Plainville, Allegan Co., M. T.10 April 1835 Dearest friends, I have been long anxiously waiting to hear from you having written you in Nov. last nearly 5 months ago since which time no material change has taken place excepting that John [another brother who immigrated with him] has got another, son, a fine stout boy who along with all his family has enjoyed good health. We have built him a handsome house in which he is now living. It is located on the side of the river where it makes a bend and is very beautifully situated, it is about 114, milt from mint. I shall scud you some sketches of and from it. I have as pretty a situation for your house too on the river side, for I will always live in the hope that you will sometime or other live near me - or your children. But experience teaches me more and more the great change of circumstances you have to encounter and the difficulties of encountering an entirely new mode of life, and also the very great expense which must be incurred before any profitable return can be made, and the want of physical strength to accomplish the tasks of the day. I have however put my hand to the plough and shall not look back and, although I feel my constitution not very fit to encounter labor I have to perform, upon the whole enjoy myself more than I ever did before and my health and prospects are cheering. I have incurred very great expense in living and since I settled here laying out money... my crops are in. I shall have a living at least, my farm looks very well and I have got 100 acres under fence and I am building, ploughing for oats, Indian corn, etc. The soil is two feet deep and is rich as any garden you ever saw. I have bought some more heavily timbered land across Gun river, principally for the sake of the timber, but the soil is also good for the purpose of sowing. I have been within a few days offered about as much money for the use of my mill seat as I paid for my farm 2 years go, but would not now sell it alone for one thousand dollars. It is a beautiful place for a village and a good command of timber. I intend, if you can by any means raise me the money, to build a saw mill then immediately she would pay herself the first year because others here have done so. We will saw 2000 ft of board in 24 hours at $f p.m. There is great demand for it and none nearer than 5 miles across the river Kalamazoo. Indeed a saw mill is the first property in the country, she will perhaps cost 1 000 dollars. After this when I am able I intend building a grist or flour & thrashing mill. The water if 60 feet 7 broad and 2 deep and always shady summer and winter never rising or falling over a foot or 18 inches. There is about 7 feet fall. After these mills are a going and a blacksmith and carpenter shop established this will form the nucleus or a beginning of a village and then my property would rise from the value of 3 dollars p. acres to that of 100$ or more as in many similar instances in this country, such a thing requires only a beginning and some natural advantages and a proper range of country around it I know ground bought 4 years ago for 1 t/4$ now will sell for 100. I informed you in my last letter that James Flockhart had come here and bought a farm along the river. He has just this winter heard from his father and mother and sister who are coming out here and I suppose will settle in this place. I will not be surprised to see father here this season but I would not advise him to come although I would be happy to see him. Believe he would be of use to me in building a mill, etc. I am afraid he would not endure the fatigue of the travel and sea voyage etc. I should like to see him once more in this world. I feel a great comfort in John being here. I hope we will get on very well together and be mutually useful to each other owing in circumstances his expenses was very great coming here. Charity and the children are quite healthy and they are well pleased with the situation of their house. I think you would say yourself you had seldom seen a prettier. There are plenty of fish in the river such as pickerel bass mullet suckers trout sturgeon. A few days ago 2 Indians in a canoe speared about 40 averaging from 3-5 pounds each of different kinds just opposite John's house, the half of which we bought from them for a little flour and salt. It is an interesting sight to see the Indians manage their canoes and spear the fish. Tell father that the stories we used to hear about Robin Hood and William Tell and the bows and arrows and not believe, I now believe firmly because I have seen them strike an arrow on the top of a high tree and not as thick as you little finger at every shot and with the rifle they are equally dexterous. One of them made us place a little bit of snow on the trunk of a tree 170 yards distant and he put the ball right to the center of it. The more we know of the Indians we like them better. The man which John brought I like very much and I should like if another good hand would come out. I would give him 80 acres of land for 18 months work, but I am afraid I shall be short of means now and must go on slowly until things begin to pay themselves. Cows can be bought for $10 in Illinois and sell here for $20 and 25 so that you see what a chance there is of employing money profitably. had I from 200 [pounds] to 500 [pounds] I think I could afford to pay a high interest and clear the principle very soon, seeing my visions and prospects I hope you will be able, if you have not already dune so, to raise some money for me either upon the security of the Brickwork or rather than want it I think I would sell my share of brickwork and houses in the Kirktown, 1 not at too great a loss. John also owes me upwards of 100 [pounds] which I hope he will be able to raise for me in some way or other. If anyone is coming out here from your place I should like if they would bring me some potatoes oats or other variety, barley, some hedging seeds or slips if they can be preserved, ryegrass seeds. There is none here... In one of your letters you request a sketch of my occupations. Well, in Winter get up at 7 o.c., breakfast. I go out to the woods to chop trees or draw rails upon a sled which is an agreeable although laborious employment, perhaps weaving baskets or working in a carpenter shop if the day is snowy. In spring, summer and autumn up between 5 & b, chop firewood, tend oxen cows pigs, etc. breakfast at 7, plowing, laying fences, clearing land, dinner at 12 until sunset supper at 6 or 7 o.c. always tired enough to wish for bed by 9 o. c. This winter has been long but generally steady weather no rain for 3 months, during b or 8 days thermometer 25 degrees under freezing not in the house, bread, milk, water, meat all frozen hard ... The spring has now advanced. The birds are coming out, the grass and the land look green, the wheat looks fine. We are breaking the land. It is cool, that is about as warm as a Scots summer, even warmer weather will commence in July when things grow with a rapidity that staggers the belief of those accustomed to the slow growth of colder climate, my Indians corn grew 8 inches every 24 hours. Pumpkins that were one day in bloom as large as your head three days after. Mornings and evenings delicious sitting out of doors in the shady side of the house or trees