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The semi-literate seafaring father of teenaged John Wyeth writes Nathaniel Wyeth’s brother Charles in Baltimore, relaying news (or rumors) of Nathaniel's expedition across the Rocky Mountains to the Oregon: “Sir, I perhaps am again to trouble you about a thing that you don’t like to be trouble about. There is a Rheumer that your brother Jacob has returned to Baltemor and left Nathanel on the Mountaines. I cannot find out by any of the letters that Natl. has sent home about my son John that went with him. If there is aney privecey about the thing I think I can keep it. If Jacob has come back I wish you wood request him to send me word about John and all the particklers. If he is Dead, let me know it, if alive let me know…If Jacob has not returned back I wish you as a Friend wood send me word what you know respecting the Experdition…” Charles apparently replied that his brother Jacob had indeed returned and that John Wyeth had been with Jacob for part of the trip back, though not in congenial company. By then, Job had already heard from his son directly – and from Nathaniel’s angry father. He wrote again to Charles, “…I recd. your letter as I requested you to send me word respecting John which gave me Pleasure and Sorrow. I was Sorrey of his Bad Conduct but was glad to hear from him. I cannot conceive how Jacob and he could have a fowling out but your Father says it was a D-n Drunken scrape. Let that bear it may if it be so. I hope it will be the last that they ever will have together or separate. John is in New Orleans, he arrived their the middle of October and was their throw all the sickness but never was sick, but it could not be on account of his steeling the best provisions their as Jacob says he did in Camp..." In the book, ghost-written by Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, which he would soon publish, – Oregon, or A Short History of a Long Journey From the Atlantic to the Pacific Region By Land – John Wyeth was highly critical of Nathaniel, and of Jacob Jr., who, he claimed, had abandoned him in Missouri after taking the canoe he had helped buy for their journey to St. Louis. He says nothing of any “drunken scrape” or of Jacob’s counter-claim that it was John who had pilfered supplies.

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.