I ran across this precious bit of history and wanted to share it. If you have any connections or interest in these folks, please let me know. It was found in the Inland Waterways Collection, Mercantile Library, University of Missouri-St. Louis. The source was not identified, but they thought it was a newspaper or magazine article, unknown date. WRITTEN IN 1833! Harry J. MADDY of Gallipolis, Ohio, writes: "Mrs. John B. ALCORN of Columbus, Ohio, mailed to us the enclosed copy of a letter written June 26, 1833, at Chicot, Ark., in regard to a steamer TELEGRAPH that was owned and commanded by her great grandfather, James ALCORN. Actual writer of the letter was Benjamin L. MILES and the following excerpts are exactly as he wrote them. The spelling and lack of capitals was typical of his era; and when one realizes that the rifle was more important than an education it is to the undying credit of the pioneer mothers that their children could write. "There has been considerable of the cholers in our neighborhood and on the Steam Boats I have had no confirmed case on the plantation it has raged verry rappidly on the coast and in new Orleans and most of hte towns below and on borde the Boats one boat about ten days cince burried two here in one grave which was eight from New Orleans and many others have suffered eaqually as much Mr. ALCORN who has become one third owner (by a late perchase) of the TELEGRAPH and is commanding her landing here this morning informs me that some boats that he meet in the neighborhood of Shawneetown had lost twenty persons. "I feel considerable anxiety about our friende ALCORN these sickly times though if he should be favored with health he has now an opportunity of making (as I think) a fortune the TELEGRAPH is a verry fine boat of onehundred and eighty tons shpendid accomodations for passengers and but three years old runs fair and in good repute and they bought her for six thousand dollars payable in three eaqual installments at six twelve and eighteen months wich payments they will be able to more than make out of the proseedes of the boat they bought her in New Orleanes have made a trip to Cincinnatia and now on their way down the trip up cleared them about two thousand dollars after paying expenses his partners are Mr. RONDOE and Joseph PRIER formaly of Golconda . . . " "The letter was sealed with a red seal and . . . its postage was 13 3/4 cents," writes Mrs. ALCORN who adds that Chicot was on the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River." ------------- This was confirmation of another story that Joseph Everett PRYOR, James ALCORN, and William RONDEAU owned the Telegraph. And, PRYOR's daugher, Cornelia P. PRYOR BOZEMAN wrote in article about her father in the 1921 Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois by Newton Bateman that the Telegraph was sunk in a collision with the Duke of Orleans in 1835, no hands lost. I know Joseph Everett PRYOR and William RONDEAU were both involved in the Regulator movement, in the Baptists in Southern Illinois, and that PRYOR Island and RONDEAU Islands were their homes at one time. Is the James ALCORN the ALCORN who was the Pope County Clerk? Anyone know more about him? Anyone know Benjamin MILES? If anyone wants a copy of the article, just let me know where to mail it. I have quoted it exactly though.