Train Robberies 
 Train Robbers 
 
 ..AND., 
 
 The "Holdup" Men 
 
 ADDRESS BY 
 
 WILLIAM A. PINKERTON 
 
 ANNUAL CONVENTION 
 
 International Association Chiefs of Police | 
 
 JAMESTOWN, VA. 
 1907 
 
 Compliments of 
 
 WILLIAM A. PINKERTON, ChicaRO, 
 
 November, 1907 
 
 r A. PiNKKKTON, Clilcrtso «ud Now York. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^^^i 
 
pml^ertoq'^ platioiiL Detective J^gei 
 
 Founded by Ai,i,an Pinkerton, 1850. 
 
 m A. PMERTON, chic^o. 
 
 ]' 
 
 GEO. D. BANGS, 
 
 General Manager, New Y 
 
 ^' Principals. 
 ALUNPIMEETON, New York. 
 
 John Cornish, Manager, Eastern Division, New York. 
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 James McPari^and, Manager, Western Division, Denver. 
 J. C. Fraser, Manager, Pacific Division, San Francisco. 
 
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Train Robberies 
 Train Robbers 
 
 .AND.. 
 
 The "Holdup" Men 
 
 ADDRESS BY 
 
 WILLIAM A. PINKERTON 
 
 ANNUAL- tOrN VH-NttGN* • 
 
 International Association Chiefs of Police 
 
 \^':aJ AMES TOWN, V A. 
 
 1907 
 
 Compliments of -;- 
 
 WILLIAM A. PINKERTON, Chicago, 
 ROBERT A. PINKERTON, Nc<C'V.,rk. 
 
 X«)vi:mhi:k, 1907 
 
 • •..|,yilKlit.;.l by Wm. a. hii.I KoitKur A. Pinkkkton, CIiI.hko hihI X.w York. 
 

Z'SC^ 
 
 WILLIAM A. PINKKRTON. 
 
The late ROBERT A I'hNKERTOX. 
 
ERETOFORE my addresses have been upon sub- 
 jects with which most of us are familiar and, while 
 I know there are among those present, members 
 of this Association who have had more or less t(3 
 do with the apprehension of the train robber or ''hold-up" 
 criminal, a product we have that no other country has ex- 
 cept as our fugitives ; I believe some reminiscences of 
 these outlaws will be of interest. 
 
 As the detective agents throughout the United States of 
 many railroad, express and stage companies and of the 
 American Bankers' Association, and co-operating with po- 
 lice officials, United States marshals, sheriffs, railroads de- 
 tectives and various other law enforcement authorities, for 
 over fifty years our agency has been, engaged investigating 
 many of the robberies of railroad trains, banks and stages 
 by this desperate robber ; my father, the late Allan Pinker- 
 ton, my brother Robert and I, often in these years person- 
 ally taking part in running down this now almost extinct 
 outlaw. It is somewhat remarkable as will be noted 
 throughout my talk, that in many instances brothers were 
 members of individual bands, notably the Reno brothers, 
 John, Frank, Sim and Bill ; the Reitenhouse brothers ; the 
 Miles brothers, James K. and Joe, all of Indiana; the 
 Farrington brothers. Levy and Hillary, of West Tennes- 
 see; the James brothers, Frank and Jesse; the Younger 
 brothers. Cole, Jim, John and Bob; the Logan brothers, 
 Harvey and Lonny; the Collins brothers, part of the Sam 
 Bass gang, Joel, \\'illiam and Albert; Bud and William 
 
Mc Daniels, part of the Jesse James gang; the Dalton 
 brothers, Bill, Bob, Emmett and Gratton of Kansas; the 
 Burrows brothers. Rube and Jim of Alabama; the Sontag 
 brothers, John and George of Minnesota ; the Gates brothers 
 of California; the Jones brothers; the McCarthy brothers, 
 Tom and Bill of Colorado ; the Cook brothers, Bill and 
 Jim of Arkansas, who were part of the Dalton gang and 
 the Carver and Kilpatrick brothers of Texas. 
 
 The "hold-up" robber originated among bad men of the 
 gold mining camps. Unsuccessful as a prospector, too lazy 
 to work, and with enough bravado and criminal instinct 
 to commit desperate crimes, he first robbed prospectors 
 and miners en route on foot to stage stations, of their gold 
 dust and nuggets, becoming bolder, looting stages and 
 eventually after the railroads were built, he ''held-up" rail- 
 way trains and robbed express cars. 
 
