Sierra County CA Archives History - Books .....A Poker-Flat Fiasco 1882
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com January 20, 2006, 11:33 pm

Book Title: Illustrated History Of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties

A POKER-FLAT FIASCO.

   According to the entertaining narrative of Bret Harte, entitled "The Outcasts
of Poker Flat," this place was once the scene of a triple hanging; but the
charge is indignantly denied by all who have lived in those classic precincts,
and we must sadly deposit this story on the shelf in the liar's corner, where it
will cut a respectable figure by the side of Joaquin Miller's and other
imaginative productions. But Poker flat has not always sustained her present
good behavior. From a choice collection we select one little circumstance that
happened on the tenth of January, 1859. John Burk and Jimmy Lyons were eating
supper at Kelly's, when the latter, finishing first, arose, took the former's
pipe which was lying on the table, and began to smoke it. Burk became offended
at this familiarity, protesting in no very elegant terms at the other's
impudence. An interesting dispute followed, when Burk drew a butcher-knife and
stabbed Lyons to the heart. He was examined before Justice Downer, at Howland
flat, and held to answer before the district court. The case came up in June,
before Judge Van Clief, and was continued until August. Harry I. Thornton,
district attorney, and W. D. Sawyer prosecuted the case; while J. E. Plunkett
and Steward & Baldwin conducted the defense. It looked as though Burk would
furnish a disagreeable duty for the sheriff to perform, considering the
cold-bloodedness of the crime. Edwin Irwin was sheriff and Sawyer Clapp
under-sheriff, at the time. A letter was received from relatives of the
prisoner, offering Clapp a large sum if he would enable Burk to escape. The
trial occurred on the fifteenth and sixteenth of August, when Burk was found
guilty of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to the state prison for a
term of twelve years. Long afterwards, in April, 1863, Burk was convicted of
murder in Nevada county, and hung.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties

San Francisco: Fariss & Smith
(1882)

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/sierra/history/1882/illustra/apokerfl307ms.txt

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