(WEST--WYOMING.) John H. McIlvain. Letter from an early visitor to Fort Laramie. Autograph Letter Signed to brothers James and Hugh McIlvain. 2 pages, 9 3/4 x 7 1/2 inches, with no postal markings; worn on inner edge with slight loss of text and 2-inch closed tear with short tape repairs. Fort Laramie, WY, 13 [July] ("7 Mo.") [1853]
John Hunt McIlvain (1808-1885) came from a prominent Philadelphia family of lumber merchants, and became a noted ornithologist. This letter was written on his 1853 trip to the Rocky Mountains.
He writes from Fort Laramie, which had been established in 1849 on the site of an older trading post. "I had walked a short distance down the Laramie [River], & seeing the mail coming, hurried home with trembling anxiety. All the officers & souldiers were assembled in the office & I saw each receiving their letters, some 1/2 dozen, and quietly awaited my turn without speaking a word; but when informed 'Mr. Mc, there is nothing for you' I felt my heart sinck within me, & my discomforture was noted by every body. What shall I say? My forebodings are dreadfull. Is my wife or my precious children gone? I have now been here between 4 & 5 weeks since which this very mail & the same driver have been to Independence on the frontier & returned. Not one word since the day I left the boundary. . . . I will endeavor to bear my disappointment with philosophy." A bit of good news: McIlvain's wife and children all survived long past 1853. McIlvain also receives postal advice from one of the post's officers, Hugh B. Fleming: "Mr. F. has just learned of his promotion, & he is worthy of it if any military man is, he is quite young & also the quartermaster here."
