The Driftless Manifesto

On October 22, 1867, Mathias Brimeyer wrote a letter to his family back in Luxembourg. A few year’s earlier, he had completed a month-long journey from Paris to New York by ship, then by train from New York to Dubuque. He bought land, settled in, and then took the time to write home: “In America one comes in contact with all kinds of people, known and unknown.