The following letter was taken from the letter written to her friend, Miss Nelle Mitchell, sister of Dora Mitchell Stocking, Emporia, Kansas and was typed from the original by Marie Stocking. It gives us a picture of early Sumner County in the Mayfield area.

Dear Friend:

  Your letter received yesterday and I will only be to glad to be some help to you. This forenoon I done my ironing used Anna's electric iron it is fine. I want to answer your questions as best I can and will answer them first as some one may come in.

1. We left Crescent City, Ill. For Kansas by train Feb. 1st./78, landed in Wichita about the 4th as near as we could get to our present home on the cars. What now is a city was only then a little town and set I thot then in a mudhole. Met many leaving and wanting to leave Kans. We had chartered a car for our goods, after loading up all they could put on two wagons and leading or driving our cows and after two days dragging thro the mud, well on our way down we came thro Belleplains and Wellington, the later not much larger than Mayfield now is; and just awhile before sunset we drove up to the piece of prarie where our home was for so many years. We were met at the train by a neighbor who had known me from a baby. So we was at his house for a few days. We had a little 10 x 12 shiplap house on our place and lived in that place almost two years. Our first born came while in that palace for it was home.

2. Life of Early Settlers - We all thot so much of one another for we were most all rich alike. We came I think two yrs after the grasshoppers year.

3. Trails in Kans. - The renowned Chisholm Trail crosses the road a few rods east of our cemetery bearing from the S.W. to a little to the East mostly North on to Wichita.

4. Lots and lots of prarie-dog towns. I have been where Argonia now is when it was a big dog-town. Coyotes plenty and still hear them at times. I think I never have seen any antelopes since the first two or three years we were here. I saw a bunch of nine a few rods S.E. of where our cemetery now is. Mr. Stocking saw a drove of about 200 after that out in Barber Co.. Oh yes, the wonderful Jack Rabbit he was there which still a resident here and the first two or three years we were here we would here the "too-hoo" of prarie chickens near our house early in the mornings and how I did love to hear them. Oh yes, I think while I answer the animal questions I must not forget the yokes of Oxen all around us and the always hungry greyhound that was a part of nearly every home, almost a necessity.

5. My Experience with Indians is limited they never scalped any of us but used to see them go thro to Wichita with loads of old bones and begging. They came to a home of a friend of mine here in Mayfield and I was there. It was a few mo. Before Ralph was born, they were on a begging trip then.

6. The first house in our town was a store and a house combined built by Henry Shopcott. The first church organized was the M.E. The first church built by the Presyterians ( now the M.E.) Pastor A.D. Moore dedicated in March/83. The first school is now the building owned by Minnie W. Where the blacksmith, it was built in 77. the first child - Millie Shopcott.

7. Dugouts were scarce here as houses but were cool in summer and very warm and comfortable in winter when built but I think I shall always remember the first night I tried to sleep in one. The fleas I think was playing baseball I guess, at least they wouldn't keep still but at last morning came to my relief.

8. The Stage came only to Wellington from Wichita and from there our mail was brot out three times a wk. Then the RR. went thro here the fall of /80 it bettered that conditions!

9. The first storm, oh how I used to dread the hard rain with only ship-lap boards between me and the rain. The first blizzard that seems to come to my mind must have been in /85. It just filled the RR cut South of our farm house with snow until it bucked the Monster Engine off the track and I can hear those cattle bawling yet for it was a stock train. I think now it took nearly a day to clear the track and get away. The first Cyclone of any damage was the one that struck Wellington some 25 years ago killed Eleven, tore a barn down across the road from Jessie Wades, moved a house south of us. Something unusual about that it came almost direct from the West. Some of our nice apple trees north of our house laid in the four directions but our buildings escaped it, raised over us started at or near Harper but came down with vengeance at Wellington.

10. The Grashopper Year, I think was two years we came to Kansas. Tho the hoppers have destroyed considerable since we came but they haven't cleaned up everything as they did that year.

  One thing has always amused me, Mr. Stocking came down the fall of or Early Winter of 77 and he told me they did not plaster their houses here and I said why and he said makes them to warm but in all these years he has never been able to convince me that is so. I never have been able to look back with pride and say how we used to gather cow chips for our fuel. They didn't grow very plentiful here as cattle have to be plentiful where cow chips grow and tho I have helped gather lots of them in Barber Co. When dry, not easy to gather or burn when green, our fuel for some years. It took from 2 to 3 days to get one load of wood here, go and borrow it in the Indian Territory (was then), now Okla.

  Mrs. Orie Freeman was buried yesterday died very sudden with I think they finally settled it was Peritonitis, she was Georgia Cook's mother.

  We are having lots of rain and hail too and what little wheat there is left is ready to cut but too wet to get in field.
  A letter from Maud's Mother today, said there was very little hopes for recovery of her youngest sister Ida, she is in hospital with goiter.

  Dora Anderson and Clair were married a week ago today by Probate Judge and left in their car for a visit in Colorado an uncle there and his wife is a cousin of Lulu M. and friend of Mr. Meuser. Lu is very busy these days but she always is tho!

  I must hustle this to the train so make the best of mistakes and I do not expect you to tell all I wrote you, especially about the chips, love to Etta and a whole big lot for yourself.

  Elmer and Eugene have just finished the coping for Mr. McGinnis' grave and the three dollars didn't quite get the cement but nearly so.

   With love, Mrs. Stocking