & Phelps is going in with him to occupy the part that Dr C did when he was there with us. [Phil??? is?] about buying out [???????] takes a [fusin?] in Wolcott. Sam [Wilson?] has sold or will soon & Bill Smith buys out the Widow Wilson, & [esrnard?] has bought the [Feelting?] farm [in Herling?]. [Gotn?] will probably have the [Muikler?] farm & let Patrk have the Bixley house.

Capt Sam has elected one of the directors of the Bank of Waterbury and keeps a deposit of their money as well as a deposit of [Irusburgh?] money & he is in fact a bank discounting to people like any bank would, & if he keeps it up it will greatly curtail the business of the new bank at Hydepark that will probably go into operation about May 1st. The Hydepark bank stock went off [any?] heavily. Not a dollar take below here & only 46 shares taken here & 26 of them to trade away for other Bank Stocks. The Hydepark folks have sworn vengence against the lower part of the County declaring that no County officer shall come below their [?????]. Let them squirt their dye stuff, it will make them feel better. It is getting to be pretty hard times for almost everything here. Money is scarce & hard to be got. Still prices for everything but [???] & pork are exorbitantly high, wool [no sale?], Pork $[650?] for the [best?] & less in proportion to weight. But corn is $1.25, oats 50¢ Flour $11.00 Beef $5. per [????], & 6 per hind. Butter 20 to 22′ [Churned?] 11 ¢ Hay $15.00 and none to be had at that so that is feared that some poor men will have to kill their cows or see them starve. Wood is from 1.50 to 1.75, Tallow from 14¢ &c &c. If about 1/2 the folks in Johnson were well settled in Grant County I think it would be much better for them and for those who choose to remain on these bleak hills. I should have mentioned Potatoes which are scarce at 50 ¢. Now all who are not producers had better go where they can get the necessaries of life cheaper & wages as good that would be my advice to all, and which I will convince them I am sincere in one of these days.

Your Mother is anxious that you should work with your Uncle Cyrus the ensuing season and learn the builders trade so that you can build a house on our place or one for yourself if you should ever feel the need of one. You have over estimated to us what you thought [??] doing another year, whether to try again to study Medicine, Law, or go to Lake Superior, or teach school, or work around Lancaster. There are many inducements to either course. Ponder the subject well and take the advice of your friends especially of Augustus about going where he is, perhaps he would want you there with him to explore the country for copper. And when you have selected some good place to pursue, why then you may inform us. I intended to [fell????] this [page?] out, but have not time to do it to night, perhaps I may do it in the morning.

So for the present [????] you will [Go & Barber?] I wish you would enquire what timber land can be had for near Lancaster, especially in that grove that was [G??] Dewey’s & do it in a way to not have any one think that your motive is any thing but idle curiosity. I regret that I did not buy 40 or 80 acres of it before he sold it. I am going to Cambridge to day or to morrow and perhaps may pick up some news, that will be interesting to you. If so you may rely on having it forwarded to you soon. You enquired who were Benton’s assistant. Helen Whiteny [tah?] & the small fry Rebeccah [Merriam?] & [Diana?] have [classes?]. I think you will be satisfied with the length of this and can afford to give me one half as long at least. I hope you will continue to write every week and I will endeavour to do the same by you.

G. A. B.

Iron River Falls, LaPointe Co.
Feb. 10th 1855

Dear Brother Allen

Survey detail of Iron River Falls, LaPointe County, Wisconsin. A review of this location and survey (T50N R9W) is featured in our series prologue; Stuntz Surveys Superior City 1852-54.

Your [welcome line?] was duly received and at last I find an occasion to write you a word in answer. I am very sorry to learn of your poor health but presume you will improve this winter if you as careful as circumstances will allow, which is generally careful enough. I don’t know how to advise in regard to your future operations but I tell you as I have before told our parents that I wish both yourself and I to obtain a thorough education. Your poor health is at present an obstacle to the pursuit of that object and I do not know that you are resolved on it provided your health was good. I have said so much in my letters about the good efforts of the kind of life I have adopted on the health of consumption or dystrophic men that you will be expecting me to recommend it for you without knowing much about your ailments so I think [is?] almost useless to say to you.

Come up here! I am confident that our season spent in surveying, voyaging, or exploring in this region or any healthy country would do your whole system, constitution, mind & body more good than all the medicines in the universe.

