Letter from D[avid] G[ilrye] Muir to John Muir, 1872 Apr 25.

Portage City, Wis.,Apr. 25, \u2772. Dear Brother John: I feel ashamed to think I have neglected writing you so long. I have intended to write for months, but you know how we are apt to put off. We are all well and happy. Business is improving and becoming more profitable. Father and Mother are now living here in P[ortage], working hard improving the place where John Reid used to live and own - painting, papering, making an addition, gardening, etc., etc. Father looks as tired as though he were farming. Father told me he had received a letter from you and seemed very much pleased over it. Joanna promised to let me see it, but has not yet done it. All Father told me of it was that you said the Devil was not so rampant in the mountains as in the Burr Oak openings. So I understand you experienced some earthquake. I have not learned the particulars yet. I should think you would have been scared out of the Valley.I have not made out to get any of the N. Y. Tribunes with your glacier articles in yet - neither has Sarah, although we have been trying through our newsdealer. I am going to send direct to the office in N.Y.Dan is doing pretty well in medicine in Racine, according to his letters. He seems to be wonderfully tickled over his wife. He brags a good deal about her and keeps her in the office with him making pills, etc. He won’t let her keep house, so they board and have nothing to do but love each other. Why don\u27t you embark -- don\u27t you envy Dan? Joanna has a beau - a Baptist minister. Father is pleased with the man, but the rest of the family don\u27t go into ecstasy over him worth a cent. Joanna seems to think a good deal of him, but can\u27t decide, although he presses for an answer. He has a farm near Oxford and preaches. Is well spoken of and thought of. I guess he is a good fellow, but not very good-looking nor very smart, except in Scripture, and is very careless and shabby in dress - very poor. I tell you it is hard for a girl at her age to refuse the first offer if it is anything decent. Annie is teaching in Caledonia - is considered a good teacher, I heard from Mary in Madison this week. She sticks to the University good. She ought to be accomplished. John Reid is doing a large business in cattle, hogs, beef, pork, wool, pelts, furs, etc., etc., and making money. He will be well off some day. Portage is going to be a big place sometime. We are going to have seven R.R.s and a ship canal. No doubt it will be a great R.R. center with shops etc. Our Carrie, 7 years old, reads in the fourth reader, studies arithmetic, geography, etc. Annie is four years old, reads in second reader, and Willie 3 years, is a bright boy and will be one of the big guns some day. My family all send their love to Uncle John. D[avid] G. Muir.https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/35153/thumbnail.jp