The following letter was written by Mrs. Elizabeth Kitchen to her sister, Mrs. Margaret Slagel, from Waterloo, February 8, 1855. The Kitchen residence in Waterloo was a log house, standing on the lot later occupied by Edwin Mesick's residence, 227 Commercial Street.
"Dear Sister: Your kind letter came safe to hand near two weeks ago. We have had winter in good earnest for the past three weeks and some yet, but it has moderated enough to snow a little. There has been considerable snow-fall here this winter, but what becomes of it I can't imagine, unless it blows clear off to Indiana or some other thick-timbered region. Sometimes the young folks try to make believe they are sleigh riding, but they do not find much snow in the road; to be sure there is some just outside in the prairie grass, but that cannot be very smooth traveling.
"The ice on the river is from twelve to eighteen inches thick and furnishes a first rate road for teams to draw down saw logs, fire wood, etc. The river has been returned navigable some distance above Waterloo (for pike and fish of all descriptions and canoes I suppose) and consequently the islands are not included in the survey. They have or had considerable timber on them and considered public property. There is one up the river about one mile, containing about ten acres, and from which the folks here have been hauling constantly ever since the ice was sufficiently strong to venture on with teams. Wyatt and Solomon went up this week and cut considerable fire wood. We paid $2.50 per day for getting it hauled down and we have a great large pile of wood just in from of our cabin. To be sure not the best in the world, but first rate for Iowa, maple, ash, elm, and cottonwood; not much of the last mentioned for Wyatt despises it so heartily that he won't have it if he can help it. He has a good large oak log down on the bank which he designs splitting for posts to fence our lots. We must have a fence of some kind, for a garden we must have. We will have a small yard all around our house and if you come to see us next summer you will, I think, find the porch 'with vines overgrown.' Shrubbery, currents, gooseberries, etc. are scarce here. All kinds of herbs are scarce except those which grow on the prairie. The babies, poor things, have to do without their catnip tea, because none grows here.
"Wyatt says nothing will ever make him leave Waterloo but the scarcity of timber. A good chance to get wood land would be a great temptation. In other respects we are well enough suited here, but wood will be high and hard to get before many years. Lumber too is dear and scarce. They now ask $2 per hundred and none here now at that price. Mr. Eggers has sold out to Miller & Elwell and they intend remodeling the present saw mill and putting up a flouring mill next spring, also another saw mill will be erected on the other side of the river. Miller & Elwell intend having two upright saws and a lath saw in operation in this mill in West Waterloo next spring. If we could get lumber we would weather-board our house on the outside and lath and plaster it inside next spring. At present we have only the large room partitioned with sheets, but Mr. Hudson's are building a log house in east Waterloo and will leave here the first of April. I shall be very glad for I have it very inconvenient now. Wyatt says he will not rent that part of the house again for $10 a month. We can have an excellent cellar as there is no danger of water rising in it as at North Manchester, for the wells in West Waterloo are all, I believe, over twenty feet deep. Our lots descend very much from the house. The town plot is not level, but rolling, not abrupt and hilly, but gentle elevations, which adds greatly to the beauty of the place. Almost everyone who sees Waterloo likes the place. If we had a little more woodland this would undoubtedly be one of the best portions of the United States, as it is one of the handsomest. I feel at home here notwithstanding the many privations to which we are subject."