If I could see you I think we might arrange to spend next summer in the woods together. I have seen some experience in frontier-life and the tendency always is (with feeble persons) to giving good health and greatly increasing bodily vigor.

What the changes will be for making a raise in this country next season I can hardly tell you now but I expect they will be pretty good.

I hope you will see Mr. Stuntz when he is in Lancaster this winter, and for I think you would come up with him. I may see you in your schoolhouse before spring, as several things make me wish to visit Lancaster this winter. I don’t know the place where you are teaching, but I wish you all the success you can wish with all my heart. As for your toothache, I wish you as speedy deliverance from it as you would experience if I had a good hold on the offending tooth and hope you will consider the applicability of the “Wellerism” about the [“boy as svollered a fardin”?]

Residents of Lancaster mistook Allen for Augustus when he arrived there in our previous selection of Barber Papers.

So you don’t like Lancaster? – well, I do! i.e. I like it pretty well generally, and some of the folks in it particularly; and if I supposed my appearance there would excite half the curiosity my supposed advent did last fall I would surely hazard the experiment of confronting those terrific batteries of eyes, for those batteries are not “masked” though I apprehend some of them are case-mated. I received a letter from Father last evening, saying all were well &c.

I wrote to you about the farm, but as you are not in L. you will not find it convenient to attend to it, so you can just let it be if you should not finish your school and return to L. before I return go down or write again. If you should have done anything about it before this reaches you all right or otherwise – all right. I am [well?] and well provided with work so I stand [it?] pretty well although our quarters here are not just as one would like them. I could write better if the idea had [yet?] not taken possession of my mind that I shall see you in mere weeks, so you will excuse imperfections and believe me.

Your affectionate brother

Augustus H. Barber

P.S. I admit that I may err in advising you to undertake the labors of a trip to this region, and that some other vocation in sight be more advantageous in all respects; and I do not wish you to adopt my course simply on the strength of my recommendation. Think about it, and in your ruminations keep this idea before your mind – “Health is the vital principle of bliss. And exercise of health.”

A.H.B.

Patch Grove Wis. Feb. 18, /55

Dear Parents

I have nothing to do this evening to amuse myself unless it is to write a letter.

Closed my school last night and have got this far from the scene of my labors although it may seem that I am not much nearer Lancaster. It is no nearer but there is a stage from here there tomorrow morning.

Had a good chance to ride to L. Saturday morning but only sent my trunk. Got my pay last night in gold. Sold my clock at cost for the gold, and stayed over night at [Basfords?].

[…]

The [????] is There several of meanest roughest imps here I have yet seen in the [state?]. I guess I will wait untill I get to L. before I finish this so as to report my luck in getting home.

X X X X Lancaster Feb 20th
Got here yesterday all safe. Found the good people all well. Uncle Thode went off in the morning so I did not see him. Augustus has written something about the produce of the farm. There is considerable corn which [????] pigs have been living on lately. There are several who want to rent the place and one man wants the house without the land. He is one of the Shoemaker tribe, and I dont want him within ten miles of it. Wheeler who lives on the [place?] now and wants to rent it has a good [team?] and promises to do well with it.

[…]

What was Augustus doing on Lake Superior last winter?

I mean to get my hair cut today for the first time after leaving Vermont. It has got pretty long and looks “first rate.” There are 40 rabbits to the square rod around here – At least there are so many tracks. From what I can learn I should think Augustus was doing about as much this winter as he did last winter. There are no liquor shops open in town they say and nothing, read and spell better than could be expected of him. Have not time to write another sheet.

Allen

I will try to get some larger paper before I write to you again

1855, [Feb.] 16

Lancaster Wis. 16th 1855

Dear Father & Mother

Knowing myself to much indebted to you for the promptness and length of your letters it is my intent to reciprocate as far as lies in my poor abilities by writing as often and fully as possible. My health still appears to be good and we have all been pretty well except Myron who alarmed us very much night before last by having a fit. He had been sick all day occasionally eating too many new doughnuts and other things. The fit commenced about six o’clock P.M. and lasted 10 or 12 minutes and was stupid until 10, and will occasionaly [??????ahing?] untill next morning.

It appears that Uncle Alexander Hamilton Barber has been busy doing business with Augustus in the copper country of Douglas County, Wisconsin.

He was sick all day yesterday but got up this morning smarter than ever and continues well. Uncle Ham. has got back from the north. All the land he went after particularly he found entered but he says he got [????t] of first rate land.

