Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Miami Missouri In 1882

"Miami Mo, Jan, 30th, 1882

Mr. Milton Ferrill,

Dear Friend,

Your letter of the 23rd to hand and contents duly noted. Well Milt I am glad to hear that you are still living and having a boss time. You speak of tramps being in town. That just suits you. You can get with your kind. Yes Carry Williams is at Los Vegas, New Mexico running a barber shop making $80 a month clear of expenses but as you say he won’t stick very long…..Well Milt it looks like we was going to have a railroad. They commenced the survey from Marshall running to this point this morning so you can just look out for Miami is just going to be the boss town in the country. The road will run from Sedalia to Laclede and a new road will start from this point running to Kansas City through the plains by Malta Bend. I will let you know when I hear the cars whistle. You hold your breath until I let you know. Just closed up the saloon. A mob of about 50 or 75 men went down there and played hell with it. Some parties are trying to get their backs up about it. They gave the saloon keepers 48 hours to get away from town. His time is up and look out we are going to have little hell here in a few hours if he don’t skip. He went to Marshall Sunday after a lawyer to defend him against the mob. The mob notified his lawyer to come to Miami if he wanted to. If he did they would put him in the river but he failed to come. They have been running without a license for some time and the people got tired of it. You just bet they raised hell for sometime……..Yours truly, Jas.F. Vaughan

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