On reading since my release the pretended history of my life I find that I
was wrong in stating that there was no robbery during the summer of 1872,
the bank at Columbia, Ky., having been raided April 29 of that year. I
had not heard of that when I wrote the letter of 1874, and to correct any
misapprehension that might be created by omitting it I will say that at
that time I was at Neosho, Kansas, with a drove of cattle, which I sold to
Maj. Ray.
It was immediately following the Rock Island robbery at Adair, Iowa, that
there first appeared a deliberate enlistment of some local papers in
Missouri to connect us with this robbery. New York and Chicago as well as
St. Paul and Minneapolis papers did not connect the Youngers with the
crime, and three days after the robbery these papers had it that the
robbers had been followed into Nodaway county, Missouri, while we were at
Monegaw Springs all that time. Besides those mentioned in my 1874 letter,
Marshall P. Wright’s affidavit that he showed Jim and me at Monegaw
Springs the morning paper containing the account of the robbery the next
morning after it took place, was presented to Gov. Clough of Minnesota in
1898.
It is 250 miles or more and no cross lines of railroad existed to
facilitate our passage, so it would be impossible for any one to have made
the trip. The shortest rail lines are roundabout, via St. Joseph and
Kansas City, so it will be apparent that I could not have been at the Rock
Island wreck.