Uncle Allen wants me to enter some [land?] which I think I shall do when I hear of some good [??????]. I suppose I could find land north 2 or three dollars per. acre.

I could easily sell out at any time for 20 or 30 per cent, more than cost. Ben. C. Eastman has returned. He has some timber land for which he asks about 7 dollars per acre, which I suppose is about as well as well you can do. I have some thoughts of applying for a school in [Morrisson8?] district.

The school has got to bad for any female to teach and want a man. That is just the kind of school I would like to try for the sake of variety. They pay $12. per mo to female teachers.

The Black River of Douglas County, Wisconsin, includes Big Manitou Falls and Twin Little Manitou Falls.

Eight sections is equal to eight square miles; or 5,120 acres.

Uncle ham has entered 8 sections on black river, he thinks in 5 years will be worth more than all the other lands he owns.

G. R. Stuntz is in town. We have good sleighing now and have had since Sunday [Sat. 11th?]. More Snow- about a foot of new snow and about 3* below freezing cold.

[…]

Rec’d your letter
of March 6th today. Uncle Allen had got it as he does [most?] of any mail matter. The [???] cannot see the 2nd it appears. The good people here are considerably incensed by their disappointment in not seeing Grandfathers out here this spring. I know of no reason for his not coming out with uncle Thode as far as Sandusky where they would want him to stay untill into summer. I think he will yet be allowed to visit this western paradise and meet his children, grandchildren, and other friends. I did not make so good a bargain as you wished in regards to the farm but I think it was as good as could be made.

[…]

Sunday 18th. Have not been to meeting today.

“The Native American Party, renamed in 1855 as American Party, and commonly named Know Nothing movement.”
~ Wikipedia.com

Last night I went up to Rowdens beyond Uncle Jays to see about that school. I guess they dont want any more school this spring. It is rather surprising that the Know Nothings have got such power in [Cambridge?].

I had heard of their strength and [power?] by way of [??] [Heath?] in a letter to Augustus which fell into the hands of Uncle Ham. There are none of them here.

I hope [Wyman?] and Charles Stanly will come out here. This is not a very good place for [??????] but they would go to Lake Superior or St Croix river and [get good wages?]. If they get here soon perhaps they could work with Stuntz.

[Incomplete copy of letter]

Home March 1st 1855

Friend Allen,

Several letters were exchanged between friends Joel Allen Barber and Albe Burge Whiting from Johnson, Vermont.

A biography of Albe Burge Whiting is available from A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, written and compiled by William E. Connelley, Secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, copyright 1918; transcribed by students from USD 508, Baxter Springs Middle School, Baxter Springs, Kansas, November, 1997.

It is some time since I rec’d your last and I should have replied earlier but for several weighty reasons. Even now my eyes promise to close and carry the spirit to dream land instead of the western world, but though the flesh is willing the will is not ready to resign itself to the arms of the [dreary?] old night god, till it talks awhile with you.

My [“???”] says I last wrote you (Dec 1st) well, if tis so I ought to have a few to say to this now, but my heart is as barren as no matter what. Could I be blessed with your company tonight we might lay awake and talk till the roosters crowed; and then not say it all, but now I really do not think of anything worthwhile to write.

As I have written west from once to twice a week all winter, to three or more people. I have to repeat the news that way till they become as stale as – new crackers.

[…]

Tis a time of general health here, if we except the small pox, which is in to help the Frenchmen this hard season. Where are you going this summer? what to do? I may go west in April – may not till fall – or never. I wish to go this spring but wish to study a term or two first, still may go soon. Please write very soon, and I may see you before May if I know where to find you. Time hastens – and with a hope for your welfare and prayers for your happiness I am the same old friend.

Albe

A J Barber

Lancaster March 2^nd, 1855

Dear Father,

Yours of Jan. 18^th was duly received and I hasten to reply.

I have written to Augustus [lately?] all I could think of especially about his getting kissed by a squaw. The next time you write to him you can ask him about the particulars.

I am glad Cad. is going to leave Johnson.

Detail of copper exploration Big Manitou Falls from T47N R14W survey which Augustus worked on.

Detail of an abandoned copper exploration of the American Fur Company at Black River Falls (Big Manitou Falls) from the T47N R14W survey in Douglas County, which Augustus worked on with Stuntz in 1852.

If I could do anything to help him to useful and profitable employment God knows I would be glad to do it. Uncle [Ham?] started yesterday for Black river falls after pine lands. [He?] expects to be out in the woods some and perhaps camp out, will be gone from here about twenty days. [Tody?] has been writing [where?], he says it is a [“tow”-(cow)?]

