[Letter Written by Jonathan Koiner to His Brother Absalom Regarding Travels in Iowa and Missouri in Search of Possible Emigration Destinations]

Flat Woods, Va: December 10, 1855. Very good.. [4]pp. on a folded folio sheet. Old fold lines. Minor wear. A detailed record of one man's travels upriver and overland to Missouri in search of a place to resettle. Jonathan Koiner (1820-1889) of Flatwoods, West Virginia, went on a western tour in 1855 to scout potential emigration destinations. He traveled with his brother, Absalom, who quite abruptly stepped off the steamboat in northern Iowa, leaving Jonathan to continue alone. Most of this letter describes Jonathan's travels in Missouri: from Hannibal by hack to Paris, and then 25 miles on foot to Mexico. There he saw a prairie fire, a bustling courthouse with judges and lawyers chomping on cigars, and several relatives of his wife's. He took a carriage thirty miles to Columbia, "the Athens of the state, where the state university is situated & several fine female institutions." At Marshall, his westernmost point, he saw the 300-acre hemp farm of a man named Bruce who "has a good many slaves, but he is one of the largest hemp growers in the U.S." He also witnessed "scores of wild cranes & wild geese one cloudy day in the corn fields above Marshall." He met the well-known pro-slavery jurist William Barclay Napton, "the great antagonist of T.H. Benton"; former governor Meredith Miles Marmaduke; and numerous extended family members and friends who had already made the move west. On his way home, he was inspired by St. Louis and Cincinnati, with their "living moving masses of men & things!" He concludes with his decision to sell his Virginia land and move his young family west, though census records suggest that he never did so. An informative missive of an exploratory emigration journey.