Lot
456 
(Mormon Trail Letter) (Pottawattamie) "August the 11, 1850, Silver Creek". Heading on stampless folded Mormon letter from a woman to her parents and family in Bethany, New York, with "10" blue manuscript rate marking but no postmark, Very Fine. Estimate $500 - 750.
Letter reads in part "…we live on the main road from the Mississippi to the Missouri, the emigration to the [California] gold mines has been very great for two years past, we could sell everything we had to spare at good price…." with prices quoted for various foodstuffs and "I made enough to get me a cooking stove and some clothing… there was about three thousand wagons past here last spring besides the pack animals, it seems that the whole eastern world is bound for the west… there was a hundred wagons of Mormons went to the valley this summer, some of them died with the cholera, I some expect we shall go next season… direct a letter to Kanesville Pottawattamie County Iowa…."
Kanesville on the Missouri River was a temporary outfitting post for Mormon pioneers journeying west to Utah. Silver Creek was one of the surrounding Latter Day Saints communities. On order of the church, the last Mormons in Kanesville departed in 1852. The locals who remained behind renamed the city Council Bluffs.
Realized: $850