at their value. ... Then we bought 160 acres of land where we could take up 160 acres more and gave one thousand Dollars for it. We bought it for speculation but with the intention of improving it first and it will sell to a better advantage. There was nothing done on the place but a small cabin built on it. We came on the place the first of September, 1854. We have fenced 150 acres and have got one hundred acres of wheat, some few acres of Barley, and twenty-five acres of oats and are going to put in ten acres of corn in two weeks. We are hauling rails to fence one hundred acres more, and have built us a hewed log house in the meantime one and a half stories high, sixteen by twenty-four inside. ... We have one of the best claims in the valley, three miles from town. ... One of us is going to the Willamette in a few days to buy a reaper to cut our grain this harvest. Joseph (Crain) and myself have had the ague off and on all winter, and we have hired considerably, and our improvements have made us short of money, and my partners were not willing for me to draw out money till after harvest when I will send money. I ought to have done it before ... but I will do it this fall. You say you would like to know if I am going to live in this country or whether I liked it well enough to live here. Well, I will be candid with (you). I do and I would give everything I have [if] you were here with me. It is a hard journey to get here, but if Fred were here I could give him a good start in the world if he is industrious. ...
Mr. Hoffman is living in about ten miles of us and has got a fine farm but is in debt for it and paying large interest ... For society we have singing school at our house every Saturday evening, church every Sunday in the neighborhood. Last Saturday evening we had something like seventy-five persons with fifteen young ladies amongst them. . . . Joseph has been away in the mines for a few weeks but returned last night in good health. I have had no ague for two months and am in hopes that I will have no more. Don't scold me for writing short letters for I have written all the news I know. Give my love to the children. Write one letter without asking me to come back.
from Your affectionate Son
Notwithstanding his oft expressed intention, Tice did not re-
