3pp. + integral stampless address leaf.
A long and somewhat bitter family letter from Nathaniel Wyeth's father to Nathaniel's brother Charles in Baltimore, relating some details of the Wyeth party's venture across the continent, and pessimism about Nathaniel's safe return, "…Children can never suffer more in their own troubles than their parents do for them. You…make mention of your Brother Nathl. and party’s safe arrival at Baltimore. I could have wished that he might have stopped there and returned home for I am very certain that he is lost both to his parents and brothers.... . I feel at this time, all that painful solicitude for that child, that any parent can experience. To think of a young man of his abilities and prospects should be driven from his home and his Father’s house and compelled to surrender one of the fairest opportunities to obtain an independency. And by whom is all this done? Why by an ill tempered drunken [sossel?] But this is so unpleasant that I must change the subject... In one other letter, you request information of any vessel bound to the Oragon Country. There are none in this quarter of the world. we were advertised last season that one Hall J. Kelly, had [charted?] two vessels for that territory and we began to collect clothing and other articles to send to your Brother. But he absconded after collecting considerable property from persons unacquainted with him, but got none from us. If he should come within your reach, put no confidence in him as I hear that he is on that way (and keep this secret). John Wyeth, one of Nathl’s Deserters has returned to his Father’s and has employed Dr. Waterhouse to compile a narrative of the Orogon [Tour?] This Narative relates many circumstances so trevial that If people had had a knowledge of its merits before publication, it would scarcely have brought enough to pay for its Ink and paper. However, as this [petty?] Cousin of ours has attempted to flatten and lessen the character of my son and your Brother, I wish that if ever you meet him, you would treat him with that contempt he deserves. For he possesses such a malignant and revenging temper that had he been capable of compiling the book himself, there would have been no [scandal?] or abuse that would have escaped his pages…"
Additional note on Letters of Nathaniel Wyeth’s First Oregon Trail Expedition
Nathaniel Wyeth led the first "emigrant party" to cross the Plains from Missouri to Oregon from May to October 1832. It was a hazardous overland journey, marked by privation, Indian attacks and personal conflicts in wild country previously known only to rugged Mountain Men and fur trappers. But Wyeth, an Eastern "tenderfoot" entrepreneur, who set out with twenty recruits, including his younger brother Jacob Jr., a neer-do-well Doctor, and 17 year-old cousin John, remained determined to reach the Columbia River, dreaming of wealth in the fur trade which had made John Jacob Astor the richest man in America.
These letters are taken from the unpublished papers of Nathaniel's brother Charles, a Baltimore merchant who, together with his brother Leonard in New York, helped bankroll the expedition. They reveal the undocumented conflicts within the Wyeth family which surrounded the famous expedition, including opposition to the venture by their father, Jacob Sr., a Massachusetts hotel owner; and the "desertion", midway, by the alcoholic Jacob Jr. and teenaged John, both of whom turned back after a battle with Indians in present-day Idaho.
One letter, written by Nathaniel after had reached Fort Vancouver alone, is a philatelic as well as historic rarity, being carried across the plains by agents of the Hudson's Bay Company. Two are written by Nathaniel's father and two others by John Wyeth's father, a semi-literate sea captain whose direct descendants were the famed artists Andrew and Jamie Wyeth. These letters illuminate the conflicts between Jacob Jr. and John after they had abandoned Nathaniel, significant because John, returning to Boston, published a ghost-written critical account of the journey which has become a rare classic of Oregon Trail literature.