Lot
465 
(Trail Letters) (Unorganized Territory West of Missouri, Now Wyoming) Fort Laramie May 26th 1852. Heading on stampless folded letter from a man to his sister in Dartford, Wisconsin, with indistinct "Ft. Laramie, O.R." Oregon Route postmark with "June 15" manuscript date and "Paid" and "3" handstamped rate markings, some splitting at the folds, address panel soiled, Fine. Estimate $300 - 400.
Letter gives first and second hand accounts of encounters with Indians on the emigrant trail including "…there was as many as 2 hundred of them, all of them had either guns or bows & arrows with steel points on and the Old Chief had a long pole in his hand with a red war flag on it and a long sharp spear on the end of it, they blocked up the road and would not let us pass on till we had give them something to eat… some give them corn & some give them biscuits & some meat [and] then the Old Chief waved his hand for us to pass on…." and, after three companies combined, "…there was about 75 teams & wagons of horses & oxen together [and] we were well prepared to meet the Indians that morning, about 11 o clock in the morning, we [saw] the Indians running to meet us but when they saw so large a company coming they did not attempt to molest us, I should [say] it was as much as 2 miles from the first team to the last….".
Realized: $650