 W c also find them from the 'Vlare-devils" of the Civil 
 War, those from the Southwest who engaged in guerrilla 
 warfare, where, as the pride of the States which sent them 
 to the front and, because of their ambuscades, raids and 
 lawless acts during the war, they were received as heroes 
 when they returned to their homes. The James boys, the 
 A^oungers, the Renos, the Farringtons, the war giving them 
 the reckless life they longed for and experience fitting them 
 for the life of crime they inaugurated immediately after. 
 
 In the early days of the plains, the cowboy, with criminal 
 inclination, noted for deeds of daring, began his career by 
 cattle "rustling" and horse stealing, and then became a 
 
 M51577 
 
"hold-up" of stages and trains, committing the most of 
 these robberies since 1875. 
 
 Also certain sensational newspapers and publishers of 
 "yellow" covered literature, by exploiting and extoling the 
 cowardly crimes of these outlaws and filling the youthful 
 mind with a desire for the same sort of notoriety and ad- 
 venture are responsible for many imitators of the "hold- 
 up" robber. 
 
 The "hold-up" man operated as the footpad does to-day,- 
 concealed in ambush awaiting his victim, suddenly pouncing 
 upon and commanding him to throw up his hands, 
 "covering" him by thrusting a revolver in his face, then 
 relieving him of his money and valuables. Usually the 
 "hold-up" man to avoid identification and arrest, covers his 
 face below the eyes with a triangular cloth or pocket hand- 
 kerchief, tied back of the head, wore a soft hat well down 
 over his eyes, although in many of the great train and bank 
 robberies shortly after the war, no masks of any kind were 
 worn. 
 
 The average train robbery band formerly consisted of 
 from five to eight men, but in recent years successful rob- 
 beries have been committed by from three to five men and 
 in a few instances by a lone individual. 
 
 Usually in these train robberies, one member of the 
 band, with red lantern or flag, at a lonely spot would signal 
 the train to a standstill, or one or two would board the 
 "blind end" of a baggage or express car and nearing the 
 point selected for the robbery, would climb over the tender 
 into the locomotive, "cover" the engineer and fireman. 
 
while others of the bandits uncoupled the express or money 
 car and forced the engineer to carry them a mile or two 
 distant, where the cars and safes would be forced open 
 with dynamite. Resistance usually resulted in the death of 
 those who interfered. Our study of the murders com- 
 mitted by these desperadoes shows fully 90 per cent to be 
 assassinations, those killed generally being defenseless, or 
 the outnumbering desperadoes by pouncing on their victims 
 when least expected, giving them no chance for their lives. 
 
 Escapes were usually made with horses Ih waiting, in 
 charge of a confederate at the place of the robbery, and 
 often with relays of horses previously arranged, for cov- 
 ering five or six hundred miles, until they arrived at the;r 
 homes or hiding places. 
 
 There is no crime in America so hazardous as 
 "hold-up'' robbery. Over two-thirds of those who 
 have been engaged in these crimes, were killed 
 while operating, or in resisting arrest, or from their 
 wounds, lynched by posses, or as is known "died with 
 their boots on," while nearly all others were either captured 
 or sentenced to long terms of imprisonment or driven from 
 the United States, becoming exiles in distant foreign climes. 
 Those at large are constantly in fear of arrest, living se- 
 cluded lives, and risking no chances of discovery by com- 
 municating with friends. 
 
 Shortly after the close of the Civil War there was an 
 epidemic of train robberies in Indiana, especially between 
 Indianapolis and New Albany on the Jeffersonvilie and 
 Indianapolis R. R., now part of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 
way System. My father, representing the Adams Express 
 Company, who were the principal losers in these raids, and 
 who had determined to disband this ''hold-up" band, un- 
 dertook this difficult task. It was early determined that 
 the robberies were perpetrated by a desperate gang who 
 made Seymour and the adjacent town of Rockford tlieir 
 i^eadquarters, practically under the leadership of the Reno 
 brothers, whose parents, hard working and respectable had 
 settled on an Indiana farm years before and raised a family 
 of five boys, John, Clinton, Sim, Bill and Frank, and a girl, 
 Laura. During the later part of the Civil War all of the 
 brothers, except Clinton, known as ''Honest Reno," began 
 criminal careers with the Reitenhouse brothers. Tame.; K. 
 and Joe and Miles and John Ogle, counterfeiters, and Peter 
 McCartney, an expert safe burglar, all of whom, as bounty 
 jumpers, had swindled the Government out of large sums 
 of money. At the close of the War, the Renos and their 
 associates had returned to their homes at Seymour, In- 
 diana, with plenty of money, dissipating, gambling and in- 
 dulging in other vicious dissoluteness. Other younger men 
 in their neighborhood, observing these reckless expenditures, 
 naturally desired to likewise acquire money quickly and 
 soon with the Renos and their confederates, including Albert 
 Sparks, Henry Moore, John Gerrold and Thomas Henry, 
 formed "hold-up" bands for robbing express messengers 
 on railroads near Seymour. Robbery after robbery fol- 
 lowed, arrests were numerous, but powerful influences and 
 desperate intimidations by the criminals and their friends 
 made their conviction practically impossible. Farmers sup- 
 
