Ranchera Town Dec 2^d 50
Dear Father- You see by this
commencement of my letter it is a
month since I intended to send
home I have been sick with the
diareah and inflamation in the
bowels some two weeks and as
I was obliged to stop on the
road at an expensive of 50 pr week
besides Doctors ill of coars it put
me out of humor for sending what
I had written or writing more. Now
I am quite well and think I
shall be able to make something
The rainy season commenced the
last week in Nov. and soon the
roads will be almost impassable
yet we hope to make our regular
trips. I have come about forty miles
to day to see Ben. but learn he
left this place about two weeks
ago and as I have business to attend
to shall be obliged to return with out
seeing him at present.

I have a great notion to go
upon the Sacramento or near Rogue
River in Oregon and laying claim to
land which Uncle Sam has been
kind enough to give us, of course we

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Elijah Fuller left Massachusetts for California less than two years after Mexico ceded this territory and gold was discovered. Like many men who traveled to this newly opened land seeking financial gains, Fuller was planning to speculate in land. While not asking his father for money, he suggested polling resources with his family in Massachusetts to purchase land along the Rouge River in southern Oregon. Fuller's move west did not remove him from the political forces enveloping the country, and he weighed in with his opinion. Although his letter indicates a political leaning toward the Whig party, he appears to support the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. He does not necessarily hope to return slaves to their southern owners, but to drive them either back to Africa or further north into Canada, thus revealing personal prejudices which he shared with many Northerners at the time.

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