Things have been very quiet on this list. Thought I'd pass along an excerpt from a letter written in 1844 by my ggaunt Sarah (Sally) Sanford, who had just returned from a visit to her Connecticut birthplace to the wilds of Preston Township, Wayne County: "I don't think the country roads, people or anything else has improved any. On the contrary it is the reverse of that. I intend to get a school if I can for I am sure I cannot content myself if I don't have something or another to do. I don't know but I can have the one in this district. There is a law that females shall not have but a dollar a week. Poor encouragement for one to try to make a living. If you go out to do housework you will have to milk seven or eight cows besides doing housework nine hours, enough to break your back and they they ain't willing to pay you more than fifty cents a week and only a dollar a week for teaching school and then if you want a pair of shoes you must pay a dollar and a half for what you pay a dollar for in New Haven. If you want a piece of calico you must pay twenty-five cents for what you would have to pay twelve and a half cents for there and fourteen cents for cotton cloth that you would pay ten cents for etc. etc." Sally adds at the end of her letter, "Mother is homesick enough and sick of the Beach [sic] Woods. Joseph and Jane take a sight of comfort. They have got a pretty little daughter but Jane hasn't got very smart yet." Sally's parents soon after returned to Connecticut, but Sally stayed in Wayne County, married Stephen V. Niles of Pleasant Mount and died of consumption at the age of 40. Joseph and Jane (Woodmansee), thankfully, also stayed behind in Wayne County and became my gggrandparents. Does anyone else have stories of their Wayne County ancestors? Ann