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In February 1853, little Charley was now 1 & ½ years old. Roswell sent him some kind of musical toy, but Jane said unless he could get a cast iron one to not buy such things because, “He had not had it five minutes before he bit one of the keys in two.” Infant mortality weighed on her mind when she said, “As to going out to make a visit with the Wilmot ladies, it would not do on account of the boy. If it was not for him, I would be strongly tempted, but we must make some sacrifice…for we do not know how long we shall have him with us.”
In January 1854 Jane and the kids experienced the coldest day they had for a long time. She said, “The buttery freezes a good deal and the things in the cellar, too” (which had never happened before). Charley was 2 ½ now and his older sister, Anna, wrote “He grows mischievous every day. He plays kill hogs and go to town.”
In June of 1854, Roswell had the opportunity to attend the theater in Chicago with a free ticket from his friend. He saw Julia Dean Hayne perform in two plays. The second play was “rather comical”, he wrote, “If the cash was plenty, I should go to the theater [more often], for it is not only amusing, but instructive”.
Almost two years went by when a February 1856, letter from friend “Welcome Jilson” was addressed to Roswell in Chicago, who asked, “You are bound for Minnesota, then are you? Have you sold your prairie farm?”
The Whites did sell their prairie farm…to friend and neighbor Richard Wray who added it to his farm which it abutted. Two months later, on April 3, 1856, Roswell describes to Jane traveling Rochester [on horse] where he would like to settle as, “all of the best claims are taken on the prairie [in Minnesota].”
No doubt their friends were as confused by the move as M.S. Hutchins who wrote in 1858, “…I thought to write to you, that lives in the land of Minnesota amidst the yelping of Indians and howling of wolves, roaring of winds and falling of deep snow.”
A Warranty Deed for the property in the Territory of Minnesota, county of Wabasha, in Plainview for a sale price of $500 was signed on November 14, 1857. A friend wrote, “I am glad to find you have made a good selection in your settlement. I think myself that if you have selected a better or even so good a location as you left, you surely have not done amiss, for I do certainly think that the country around your old residence was some of the best I have seen this side of the Atlantic.”
The Whites friendship with Richard Wray (and others) lasted many years and the last letter from him is dated 1871, asking when the Whites could come back to visit. He ended with, “Write soon and tell me which is the best way to get to you and how far you are from Minneapolis.”
Story by Laura Frumet
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