Letterhead, datelined 1874. This was a personal letter, signed by Peter Fahrney (1840-1905), to a lawyer, sent as administrator for the estate of John Fahrney, whose "farm and mountain land" was being offered for sale in 5 to 10 acre lots. His question pertains to the dower (or dowery, money or property brought by a woman to her husband at marriage) of the late Elizabeth Fahrney (perhaps the same Elizabeth who was his own wife), and whether the sale of the lots and collection of the proceeds thereof would be "subject to the dower". Peter Fahrney's large Chicago patent medicine operation was burned in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 but promptly rebuilt.