Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2011, All Rights Reserved USGenNet. Data Repository Please read USGenNet Data Repository Copyright Statement on this page: SOURCE: California State Library, Small Manuscript Collection Submitted by William (Rick) Bisbee on August 25, 2011 [Bisbee Family Connection Genealogy Website] For inclusion in the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org =========================================================================== From Charles Byron Heald to Maria Bisbee Text inside [-brackets-] was struck through =========================================================================== Camp Hardscrable July 20th 1862 3 miles from anyplace in the cot of the valley I love ---- I love it very badly Good evening miss Maria I hope you are enjoying all of the blessing that youth & health is heir to. I suppose that you are teaching this summer are you not if so how does it go. By the way have you any contribands for schollars this summer if so I expect some of the federal officers will see that they trabble the road to knowledge stright as H. I recd. your letter the first of this month & should have answered it before but for other business that was driveing me quite hard at that time & finely until now. Prehaps you would like to know what I have been doing of late. Well last winter Amasa & I bought 2 creek claim & the big freshet that we had last winter distroyed the improvements mostly that was on the claim & he & I have been fixing things up the last 2 weeks in order to get to work as soon as the water got low enough & now I think tomorrow that I shall start in to work them with the assistence of a man that Amasa has hired to work with me. Am. is a going to start in to work another creek claim that we have been buying into to morrow I expect. Em. Stetson is a going to work with him so you see that Em. has left the shoe business. I think that he will miss it somewhat. He will find mining hard buisiness shure but every one to their notion. I want mine & am willing to let others have theirs. About Tim. I recd. a letter from him about the same time that I recd. yours. I wrote to him the 5th of July & forwarded your letter also or rather enclosed it with mine. He was then at Florence City W.T. in the Salmon River Mines. I think his letter was dated the first of June. He wrote that there was no show at that place for a man that got in there this spring to get any claims that was worth any thing & he & 2 or 3 more I believe was going up the Salmon River some 70 or 80 miles prospecting. He does not like Oregon a bit you bet but I did not expect he would as I know what this deep loamy soil is in rainy weather you bet I do. I have seen it to my hearts content but still if I was a going to make a farm that is the place. What do you think of these old batchlors Maria do you think I would make a good one or am I to cross already. What do you think. As far as your letters are concerned you need not give yourself any uneasyness concerning them as I have not seen any thing that is out of place to write to any one that you are familiarly acquainted with & far less to a brother but still there might have been some things in them that I did not see as I did not read only 2 or 3 & then I only run over slightly to see how the people in the vicinity were &c &c Speaking of snow this country lets me out. There is snow 20 ft. deep in sight yet some think that it will lay on all this year in sight of this place. I suppose that you will not work for aunt Achsah this summer will you(?) She is a difficult person to get along with but I do wish she could get some girl there that would be a good hand & not take any notice of the old lady but these are hard to find. I hear by the way that John has smashed up his new sligh well done for him. What next do you suppose will turn up. I do not think of any thing more now so please excuse all mistakes & charge them to my acct. Please write on the recpt. of this from you know who. C.B. Heald in a hurry with drawing on envelope