[written in margin] he talks most everything [/margin]

[…]

I cannot express my gratitude for the amount of reading matter I have read from home lately in letter form.

[Jake Moorn?] is very slim has been sick some time. I must close to write Am and others

Good Bye

Allen

P.S. I have lent Cyrus $50. He has bought two cows and wants to buy more

Aunt [Lila?] has been sick over a week with strange and alarming symptoms. Constant headache splitting [leload?] and the exact appearance of being [Calivated?] but she is now better.

I want to write a letter to Am. about his [cars?] and some other things but guess I will wait till some other time

J. Allen Barber

Aunt Fanny thought sending a line in this but concludes not to. She says she has a right wait a while as you did.

A Masonic lodge has been started here lately so you will not miss the privelege of meeting your Morgan killing brethren at Cadys falls when you come out here.

Aunt Fanny wants you to send her some [Russian] turnip seed. Soon as possible. If you could send some two or three years old it would be better and perhaps purer blooded.

I once had a [pear?] spruce seeds which I wish I had here They [more?] in a [papa?] and [labely?]. And I would not care if I had some spruce [germ?]

To be continued in the Spring of 1855…

Posted by Amorin Mello

Filed in 1850s, Barber Papers ·Tags: Albe Whiting, Augustus Hamilton Barber, George Riley Stuntz, Iron River Falls, Joel Allen Barber, Lake Superior, Lake Superior Copper, Pattison State Park, Wisconsin Copper

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Chequamegon History

Barber Papers: “Poor McEwen” Spring of 1857

January 29, 2016

By Amorin Mello

Selected letters of the Joel Allen Barber Papers

… continued from Winter of 1857.

Cambridge Sunday April 12th 1857

Dear Son

I remain your Affectionate father

Giles A. Barber

Superior Chronicle

April 14th, 1857

SUPPOSED MURDER.

Early Life among the Indians:

by Benjamin Armstrong

CHAPTER XVII.

A Murder on a Trial at Yellow Lake.——Yet a Mystery.——Collar and Sleeve Buttons of the Murdered Man.——An Introduction to the Bear Family.

Cambridge, April 22nd 1857

My Dear Son

23rd

G.A. Barber

Cambridge Sunday May 3rd 1857

Dear Son

May 4th

May 5th

G. A. Barber

Cambridge May 10th 1857

Dear Son

11th

12th

G. A. Barber

To be continued in the Summer of 1857…

Barber Papers: “A Southern Confederacy” Winter of 1857

January 27, 2016

By Amorin Mello

Selected letters of the Joel Allen Barber Papers

… continued from the Fall of 1856.

Sandusky Dec 22nd 1856

My dear Son

Farewell my dear Son & may God preserve your life & health

G. A. Barber

Cambridge Dec 29th 1856

My dear Son

Your affectionate father

G. A. Barber

[ca. 1856]

My Dear Son.

Good night

Mother

Cambridge Jan 6th 1857

Dear Son

7th

I remain your affectionate father

Giles A. Barber

Cambridge Jan 10th Saturday night 1857

My Dear Son

Sunday 11th

Do my dear son be careful & prudent, father G.A. Barber

Write.

Cambridge Jan 18th 1857

My dear Son

Monday Morning Jan 19th 1857

Giles A. Barber

Cambridge Jan 26th 1857

My dear Son

G.A.B.

Cambridge Feb 1st 1857

Dear Son

May God bless & preserve you

G. A. Barber

Cambridge Feb 8th 1857

Dear Son

Giles A. Barber

Cambridge Feb 12th 1858

Dear Son

13th

(Night.)

14th

Amen.

15th

Cambridge, April 22^nd 1857

23^rd

Cambridge Sunday May 3^rd 1857

May 4^th

May 5^th

11^th

12^th

Sandusky Dec 22^nd 1856

Cambridge Dec 29^th 1856

Cambridge Jan 6^th 1857

7^th

Cambridge Jan 10^th Saturday night 1857

Sunday 11^th

Cambridge Jan 18^th 1857

Cambridge Sunday March 1^st 1857

Monday 2^nd March

Cambridge March 19^th 1857

Johnson April 5^th 1856

Johnson April 13^th /56

Johnson April 13^th 1856

Cambridge May 30^th 1856

Sunday Feb 10^th 1856

Superior Feb. 17^th 1856