Very interesting letter. Thanks to Ken Martin for posting. The Kansas State Historical Society has some of his letters, including this one, and gives this bio of A. T. Ward:

Biographical sketch: Allen T. Ward, the son of Asahel and Mary Tuck Ward, was born in Ohio in 1806. His siblings included William, Sarah, David Mercer, Milton, and Elizabeth. In 1844 Allen Ward married Cordelia Laurimia (Wahponkequa), who died in 1857. Ward later remarried, to a Mary Elizabeth, who died in 1931.

Ward primarily made his way through life as a teacher, particularly to Native Americans; he also worked selling cloth, owned and managed mills, and held some local political offices. He spent some time in the communal colony at New Harmony, Indiana, as well as in Louisiana and Mexico. By 1840 Ward moved to western Missouri, and by 1843 he was involved in the work at the Shawnee Methodist Mission on land that would in future be part of Kansas. In the 1850s, when Kansas was a territory, he lived in Paola, Lykins (later Miami) County.

Allen T. Ward died in Paola, Kansas in 1862.

Tom Jones