Cyrus K. Holliday, founder of Topeka, Kansas Territory, wrote from "Up the River," Kansas Territory to his wife, Mary Holliday, in Meadville, Pennsylvania, describing the difficult living conditions for him and the other men at the future site of Topeka, where they had been visited by Governor Andrew H. Reeder. Holliday assured his wife of his health and requested that she explain to Mr. Drew Lowry and Mr. McFarland in Pennsylvania why he had not written. He praised the beauty of the country and expressed his vision of its future, ending with a request that she write to him.
Kansas Memory
Kansas Historical Society
Cyrus Kurtz Holliday to Mary Dillon Holliday - p. 4