Autograph Letter Signed. 3pp.+ stampless address leaf. To sister Lucy in Topsham, Maine.
Barron was a young Maine wanderer who, after some years at sea, had taken a job as New Orleans city policeman: “…I have a man in my charge who committed a Murder and then tried to commit suicide himself… Capt. Jos. Bardley of the Sch[oone]r. Friendship… became acquainted with this young woman a short time ago, he cut her throat and stabbed her in the left breast, then tried to kill himself by cutting his own throat but did not succeed. He is in the Hospital and getting well, can talk and is sensible…This Prisoner will be able to go to Prison in a few days…"
Captain Joseph Bradley, a married man with a family in New Haven, had been arrested just one day before his ship, - the “splendid new Schooner” Friendship, with “unsurpassed accommodations for 45 passengers wishing to make the most reliable route to the Gold Regions” - was to set sail for California in early February 1849. Having killed his young lover, Fanny Young, alias Fanny Daley, after she refused to accompany him to San Francisco, he then attempted to kill himself with a razor, leaving a note that asked that to "let me lay top of ground for the turkey buzzards to eat for I have did rong." Ironically, while Bradley was awaiting trial – he was sentenced to life imprisonment on August 4 - his ship hurriedly proceeded on its voyage, command of the vessel being given, “on the spur of the moment”, to an incompetent drunkard, who was so “grossly insulting to the 16 passengers” that, on their demand when the vessel reached Rio De Janeiro, the US Consul was forced to remove the Captain, waiting for one of the ship’s owners to arrive to himself take charge as Master. Whether the Friendship ultimately arrived in San Francisco at that time is unknown.
Meanwhile, Barron, Bradley’s police guard, reassured his family, “…You need not fear but what I will take good care of myself…” Having assured his family that his work was “not dangerous”, and “you must not... feel any uneasiness about me”, he goes on to describe the city’s crime wave: “There are… a great many robberies committed. Last night a Grocery stores was broken into by Negro Thieves… robbed of $3,000 in Gold, 3 nights before an Iron safe was blown up to Lafayette and robbed… Steamboats are robbed almost every day. A great number have gone to Baton Rouge Penitentiary within the last 4 to 6 months and a great number more to go soon…”