(WEST--KANSAS.) Letters and map from early Nemaha County. Printed map, 27½ x 19½ inches; toning, partial separations at folds, other minor wear. with 11 related letters to the Sage family dated 1861-1868; various sizes, generally minor wear. Various places, 1861-1868 and undated These letters were written to Jeffrey Sage (1791-1876) and his son William N. Sage (born 1828) of Broome County, NY and Virginia, who had invested in land in Nemaha County in northeastern Kansas, apparently in the now-defunct village of Albany just north of Sabetha. These letters from their agents and friends in Kansas offer some interesting details on frontier conditions there during the Civil War era. John L. Graham writes on 6 January 1861: "Miller is out on the Republican Fork of the Kansas River, hunting and trapping. . . . There are three houses in Albany and a steam sawmill in prospect, no school house and no school, no store. There are nine houses in Sabetha, no school house, but they have a school in the log house on the corner and have 30 schollars. There is a good blacksmith there, and he has a pleanty of work. He has two marriageable daughters and Bill Graham waited on one of them to meeting down to Albany yesterday." Edwin Miller wrote from Missouri on 19 August 1865: "I have not lived in Kan. since the war commenced. I was in the service 2 yrs, was lieut. in the Kans. 7th Cavalry. . . . Albany has got the P.O. away from Sabatha since I left. There is no store in Sabetha, 2 in Albany." He lists the residents of Albany. J.C. Hebbard, a resident of Seneca since 1860, sent his report on 14 February 1866, describing the businesses in Seneca and Albany, and anticipating "quite a large emigration to Kansas this year." Hebbard's gilt-accented letterhead from 1868 has a long promotional message regarding Nemaha County printed on verso, and his 15 August 1868 letter boasts of Albany's "two stores and a very fine school building."
Also included is a "Township Map of Nemaha County" by J.W. Tuller, which shows a proposed railroad (completed in 1866), settlements, school buildings, saw and grist mills, and the famed Overland Trail (here marked as "Great Overland Route to California"). A small square just north of Albany is marked in red ink, likely the land owned by the Sage family. We trace no other examples of this map in OCLC or on line. Hartford, CT: Bingham & Dodd, lithographers, circa 1861-1866.