A Settler In Iron-Producing Mishanaka, Indiana Tells Of The Town’s Diverse Inhabitants – “People From All Quarters Suddenly Thrown In Contact…The Blunt Illiterate Housier Hoarding His Dollars And Cents At The Expense Of Every Comfort”

(EARLY INDIANA). AL. 2pgs. Mishanaka, Indiana. March 18, 1839. An autograph letter from a settler living in Mishanaka, an Indiana town founded on iron mining and production in the early 1830s. Writing to a group of friends or family, the author laments a lack of reliable correspondence and gives an account of the diverse settlers who inhabited the region. “Dear Robert, Maria, Rosetta, etc. It is so long since I’ve received a scratch of a pen from any of you that I don’t know who I am indebted to or who is indebted to us, so I will write to you all and if one or all of your will answer me will square accounts and balance our books. But if so be that you don’t forthwith, there upon, whenever and at whatsoever time you receive this, cancel pay, discharge, and return all dues up to the date herein described you shall be called insolvent hereforth and forever until said debt has been fully and entirely and satisfactorily paid. Oh! I cant go any further in the bargain. I hope you are by this time duely impressed with the solemnity and importance and propriety of transacting business in a more punctual manner than you have done lately particularly you Maria, to you I now speak, Mama wants you to look over her letter to you written sometime since and if you can with any degree of consistency let us see if you can write. I believe you can, but I don’t often ask you too for you always have such cogent reasons for delay that there is no great pleasure in urging the matter, however let me say again please to write when you can. We have looked for letters from some of you a long long time. Harriet wrote to us some time since and I have had to read her letter over every time we get disappointed when the mail comes until I really want a new one although that is very good and a great deal better than none it is somewhat out of date. Now I wonder if you are all in such a hurry about your work as you almost always are, it so, hand over some of the coarsest and feasiest of your being and Mama & I will give you a life for I can sew some and she can very smart so that ours is all done until Summer. Item We are going to have a cow in a short time ask George if he would like to come and help Freddy drive her up. I believe George would have the most to do, for Freddy cant run now days on account of his back we are trying to keep him very still now and he has a seaton in his back. Rather tough business for such a little fellow but he bears it like a hero. He has gained in strength and walks better than he did. He is something of a reader but not as great a one as he might be and Grandmama has as many stories to tell as she can possibly think of. We have by this means heard quite a history of her life, more than I ever heard before. How often we wish your children from Parkman could come and have a good play here or we could make you a visit. We have almost as long a yard as you have but not so deep in front. Our Locusts around the house have been out two years and are quite a good size and begin to look pleasant. How would you like to hear something of our Society, I have nothing particularly to say more of ourselves. First you must imagine that it is composed of people from all quarters suddenly thrown in contact, and of course with entirely different habits, none rich and mostly tempted to leave comfortable homes, either to get rich by settling a new country or to repair broken fortunes. The…Yankee the Aristocratic Southerner, and the blunt illiterate Housier hoarding his dollars and cents at the expense of every comfort, must here each yield in his time in some cases to the motions of the other. The better class of people here are a large proportion of them Eastern & Southern people and every decent community. The greatest fault I find with them is that they all want to be Captains, which you know can’t be exactly, but it has some good as well and effects for it keeps the balance pretty even as each one is alive to the least attempt at monopoly in any other person or persons. You may easily imagine that the most jealousy is felt among those who are here able to stand a little lighter than they ever did before. This state of affairs has made it necessary to carry a straight in dependent line of conduct which in any place will assure the patronage of the kind of folks one would wish to associate with and we have managed to get along with out any great trouble. We have quite a pleasant ?? of Married Ladies, and two sets of young folks, the youngest ones as they have lived longer together will be more attached and in two years make a very pleasant addition. On the whole there are some smart folks some good who are less smart, and some real upstarts. Mama and Alonso will laugh at me for scribbling such nonsense, and perhaps you are tired of it before this, so Ill stop off, as Mary used to say. Tell Lucy we want her to write to us. I intended to send a few lines to her in this, but Mama wishes to use the other side and she must take this to her as well as all the rest of you. I have so many friends to write to that if I sent a letter to every one you would be tired of me. Rosetta you and Robert must not forget us, tell Robert he knows so well how anxious Mama is about all her friends and particularly those who are sick, we shall expect him to show his remembrance of her and us by letting us know all about himself or if he is sick and Maria so busy. Ask Betsy Converse if she and her Papa received a letter from us, written this Winter as we have heard nothing from them we think it may have been miscarried. If I write so often as to make you pay too much postage let me know I clear you of that fault but perhaps I make too heavy a bill.” The letter is unsigned; it seems to have been originally sent with another page from the author’s mother – no longer extant. It is in good condition with some spotting.