at breakfast or supper eating melons in the middle of the day not a cloud, pure blue sky, fight and heat. Cattle breaking away to get into the deep shadow of trees or into the river to cool themselves - drinking water by the gallon which distills from you in large drops in a few minutes. Dress shirt and trousers and straw hat, this never lasts of 3 or 4 days until it is succeeded by a thunder shower falling in torrents for 1 hour and all is fair and cool and fresh again. Neither rain or the droughts injure us here. The rain sinks immediately into the open subsoil and when underground currents toward the rivers, and the subsoil is of such a nature that the roots of the trees reach into it at a depth of 12 or 14 feet. You will think this singular but I have dug them up myself out of wells that depth. Some of our soil has a small bed of clay resting on the gravel or marl for a great part of it is composed of lime of the former bed of a vast lake and upon the clay the black compound of decayed vegetable & tree - product of thousands of years for I have cut down trees of 500 years growth and 160 ft in height beautiful oaks & I think they must have been many years generations before the present growth. About a month hence the surface of the ground will be covered with successive crops of flowers in great profusion - blue, purple, white, then yellow and red are equally fine to see & being no botanist I cannot describe them. There is one which for its peculiarity and abundance growing upon our prairies which I shall describe. It is neither (or both) grass & flower, it grows up like a small shrub 12 or 8 inches and the tips of the leaves turn into brilliant scarlet red almost overpowering the deep and brilliant green of the terrain at that season. It has no seed that I have observed, at night this is drenched in dews during the hot weather. You say you did not suppose there was so much wood upon my farm, excepting on one corner where it is heavy timber. These trees are 4 or 5 yards asunder and we might plough through them without cutting one done, no hills of any consequence, small risings knolls and little valleys and dells, in general the views obstructed by trees except on the prairie. The Agues of the country seem to be produced by a variety of causes such as the quality of water drank, the situation near standing water and marshy decayed vegetables, exposure to night dews, over fatigue and anxiety of mind, quality of food, bad lodging and thin clothing. I have seen one or two Indians have it but not commonly but their mode of life is particularly exposed to all the causes. The old country man seems to be more exempt from it than the Americans from the Eastern States. None of us have had any symptoms of it but several of our neighbors and Gull Prairie have been very unhealthy these last two years. Tell Mary that rudeness and vulgarity are entirely inapplicable to the Americans. They might have other vices in great abundance as most other people, peculiar to and growing out of their circumstances, but the freedom of their manners approaches not to rudeness. Never are their habits at all vulgar. I tell you again if I am any judge that they are fully equal in that respect to the middling classes of either England or Scotland. Their love of money and eager desire to acquire property, their dexterity as trying to over reach in a bargain their scheming, etc., is about the worst traits in their characters, but all this is perfectly understood by one another and each acts his part as dexterously as two wrestlers trying to give his opponent a fall and it is by no means considered injustice by them, what we call cheating. We have our set of rules in trade and they have another but there are exceptions to all this and you will find the natural bias of character prevailing over education, example and circumstances. In short from the honorable to the mean shabby action of all tricks. One of my neighbors told me a story a few days since. He removed here with his family from Ohio the same time I did. He says there was a Dutchman living in the same settlement he came from who was on the point of selling his farm and moving back to a Dutch settlement and asked him the reason of his leaving that he considered it a good settlement and agreeable intelligent neighbors. Well, says the Dutchman, I will tell you a Dutchman among Yankees is like a Cat in hell without her claws. I was traveling along with two Yankees in Illinois and met a German who had settled there. One of the former said he might like to settle here where there was nothing but Indians. The German immediately said he preferred an Indian to a yankee as a neighbor any time. You asked me if I think him better or worse here. It is neither better or worse but merely a different aspect which will be found or answered according to the tasks. But shall give you now more of this in my next... By and by I should wish that a blacksmith and plough and millright shoemaker, etc. and cartwright would come out here. I think they would do well and they are much wanted in this settlement. John says that John Copeland has since [written] of coming here. I wish he would. I expect Flockhart and his family here soon as his letter [with news) to that effect yesterday. The letter was three weeks on the way. If you come bring over 8 day clock for me .. I wish somebody would bring it for me. It was from king. I should like also some Gooseberry seeds of different variety. We have wild ones here, but not of any size. The county site is an abundant market for all kinds of produce from the new sellers coming in, and there will be regular water communication with N. York and so with Europe. A regular mail even 3 times a week. Last summer to within 10 miles of us, and this we expect further down the river where it is proposed to [connect] with a steam boat where papers and baggage will be conveyed across lake Michigan to Illinois where there will always be a great market for lumber, there being a great scarcity of timber there. We have now got a bank established at the county site. It is a branch of the Bank of Michigan, Detroit and perhaps will be the best way of transferring money here by sending to me a draught upon any of the London banks. I hope you continue to preserve your health and your family, if you find your profession undermining it, you should drop it at once and go to the brick work. I thank you for the portraits of Father and Mother, they are very dear to me. My wife is well and wishes to be remembered to you and will be happy to see you here. Little Jane is thriving and is running about. She is very amusing. I hope my Dear William is healthy. Tell him I have not got any ponies yet but cats and dogs and cows and pigs and oxen and calves. I have apple trees planted but they have not borne any apples yet. I expect they will be the time he comes to see me. Do not press too much study upon him. It will injure his constitution. By all means improve his health and strength and if you have any notion of coming here let him learn some mechanical employment such as plow and wagon work, blacksmith and depend upon it it will contribute more to his happiness than showy and useless learning or accomplishments of fashion. As ever sincerely. W. Fortes

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