Charpentier

1899 · réf. 423702 — Port Chester New York / North Dakota 1899. Unbound. Near Fine. A collection of 21 letters from 1890 through 1899 pertaining to pioneer land debt in North Dakota. Near fine with small tears and some age toning most in envelopes. A collection of letters to Richard Carpenter of Port Chester New York. Carpenter was financing land purchases for new settlers in Lisbon Wisner and La Moure in North Dakota. He would receive a share of the crop until the land was paid off. However most farmers who bought the land were unable to afford paying the money back as the soil was much denser and the weather much colder than many of the southern farming communities. One letter is written on the back of a full page lithographic broadside map of Wisner and pleads with Carpenter to take $200 away from the mortgage that still needs to be paid on the land. Most of the letters are complaints about payments and raising crops "The crop failure and low price for 93 gives this country a bad black eye and paralyzes all lines of trade and the earliest remedy is a bountiful 94" and "I have seen the men from Dakota and the account they give of the country is very discouraging everyone wants to sell and no one wants to buy". Many of the letters are written from J. E. Wisner who arrived in 1880. Wisner had built a flour mill laid out a town site promoted a stillborn railroad and invented a farm implement that made him a wealthy man for his time. His letters are more often strictly letters of payment being sent to Carpenter. The letters offer financial data from farm and land owners during this time as well as insight into the lives of farmers trying to work in unfit conditions before the 20th century. An interesting collection of letters from concerned farmers to a land owner in New York 1890 through to 1899. unknown