To Henry and Catharine Ledford, Brummells Post Office, North Carolina: "The health of this Country is tolerably good… a few cases of the colery…brout up on a boat. The small pox has been on some of the boats on the river…the Calafornia people is gethering up at Independence by thousands, they are wating for the grass to get large enuf for their stalk to live,. some few has started, took food to last their teems a few weeks. They are still pass up to Independence by water & by land, they are from different States. They has bin a cupple of them shot, one has his money stole, he shot a man he thought was the man, after he had killed him he was not the man…Two thirds that was going from about here has give out, some had everything fix to start. It has brout up the price of horses, mules & oxen and a great many horses dying this spring. Horses is hier here now than they was in Carolina…Mules is from 40 to 60 dollars. Oxen is from 40 to 55 dollars a yoke ...”