1) one of the letters is from a man to his wife and child telling them about his 160 acres to settle and talks about the streams and railroad that are on the land. The other letter is about the land that he purchased and is mad about the land around it being better than his.
2) that these people plan on working this land on their own, they don't seem to have the money or intentions to hire anyone to help them.
3) Writing letter from the west would be very expensive because they really haven't settled down that much and mostly only had the essentials for survival, while paper is a luxury. Another problem is the time it takes for letter to get from the west to the east, it probably took weeks for the old news to reach the receiver.
https://user.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/ashjrnl.html
New Link: http://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/eamerica/media/ch14/resources/documents/haun.htm
