The Journal Leon, Iowa November 8, 1883 We often hear from weary pilgrims in the Far West through the columns of the Journal. But now we will write you from the Sunny South. We arrived at Appleton City last Sunday, coming by way of Albia, Centerville and Moberly. This is a nice country, crops good. Corn will make 45 to 50 bushels per acre. Fruit is not average crop. We visited the Monigan Springs yesterday. All the boarders have gone home and the springs are not in very good repair, and we think if a person could live in such a place three months he need not be afraid of dying, very soon at least. This seems to be a fit country for a hiding place for the Younger Boys. We did not visit the place where John Younger was killed, being about a mile East of the old town. We made some inquiries in regard to the character of the Youngers, but it was the same old story, they were driven to it. Judge, Jeff Younger, has served several terms in the Legislature, and also as Judge. We visited the large cave west of the Springs, in the Monigan Bluff. After going in several hundred feet our torches went out, and we had to come out. The cave has not been explored yet, and no one has ever found the terminus of it, though one old darkey here let his imagination get away with him, and said he had been through it; that it went under the Osage River. Last Summer the mouth was cleaned out for a dancing hall. We carved our name on the rocky walls so we could remember Monigan cave the next time we visited it. The people around the Springs are as hard citizens as they could get to be and keep out of the Infernal regions. We heard one of them swear till it raised a green skum on the Springs, and shook all of the hickory nuts down out of the trees. And some of them can lie till the rocks smoke. We had a social gathering at Mr. WOOD's last week. We are well entertained and formed a very favorable opinion of the young people, especially the girls. But in vain did gaze in their liquid orbs of vision for some trace of lo--. O I can't tell it. But I am doomed to return to rove among the hills and dales of Tennessee and meditate over my disappointment. -- WILLIE PALMER, Ohio, St. Clair Co., Mo , Nov. 3, 1883 ------------------------------------------------------- Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert January 8, 2010 [email protected]