The following letters are from The Jacob Tippery Family: A History and Genealogy by Miles W. Tippery (1972). Milesą great grandfather, Jacob Tippery, homesteaded on the north end of the Silver Lake. His niece, Linda Smith, who lives at Silver Lake, submitted the letters. Comments can be directed to Linda at linsmith@toledotel.com . These two letters were written by Jacob Tippery (1819-1872) to his daughter, Henrietta Tippery Tuman, who then lived at Montvideo, Minnesota. The first was written while he was searching for a homestead and the second at the new home only 4 _ months before his death. The original letters are in good handwriting but are too faint to produce well. This copy retains the original spelling, but a few punctuation marks have been inserted to clarify the meaning. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Portland, Oregon Feb. 13th, 1870 Dear Daughter, We are all well. Hoping this may find you as it leave me. We are living in Portland, Oregon. I have not found Washington to be what I expected. There is very little good farming land in it, not enough to make a farming country. Lumbering will be the principal buisness. I have been through a good part of it. I don't want any of it. Oregon is good enough for any person‹good rich soil as there is in any place, but it is all taken here. I am going off south-east of this near the State line. George Gray of Lansing says there is plenty of government land there and a better climate [than] there is in this part of the state. I am going there next week. We have very fine weather here. The ground has not froze this winter and there has not been any snow but plenty of rain. Grass is green, peach trees ar in bloom. This is the best place for fruit of all kinds I ever seen. Apples fifty cts. per bushel, pears 1.00 per B., flour 2 and 2.50 per hundred, potato .50 per Bu., Smoked meat shoulder 10, side 15, ham 16 cts. per pound. Cows $30 to $40 per head. Sheep 1.50 a head. Horses from 25 to 200 per head. Wheat .65 to .75 per bushel. Cows live here all winter without feed and keep in good order. This is a large city, eigh thousand inhabitants. It is on the Wallamet River twelve miles from the Columbia. Ocean ships all come here and get loads of flour and meat, apples, oats and barley. Last week the Steam Ship Moses Taylor took seven thousand dozen of eggs at one time down to Frisco. I like this very well and would like it much better if I was on a good farm. A free passage would not get me back to Minn. Everything in the clothing line is cheaper than in Minn. Our passage from Winnbago Valley was $433. dollars My best respect to all, Jacob Tippery ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Silver Lake, W. T. March 31st, 1872 Dear Daughter, We are all well except myself. I have a sore come under my arm which has stopped me from work for some days, and I don't know how it will terminate yet. But I think I will have to get it cut out before it will get well. I received yours of Jan. 17 in March. I thought you had forgot you had any friends out herre. We all wrote letters but got no answers. We live sixty five miles from Portland by the River and 25 from the Columbia River and six miles from the North Pacific Railroad. We can hear the cars running here at home. There is 25 miles in running order and tha ar to work on the next sixty which is to be finished by fall. This runs from the Columbia River to the Sound. We have very fine weather here. The leaves ar beginning to come out. I have got lots of chery, plum and pear trees that I planted last spring. Some ar comeing out in bloom now. I expect tha will have some fruit this year. I have got one-hundred trees planted. When this [rail] road is finished you can come out and get all the fruit you want. We have eleven cows. The woolves killed three calves for me this winter and 4 for Morril [his son-in-law]. I killed one wolf last somer but we will give some of them a dose some of these days. You wanted to know how I liked that gun I got of Mason. It is not good but I knock a deer endways when I hit him. I donąt hunt much. There is plenty of deer, bear, panther and wolves and some lynx. I understand you got nearly burnt out last fall. I wish you had some of the cedar timber that is here to rebuild your fences. I can split rails forty feet long. We are going to plant our potatoes this week. I sowed my onion seed too weeks ago. We don't have no winter here. We had a little snow this winter; it laid on six days. Our coldest weather is about like yours in October. This is hard country to make a farm in‹it is nearly all brush or timber land. There is some small praries but tha ar spread on very thin, but the brush land is very good. Timber land is not so good. [I believe he means the prairies had thin soil, the brush-covered creek bottom land made good farm land, and the timbered land, when cleared, was not very fertile for farming.] Good tame grass, vegetables and fruit‹tha world cannot beat it! We had a mess of letice and radish this week. We don't feed cattle much here; tha run out in the woods all winter. Sometimes tha will eat hay but not very often. Flour 1.43 per hundred, coffee 25 cts., shugar 11 cts., bacon 16 cts., potatoes 1.00 per B., syrup, best, 1.00 per gallon. Wages are very good, 1.50 per day and board, in gold. Tha don't use paper here, it is all in gold and silver. I lost another calf the night before Easter. I found it all covered up. I put some strychnia on it and the next mornong I found a mountain lion laying dead. He was seven feet long. He weigh too hundred pounds. This is eight calves he has killed, four for me and four for Bill [Morrill]. I skined him and stuffed his hide. I think of starting a menagerie. Jacob Tippery [note: This letter was postmarked "Monticello, Washn. Apr." indicating that settlers seldom got to the post office.]