Our first winter in Ks.

The winter of ’55 & 6 will never fade from my memory while life and memory last. ‘Tis a wonder how we kept from freezing. I make the following extract from an old letter dated Jan 9th 1856, “About a fortnight ago we had a cold wind from the North followed in the night by a snow storm.

When we awoke in the morning we found the bed covered with a thin layer of snow. The snow is very dry and fine and sifts in thru the shakeboards like meal.

The bed would have been a snow bank if I had not hung up sheets about it. Since then with the exception of 2 or 3 days we have intensely cold weather. The mercury is said to have fallen to 27 below zero. It seems to me it might have been so. We have never suffered half as much from cold before. You must come into the heart of the country far away from salt water if you wish to see old winter in all his glory. …

We could not keep anything like comfortable only in bed, and then the breath would congeal upon the sheet till it was stiff with ice and the hair would be covered with frost. Water froze within a foot of the stove when full of fuel. … It is milder today or I could not write because the ink would freeze on the pen. …”