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Stuben Ia July 16 1853Dear Brother & Sister

I now embrace the opportunity of writing a few lines to you to inform you of my health and the health of our family which is tolerable good at present and hope these few lines will find you and yours enjoying the same blessing I have not heard from you for about two years I wrote to you on Mothers Death but have received no answer she died the 29 of March 1852 and Carseldana the july after she left 2 children both boys the youngest 5 weeks old Verona is married she was married last fall to a man by the name of [Jaqereth] and she and her husband live with her father they are all well Lyman is at our house he came here last night from home Brother Shepard has got to be quite [    ] handed he and Lyman and his son in law have 160 Acres of Land in a body and he has between 40 & 50 Acres under improvement they have 3 Cows a yoke of Oxen and 7 or 8 head of young cattle

and he has some 75 dollars in money on hand we live some 10 miles from him on a took farm we do not own any land we have been sick so much since we have lived in this state that we have had as much as we could do to live without laying up anything but we have been enabled by the blessing of God to get a comfortable living at that is sufficient for we brought nothing into the world and can carry nothing out of the world and having food and raiment let us therewith be content we have another boy he was a year old last May we call his name Carlos Lemuel was four years old last May he goes to school this summer it is verry dry here this season and crops have suffered considerable with the the wheat crop has been tolerable good and is pretty much all of it secured and we ought to feel thankful that we are in a land of plenty give our love to sister Lydia and husband and tell her to write to us how she enjoys herself I wish you to answer this as soon as is convenient and tell us why you have not wrote

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to us before tell us how you are a getting along and how many children you have we should be verry glad to see you but do not expect to verry soon unless you should come out here tell us what you know of Uncles Thomas & Isaac and Aunt [Sally] and families and all the deaths among the people that I was acquainted with in that vicinity and Dear Brother & Sister let us Realize that we shall soon have done with the things of this world and if our work is done and well done then it will be a consolation to us to think that we are a going to enjoy the sm[ile] of our Dear Saviour through the ceaseless ages of a never ending eternity we do not enjoy the privileges here in this new country of the Gospel that you do where you live but we have churches here and preaching occasionally and I feel thankful for it there is much that I could say to you if I could see you but for the want of room in this letter I must draw to a close by subscribing myself

your affectionate BrotherLemuel Colton

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Mr Andrew FletcherWaterville post officeLamoile CountyVermont