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Isaac Chester Illinois June 29 1857 Dunbarton

Chester Illinois, Sabbath Eve. June 29. 1857 Dear Antoinette I believe I must spend a little while this evening in writing to you. I have not been at Church at all today. It has been a very rainy day. The Illinois black mud is very deep. The Church is a long way off, and at the top of a very high bluff. Therefore being assured by the natives that there would be no meeting I did not undertake to go up. I hear since however that there was a meeting in the A.M.and ten persons present, but this afternoon the minister did not attempt to go. He is an old school Presbyterian, formerly of Louisville Ky. So I have been in my room all day, reading some, and I must confess, sleeping some. I was happy to find here in this little Tavern as indeed I have frequently in the West, the Am. Tract Soc. Evan. Fam. Library Series, in which one can always find good reading. I have written a letter to my Mother this afternoon, and have been thinking a good deal of way Down East, of Mother, Brothers and Sisters at Milo & Bangor, and of your dear self. You can hardly imagine how anxious I am becoming to hear from you all, or what an age it seems since I have heard. Only to think what a long time it has been, Almost five weeks since I left Bangor, and have not heard from there since, and longer still since I heard from you! I believe I wrote to you last from Springfield about a week ago. From Springfield I went to Alton by Stage Coach Oh what a ride across those prairies, sometimes the horizon as unlimited as on the broad ocean, sometimes most beautiful groves of timber; and then the prairie flowers. But I cannot describe it; and you have seen the Prairies for yourself. I did not stop at Alton. I have had a sort of dislike for Alton and have considered it almost as under a curse, since the death of Lovejoy there. I went to St. Louis and stopped there one day, and was surprised at its wealth, business & prosperity. From St. Louis I went around to Cairo & to Caledonia on the Ohio River, where I remained one day, and then came around here. My destination is back in Perry County some fifty miles