po>e(l to be inimical to the band were terrorized, by their 
 cattle l)cing poisoned or maimed and their homes and barns 
 burned until a reign of terror actually existed all over 
 Southern Indiana. 
 
 The Renos met their first Waterloo during the Winter of 
 1867 and 1868. John Reno had robbed the county treasur- 
 er's office at Gallatin, Mo., of $20,000 and returned to 
 Seymour, Ind., the stronghold of his criminal brothers, and 
 where he considered he was safe. But on plans arranged 
 by my father for a certain day, John Reno was decoyed by 
 one of our secret operatives to the Seymour depot for the 
 arrival of a through train, on which a Missouri Sheriff 
 with six deputies arrived and pounced upon Reno and pulled 
 him aboard. There was no time for Reno's usual savior, 
 the writ of habeas corpus, or any other legal technicality to 
 prevent his removal ; a good friend had looked after the 
 telegraph wires so that no detaining despatches could head 
 off the train and John Reno was landed over the Indiana 
 line into Jail at Gallatin, Mo., where he was soon convicted 
 and sentenced to 20 years in the Missouri Penitentiary, 
 serving every day of his sentence. 
 
 During the Winter of 1868, there were heavy robberies 
 of safes of county treasurers' offices in Western Iowa, the 
 last occurring at Glenwood, Mills Co., Iowa, when $20,000 
 was stolen. Our investigations had determined the crim- 
 inal- to be Frank Reno, Al Sparks, Miles Ogle and Mike 
 J\<»,i;cr-, the last named a wealthy land owner of Council 
 Bluffs, a pillar of the Methodist Church and highly respected 
 in his community. Following a robbery at Magnolia, Har 
 
 13 
 
risonville, we had traced the robbers to Council Bhiffs, 
 where a watch on Rogers' house resulted in the capture, the 
 day after the Glenwood robbery of the criminals named, 
 the proceeds of the raid still in their possession, they quickly 
 shoved it into a kitchen stove, from which we recovered it 
 partially burned. They were all taken to Glenwood, Iowa, 
 but on April i, 1868, broke jail and fled, Frank Reno going 
 to Windsor, Canada, where he became associated with 
 Charles Anderson, a clever burglar and general criminal 
 and with him eventually returned to Seymour. 
 
 Shortly after the Glenwod robbery. Walker Hammond, 
 afterwards noted as a counterfeiter, and Mike Colleran, of 
 Seymour, "held-up" an express messenger on a Jefferson- 
 ville railroad train, robbing him of $15,000 only to be "held- 
 up" by the Reno brothers and relieved of their plunder. 
 Hammond and Colleran were convicted and sentenced to 
 long terms of imprisonment in the Indiana State Peniten- 
 tiary. 
 
 Subsequently Frank, Sim and Billy Reno, with Aliles 
 Ogle and Charles Anderson, heavily armed, ''held-up" a 
 train near Seymour, threw the messenger into a ditch from 
 the moving train and robbed the Adams Express Company's 
 safe of $90,000. For this crime, Anderson and Frank 
 Reno were arrested at Windsor, Canada, and after a contest 
 lasting all Summer, were remanded for extradition and later 
 in charge of Pinkerton detectives were lodged in the New 
 Albany, Ind., jail. Meanwhile, Sim and Billy Reno were 
 arrested in Indianapolis, Ind., and also lodged in the same 
 jail. Henry Moore, Gerrold and Sparks and an unknown 
 
 14 
 
MILES OGLE. 
 One of the first train robbers. Member Reno Band " Hold ups.' 
 
 15 
 
man who "held-np" and robbed the J. ]\I. & I. R. R. had been 
 arrested at Seymour, and while enroute to the Brown- 
 stone jail were forcibly taken from their escorts and lynched 
 by excited citizens who had become incensed at the outrages 
 the Renos and their associates were committing. 
 
