Stuben Ia jun 21 1860Dear Brother & Sister

Page 1

I now embrace the opportunity of writing a few lines to you to inform you of our health which is tolerable good at present and hope these few lines will find you enjoying the same blessing we received your letter and was glad to hear from you we have had a great deal of sickness since we have lived here and my wife health is not verry good now she has had the lung complaint this fall and it has left her rather feeble but our family is small this winter for her two oldest boys are away one at School and the other at Alabama, so we have but two children with us I have but one child he is a boy and he will be eleven years old in may he is a good large stout boy of his age and he attends school this winter Brother Shepard and family were well the last that we heard from them Brother Shepard has failed verry fast since he was at the east he is verry lame in his hip Verona has one child a girl they call her

Evaline after her aunt Verona and her husband live with Shepard Brother Shepard is well he and Seth have one hundred & sixty acres of land and he has built him a good comfortable framed [house] and finished it all off and he is a calculating to build a barn next summer they have from fifty to sixty acres under imporvement with good fences and a good orchard on it and a good house and over twenty head of cattle and a few sheep so you see that so far as respects this worlds goods they have enough and to spare Lyman is married he married a girl by the name of Nancy Whistler last spring he is in [Adams] County south of here some over a hundred miles preaching to two churches Lyman is a good speaker and an able preacher as I know of but he is not verry good to work or calculate for this worlds goods and this a great trouble to Brother Shepard for it would have suited him better to have had him worked on his land then

Page 3

to preach but he could not persuade him not to preach and perhaps he may do more good in the world in this way than any other and does not make much difference respecting our happiness here whether we are rich or not as we are conscious that the world is better by the teachings and examples we have been enabled by the grace of God to leave behind when we are called to leave it and God has promised to feed and clothe us if we put trust in him and his promises are sure and will bear us up and carry us through trial that we are called to pass through I do not know as we shall be permitted to ever see each other again in this world but if we are what we profess to be we shall have a happy meeting in the next I should be glad to see you but I know it is hard to undertake as long a journey and it takes considerable money and time that I have not to spare we should be glad to have you come out here and se all

Page 4

next summer if you could make it convenient give our love to Lydia and her husband and tell them that we should be verry glad to see them to Aunt Sally and family and to all enquiring friends I could just say here that crops of all kinds were verry good here the last season and they fetch a fair price wheat is 1 dollar per bushel Corn 3 shillings per bush and other things in proportion our winter so far has been as [   ] hard as it usually is although the ground is bare and the weather is such that we have a plenty of mud in stead of snow there is a great deal that I could say to you if I could see you that I cannot write to you and as my sheet is filled I shall have to draw to a close for the present write when ever you have opportunity. and let us know about Brother Zebinas

yoursLemuel & Matilda Colton

we buried our girl 2 years ago last July with the scarlet fever