A copy of this letter was mailed to me by Julie (Zimmerman) Ellicott of Abbeville, GA.  This letter was written by Emery Ernest Zimmerman

(a note at the top of the page indicated this letter was never sent)

Editor Harrison Sun
Harrison, Nebraska

Dear Editor

    It does not seem that a year has passed since I paid a subscription, but it has.  I have considered discontinuing the paper, it is difficult to make the dollars meet the budget, but there are interesting items from time to time that stir memories and make me want to continue.

    It has been especially interesting to read the letters from the Mrs. Weir and others.  If I were a good descriptive writer I could about duplicate the stories of Zane Grey just telling in story from the experiences of the Zimmerman family that migrated from Pennsylvania to Sioux County in 1885.  My parents began the overland part of their journey at Blair, Nebraska.

    Having rigged themselves out with a covered wagon and a team of horses, six children, parents and clothes, etc. crowded into the wagon and started their journey.  At Valentine they, in company with J. B. Bradley and John Rector and father, filed on land Hat Creek Valley without seeing it.  Mr. Rector drew his claim on the large stony butte just south of the oold S-E Ranch then War bonnet P.O.  Most readers know where the Zimmerman and Bradley places are.  The Bradley land now in the hands of the Dan Jordan family.

    There were several thrilling experiences on the way.  Indians on Wounded Knee gave the adults a scare.  When they reached the agency at Pine Ridge they found out they were only having one of their pow-wows and the members of the caravan were the subjects of a good laugh.  However, it was not funny for those who saw their first pow-wow.  On with their journey nothing of notable interest happened until we camped on Soldier Creek when some of the men from the colored Cavalry troops appeared on the scene mounted on their fractious steeds.  Soldiers were never people to us kids and we were thrilled by the sight.  The next day we camped on Boggy Creek at the foot of the pine ride.  That was a hazardous journey down the hill over a narrow side hill road.  Old timers knew it as the "Break Neck Canyon."  The men rough-locked the hired wheel next to the bank, all in the caravan walked down, mother carrying Clarence in her arms.  The road followed the government tract along the telegraph line to Ft. Feterman, I believe.  That night we camped on the creek in front of the Warbonet Ranch.  The air was foul with the odor of dead cattle along the creek, many of them in it.  With the harrowing experience still disturbing her the stench of the surroundings made mother avow again as she had on top of Break Neck, where she looked down on the wild, broken landscape before her, that she would never stay in a country like that.  Already the Rectors had located John's homestead and were decided to return to Blair.  Father and Bradley wanted to locate their claims.  Leaving his family at Werdermans, who had claimed their land and were living in a combined house and stable not far from the pine ridge to the south, the men found their corners and came back pleased with their claims.  But mother would not stay she said.  They turned back by way of one of the south roads through the canyons.  Various things happened, the Rectors lost a horse on White River.  Do not remember how father helped them with their wagon until it and the other horse were sold, and how they got on their way east I do not recall.

    On Bordeaux Creek east of Chadron one of father's horses pulled her shoulder out on a picket rope.  That decided the future of mother and father.  By the time the horse was ready to work mother agreed to try it awhile longer.  Father had worked sigle handed on the roads being prepared for the present city of Chadron.  Father followed the R.R. grading.  He and a Mr. Doup took a contract near French Creek, South Dakota.  When that was finished mother was ready to settle down in Sioux County.  They spent that winter between Chadron and Whitney.  In the spring of 1886 they returned to Hat Creek Valley.  There Cleve was born in Aug. 1886 and on the old homestead beside the old Presbyterian Church their body rests awaiting the resurrection morning.