Letter from the West when Chariton was "The West"

I came upon this odd little letter regarding Chariton while looking for something else and while it's neither great literature nor a particularly effective promotional piece for Lucas County, thought it worth noting.

It was published in The Monongahela Valley Republican, Monongahela, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, Nov. 8, 1866. Monohagela is located some 17 miles south of Pittsburgh in Washington County alongside the river of the same name. It was published in a year just after the Civil War when many in Pennsylvania were casting about for places in the West to resettle, the westward impulse having been held in check since the early 1860s by the vicissitudes of war.

My Redlingshafer family already had left Washington County behind, settling in Benton Township, Lucas County, during 1856, some 10 years earlier. But they still had relatives and former neighbors in the vicinity who might have read this with some interest. Here's the text:

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LETTER FROM THE WEST

Chariton, Lucas Co. Iowa,

October 30, 1866.

Dear Republican --- I believe you requested me to write to you some of the peculiarities of this country. As far as our observation has extended the habits, mode of living, and society of the people of this country are quite different in some respects to those of the East.

First, they live principally by eating, as do the Eastern people; but as a general thing, they do not live so luxuriously, owing principally to the inconvenience experienced in procuring supplies; situated as a great many are a distance from trading posts. As the country settles up, the people advance in civilization and extravagance in living. The advance of enterprise and energy is at least three hundred percent greater than in the East. It is not unusual for a town of 2,500 inhabitants to spring up here in three to five or seven years.

This town embraces about twenty-five hundred inhabitants. At the present time, there are about twenty buildings in process of construction that will be completed by the opening of the Spring trade. The Borough of Chariton embraces one thousand acres of land, six hundred of them already laid out in building lots. The Burlington and Missouri Railroad is in process of construction, and will be completed to this place by the fourth of July next.

Chariton surpasses most any other town of the West, situated as it is, the facilities that it possesses over most other inland towns of the West, as a commercial post, is inducing capitalists to flock here from all parts of the East; the surrounding country has been in the possession of fronteersmen, principally, until within the last year or two.

As soon as people from the East emigrate West to get a home to live in peace and plenty, these unsocial set sell their farms and push farther West, select places, and improve them again; some, to be driven out as soon as the more Eastern portion of the country is filling up. They seem to prefer to be moving farther away, shunning society and civilization.

Some of the finest farms in this State well improved, within from one to three miles of the town, can be bought from thirty to thirty-five dollars per acre. Corn is worth 40 cents per bushel, wheat from $1.90 to $2, but not in great quantities, owing to the almost entire failure of the corn crop in the southern part of this State and Missouri. The farther North, the better the corn crop appears to have been.

Robberies are very frequent here. Last night, the Drug Store of Mr. Moore and jewelry store in Eddyville was broken into, and goods to the amount of $1,500 taken. The same persons halted a man on horseback, crossing the bridge over the Desmoine River, and robbed him of all the money he had, and demanded his horse. The rider did not feel disposed to given up his horse, and put spurs to him and escaped with a few leaden balls as traveling companions.

You can make corrections in this, and publish what you please of it, providing my name is not printed, as I don't expect to become a very

Healthy Correspondent.

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There are some obvious factual errors in this. Chariton's actual population in 1866 was closer to 1,500 than 2,500 --- although it still was a substantial county seat town to have developed in an area not yet served by the railroad.

The first Euro-American settlers had arrived in Lucas County 20 years earlier, during 1846, but only 471 inhabitants were enumerated when the 1850 census was taken. Chariton, founded the preceding year but not incorporated, was not enumerated separately.

By 1860, Chariton had 641 residents and Lucas County, as a whole, 5,766. By 1870, these figures had tripled and doubled, more or less. Chariton now had 1,728 residents and Lucas County, a total of  10,388.

The key to rapid growth --- and remember that little if any unclaimed land, the great draw through the early 1850s when government-owned territory could be purchased for $1.25 per acre --- was the railroad, which reached Chariton during July of 1867.