Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 1884-1990 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
138pp
Context area
Archival history
Kerby A. Miller created his transcripts of the James O'Neill letters from photocopies provided by the California Historical Society. The original manuscripts are now held in the California Historical Society Collection at Stanford, Stanford University Libraries.
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
The James O'Neill letters are three letters written by James O'Neill to Maggie Johnston of Derry on 26 September 1884. O'Neill wrote the letters from jail in the former gold rush town of Downieville, California where he was imprisoned after murdering his employer, Jack Woodward, on a dairy ranch near Webber Lake on 7 August 1884. O'Neill, who had only emigrated nine months earlier, had informed Woodward he was quitting and demanded his pay. When Woodward refused to pay him on the spot and insisted on waiting until he could find a man to take O'Neill's place, O'Neill held a gun to Woodward's head and demanded his pay. Woodward attempted to move the gun away, at which point the gun discharged. O'Neill was executed on 27 November 1885, aged 20.
In addition to transcripts and reproductions of the letters, the series includes correspondence between Kerby A. Miller, Beth Ruffin McIntyre, and fellow researchers and historical organisations attempting to find information on O'Neill, photocopied extracts of published histories of Downieville, and newspaper clippings from November 1885 covering the murder and O'Neill's execution.