Letters from the West.—No. IV.
James Dodson
[from The Covenanter, Devoted to the Principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. 6.6 (January 1851) ed. James M. Willson. Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1851. pp. 181-182.]
Elizabeth, Pa., Sept. 1, 1850.
DEAR SIR,—Brethren should be advised of difficulties that must be encountered by emigrants to the West. No location in this sinful world is free from trouble. “This is not our rest.”
1. Our brethren, nearly all, desire to settle in some place where they can have access to the ordinances of God’s house, not only in private, but in public. Where all these privileges can be enjoyed, land, as a general rule, commands a high price. This is so, not in western Pennsylvania only, but in all the states and territories west of this. Near to any church in a country place in Ohio, land costs from $20 to $35 an acre; often more, if there are improvements at all comfortable. Wild land, it is true, can be procured near many churches for a lower rate; but, then, it requires almost a life-time of hard labour and many privations, to clear away the forests, build fences, erect barns, and build houses. And it is well if all this do not foster a worldly spirit, which takes far more interest in the affairs of this very transitory life, than in our spiritual and eternal welfare. There is danger that the church, and the godly training of children, will be postponed for time to cultivate the farm. He is an inattentive observer, who does not see much of this, over which a good man will mourn.
2. Except on the railways and paved turnpikes, the roads are very bad. A great part of the winter the mud is very deep, and the streams often swollen with freshets, and without bridges. Of course, access to church, school, and market, is difficult, and sometimes perilous. These remarks do not apply to the prairies of Illinois. There, so far as I have observed, the roads are generally good at all seasons of the year. I have never visited Iowa, but I am told that the roads there are usually good.
3. There are numerous earthly comforts in old settlements which the emigrant must forego in the newly inhabited regions of the West, Dwelling-houses, stores, mechanics’ shops, do not furnish readily, as in the east, desirable accommodations.
4. The emigrant must expect to encounter fever and ague, with other febrile complaints. Numerous young children die of the diseases to which they are subject in the warm season.
I am sorry to say that very few people will frankly furnish, the traveler with the whole truth on any, especially the last, of these four specifications. Almost all are loud and lucid in setting forth the advantages of their own neighbourhood, while there is a studied effort to conceal everything adverse. I need not say this is unworthy of the guilelessness of Christian integrity. In this, as in giving testimony in court, the disciple of Christ “should tell the truth, and the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” The last of the afflictions of the new settlements I consider by far the greatest. There are many families in which more than half the children are buried young. Many husbands are bereaved of wives, and many wives made widows. There are not a few in my own knowledge.
After all, with proper precautions, and looking to God in prayer for his blessing on the use of means, most of the danger from the local causes of disease may be escaped. Not a few, without any peculiarly wise precautions, live in health; and a majority of the localities are healthy. Notwithstanding all the deaths caused by the malaria of marshes, stagnant pools, and decay of vegetables in low, rich lands, the natural increase of the church, as I stated in a former letter, is very rapid. O that God would pour out his Spirit copiously, and make our improvement in knowledge, in wisdom, in faith, in love, in zealous witness-bearing for Christ’s cause, and in all outward and inward spiritual garniture [decorative accessories] more than equal to our growth in property and population.