| Show century old letters rate jobs homes above all history has a way of fading into romance the passing of acen a cen tury even though the facts are kept meticulously aligned so it is that when one thinks of the development of michigan ohio and the rest of the northwest territory he is apt to think in terms of gold braided boundary jugglers coonskin caps long rifles and buttered rum alvin hamer detroit bookseller has discovered a collection of lei letters written by the five sons of josiah colburn a dour yankee of the early nineteenth century to let us know the first of the was not altogether a time of the grand gesture and political powwow pow wow i these were men whose letters reveal that they were hardworking hard working journeymen and laborers and seafarers whose main concern concern was not with the dangers of frontier life but with the ordinary business of getting jobs and founding homes out of new york state these boys came to spread as far north as ontario as far west as st louis and south to new orleans with the bible reading father always in the background giving good scriptural counsel there was thomas a roistering wanderer in sail whose papers show that he sailed in 1816 from kingston ont with acardo a cargo of 40 barrels of beer and pounds of cheese at a time when memories of the war with britain were still fresh it was jeremiah who wrote of the boom which followed the war in buffalo only to complain three years later that jobs were hard to find he had just finished his apprenticeship as a carpenter and was starting out on his own 1 I am this day pretty good looking half white and 21 years of age half indian perhaps I 1 am now square with the world I 1 owe nobody and nobody owes me jerr jerry wrote to his sailor brother thomas thamas had evidently cautioned him on the folly of wandering for he continued free and independent you have advised me to refrain from rambling and be steady I 1 should be glad if you would take a little to yourself for I 1 believe you stand in need of becoming more steady than what you have been for these six six years past for you have traveled thousands of miles and I 1 have not traveled half of one |
