This letter was written by Timothy Sprague (1811-1862), the son of John Sprague (1775-1862) and Rhoda Crittenden (1776-1835) of Wyoming county, New York. Timothy’s first wife was Polly Bliss who died sometime after the birth of her second child, Walter Scott Sprague (1844-1916). Her first child was Isabella Sprague (1839-1904), the recipient of this letter. Timothy married a second time to a woman named Sarah but she seems to have died in the early 1850s, perhaps not long before he made the journey to Minnesota Territory described in this letter.

Isabella was born in China, New York and died in 1904 in Conneautville, Crawford county, Pennsylvania. Timothy’s letter mentions “Ethan.” I believe this was Ethan Lord Sprague (1835-1917), the son of Timothy’s brother, John Sprague, Jr. (1807-1888) and Harriet Lord (1810-1875) of Conneautville, PA.

Transcription

St. Paul [Minnesota Territory]
June 29, [1850s]

Miss Isabella Sprague,

I have been out today on a ramble. I started on a road that runs to the northeast. After rising the bluffs, it is just rolling enough to make it pleasant. There is a luxuriant growth of vegetation, wild flowers of all colors and forms. I saw a small lake with water clear as crystal filled with fish. Lucky for them I was not prepared for fishing. The soil is rather too sandy but the crops look very well here. they are ahead of anything in Pennsylvania or Ohio.

St. Paul is filled with foreign population of all kinds. ¹ It would please you to see a Red River ² train which is 600 miles distant from here. There is a train of 6 or 7 hundred carts on their way down loaded with furs and skins. Their carts are made of wheels about the size of hind wheels to a wagon on axles about 4 feet apart with rack about 4 feet long. they are made entirely of wood with fills and drawn with one horse or ox harnessed. If drawn by more than one, they are put one before the other. ³

I had a long talk with a young man that was raised in Red River. He was a very intelligent man. He says they have a good road in the summer all the way through a beautiful country. They do not raise much corn there but wheat grows large. It frequently runs as high as 75 bushels per acre. They run up the Mississippi with steamboats 80 or 100 miles above St. Anthony. Also up the St. Peters about the same distance. It is very warm weather here. They have not had any frost here since April. We have high winds but they are warm.

St. Paul has a nunnary or convent. I frequently see the Sisters of Charity walking out draped in black from head to foot. Also the monks or Black Friars, I call them, with long black gowns on and golden crucifixes strung around heir necks that would sink them in the river and if every one was like me, they would get pitched in.

Tell [your cousin] Ethan I have not been around enough to find a place where he can do any better than he can there. I have not had a chance to form many acquaintances but what I have, I am well pleased with. The women are full as smart as they are in Bloomer Town and appear as well. I should have written before but I did not know as I should stay here long enough to get an answer.

I have sent Scott two papers and will send him more occasionally. I want you and scott to write to me when you get this and write whether you have heard from Mr. Cary or not. I will send you five dollars and if you want any more, let me know it. I would send you more but I think Mr. Cary has written before now. My money is in small bills and I do not want to rish sending so far if I can help it.

No accident has happened to me except a spark of fire blew in the car window and set my coat pocket on fire. I probably took it as cool as anyone would to run my hand into a burning pocket and take a powder horn out for I was in just the right mood to not care whether I was blown up or not. I can think of enough to write but my hand is too tired so farewell for the present. — T. Sprague

¹ A correspondent for the Hartford Republican recorded his first impressions of St. Paul in a most unfavorable light when he visited the town city in 1855. “It was raining and the streets were covered with mud, black as tar, ” he wrote. “It is situated upon a bluff 60 feet above the river and is surrounded by a bluff still higher, from which you have magnificent views of the amphitheater below. St. Paul has about 6,000 inhabitants, sixty lawyers, six or eight churches, five daily papers (two Republican and three Democratic), and every man takes all papers and advertises in all, though the price is more than double that of our Eastern papers. Speculation is most rampant, and those who are the most reckless, make the most money, a fact which is owing to the rapid rise in land. The country is constantly being filled up with immigrants, hundreds and hundreds daily arriving in the boats, mostly from New England and New York, though every state in the Union is represented. All the best lands within 50 miles of here are taken up.” [Cayuga Chief, 20 November 1855, Auburn, NY]

² The Red River originates at the confluence of the Bois de Sioux and Otter Trail rivers and flows northward through the Red River Valley, forming most of the border of Minnesota and North Dakota. It continues into Canada and empties into Lake Winnipeg. The watershed was a key trade route of the Hudson Bay Company, transporting furs and other commodities.

³ “In the 17th century a lucrative trade developed between Native Americans who trapped animals near the Great Lakes and traders who shipped the animal furs to Europe. For two centuries this trade network was the Métis people—a mixed race community descended from Native Americans and French traders, as well as other mixed race peoples. In particular, during the latter 18th century, numerous French and English traders in the Minnesota region purchased Sioux wives in order to establish kinship relationships with the Sioux so as to secure their supply of furs from the tribes.” (Wikipedia)