Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1859 — Pike's Peak. [ARTICLE]

Pike's Peak.

We clip the following from the <McGregor Times>, a paper most likely to contain the latest news of interest from the gold region: PIKE'S PEAK, January 28, 1859. <Dear Father:> Me and my wife left the old Sucker State on the 1st of last September, and arrived here right on Pike’s Peak on the 17th of the same month, being just seventeen and one-fourth days on the road. Short trip say you. But the route traveled was not by the Arkansas neither that of the Platte, but just between the two. Uniting the ndvmt.mes ol each w'tlmut the dis .dvan"ages ~ ei'li r. 'l’liis route was never traveled till nv‘ and mv wife passed along it; it is much better and much n • rer; it turns ii -ith -r to the right o >r to the Ie t, but goes sir light aim rigtit to the mines, and furnishes an abundance of gr ss. w ood and w iter; so nutricitms is tlie grass that w lien me i.ud my wife got here, our cattle were -bu.ter-iat.” At the urgent request ot the halt starved miners, m • and my w ife killed them and.sold the shanks at thirty-three an 1 one-eighth cents per pound; the flesh pieces we swapped for gold nuggets, pound for pound. But ain’t we rich! Tell all our folks to come my route; no difficulty in finding it as me and mv wife took panes to .daze ull the trees. We think of putting up a toll-gate, rny wiie can tend '.t while I work in the mines. There is truth in all he exagera,ted accounts about gold. Just now my youngest child (a yearling) brings in a shirt-tail lull ot veiy rich dirt, which my wife will wash and send V u the yield. I supply me arid my wife with "meat hv iny gull. Buffalo, bear, deer and antelope are iii aim idanee; yesterday 1 kilim! an antelope at three hundred and twenty yards. A gun will kill further here than in am- place I ever saw. Strange as it may appear, right ori the peak and close to our house is a little lake filled with honey; a few yards from this is u gu-l mg spring of pure milk! There is a peculiar species of tree here, the Iruit of which i» better than tlie best buckwheat cakes you oversaw. My wile thinksh - has discifVeri d indications ot a soap mine; Bom Trousers ha. discovered a rosin mine, and J-*e Bootee is making preparations to maim...c ure turp.-ntin ■. The n<-ys are ..II doing well; I have ninety or a hundred pounds

o r g dd, which I intend sending back to niv wile's poor connections by ’be fi st express: sickness and sorrow, pain and death rre strangers here. When me and my wife left I* nkiu Hollow, jn Illinois, s -e was a poor# lit He. scrawny, wusp-waist creature, weighing eighty-'wo pound-*; n**w she weighs one hundred and loriy, and looks like a huge molasses hogshead. The color of my wif-V skin has ch tnged to a deep yellow". This J t ike as an indication ot an abundmee of g dd. My wife stops me to say the shift tail ~f earth was n it very rich, on’y m-ki -g S'ls,9J, niii“ mills and a fraction nvs-r. My sec - ond b.oy just brought in the puifit oi a two t dged sword, doubt less th ■ on 1 * ilwt cr .arcb-d tlie gir lon o' E l -a. Tn-re is an oid lu(li:|!i lie.e who y-s Ie- w*-ll rem -inbers N *ah and ibt* ark. My twaiv** -oi * .ire all beany an Rny two daughters are tine-looking girls’. Farewell. James Smith and Wife.