Expecting no favors
I should be a Missionary's wife
There is much to be done here
Missourians burn with inveterate hatred
A tide of emigration is coming
We have been greatly wronged
Far away in this strange land
Families of the right stamp
Jordan is a hard road to travel
A better day is coming
The companion of your choice
Her destined Western home
Let me know all about matters in Kansas
It keeps us in a constant worry
We hear dreadful news
The suffering brethren

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Bloody Kansas

This series of letters cover the period from September 1854 through the Presidential Election in November 1856. "Expecting no favors" is a description of the overland journey from Indianapolis to Kansas Territory. The next several chapters that follow describe James' experience as a frontier circuit rider on the very large Wakarusa Mission. In "Her destined Western home," we follow James back to Owego, New York where he marries Augusta. The final two chapters begin with James' serious illness that prevents his active work on the circuit during 1856 and ends with the first Kansas-Nebraska Conference of the Methodist Church in Lawrence, October 1856. The map below will help to locate some of the places mentioned by James in his letters.