 This was followed by a Vigilance Committee, supposed 
 to have come from the neighborhood of Seymour, visiting 
 the New Albany jail, battering in the doors, over-powering 
 the guards and hanging Frank, Sim and Billy Reno and 
 Charles Anderson in the jail corridor. Notices were also 
 posted in public places about Seymour, naming 25 people 
 supposed to be affiliated with the Renos and warning them 
 that if any house, cattle or other property was destroyed, 
 the Committee would ''meet" but once more to clean 
 out the friends of the Renos remaining in the community. 
 These drastic, though apparently necessary measures 
 stopped train robbery in Southern Indiana; there has not 
 been a train robbery there since and the identity of the 
 Vigilantes is still a secret. 
 
 The State of Missouri has probably produced more train 
 robbers than any other state in the Union and of whom the 
 James brothers were the most desperate and vicious. 
 
 Among the Kentuckians who settled in Clay County, 
 Mo., before the War were Doctor and Mrs. Samuels and 
 their sons, Frank and Jesse James, sons of Mrs. Samuels' 
 previous marriage. When the War broke out, the brothers 
 joined the Quantrell band in their guerrilla warfare. After 
 
17 
 
the War the James boys, under the leadership of Bill An- 
 derson and operating with Cole, Jim, John and Bob Young- 
 er, Clell and John Miller, Charles Pitts, the Tompkins 
 brothers, Jim Cummings, Dick Liddell, and other members 
 of Ouantreirs band, began prowling through West and 
 Southwest Missouri and Eastern Kansas, looking for what 
 spoils they could get and for years committed a series of 
 the most despicable crimes of that period in Missouri, Ken- 
 tucky and Minnesota, "holding-up" banks in the day time, 
 robbing trains at night, murdering respectable citizens who 
 resisted them and killing officers who attempted their ar- 
 rest. 
 
 The published reports of the exploits of this band had 
 more to do with the making of bad men in the West than 
 anything which occurred before they began operating or 
 since. 
 
 At the time Jesse James was killed and his brother sur- 
 rendered the statement was made that neither was ever 
 arrested or captured by officers, State or Federal, but Judge 
 Philander Lucas of Liberty, Mo., states that during 1865- 
 1866, about eleven o'clock one morning, the James boys, 
 with Clell Miller, Jim Poole and George White, rode into 
 Liberty, firing off their revolvers and acting like a lot of 
 Indians ; that they entered Meffert's saloon, had drinks, and 
 as they left the saloon Sheriff Rickards arrested and dis- 
 armed the James boys, marched them into the Court House, 
 arraigned them before him and that he committed them to 
 the County jail. As a matter of fact, there were then no 
 charges against them. 
 
 iS 
 
3 K 
 
 ? V. 
 
 
 5o 
 = Z 
 
 19 
 
As a rule the James and Younger brothers and their as- 
 sociates, after each crime, would return tg their home. 
 Clay County, Mo., where they were virtually immune from 
 arrest, either through fear of them by the respectable ele- 
 ment or through the friendly aid they received from their 
 admirers. 
 
 The first of their robberies we were retained to investi- 
 gate was that of June 3, 1871, when the James and Younger 
 brothers visited Corydon, Wayne County, Iowa, intend- 
 ing to rob the county treasurer of recently collected taxes. 
 Jesse James entered the treasurer's office offering a one 
 hundred dollar bill for change, but the clerk informed him 
 of the absence of the county treasurer, who held the com- 
 bination of the locked safe, but suggested that a new bank 
 across the square, opened that day and which had one-halt 
 of its capital on deposit, might accommodate him, where- 
 upon Jesse consulted with his associates and the robbery of 
 the new bank was agreed upon. On Jesse offering the one 
 hundred dollar bill, the cashier opened the safe for the 
 change, only on turning around to look into the muzzle of 
 two revolvers. Jesse's associates who had meanwhile en- 
 tered the bank, then forced the president and cashier into 
 a^back room, emptied the contents of the safe, about fifteen 
 thousand dollars into saddle bags, relieved a new depositor, 
 a negro preacher, who had entered, of his handful of money, 
 then mounting their horses fled from the town, passing on 
 their way a public meeting, in the outskirts, where a site 
 for a new school house was beinj^- discussed, and which 
 

 5! "^ 
 
 2 W 
 
accounted for the county trea>urcr's absence from his office, 
 and saved his safe from being plundered. 
 
 As the bandits rode by the meeting they fired, in the 
 air, a fusillade from their revolvers and rifles, at the same 
 time informing the gathering of the robbery of the bank 
 and advising that they return to town and start a new bank. 
 
 Robert Pinkerton, then a young man, with a posse 
 traced the outlaws through the lower counties of Iowa. Then 
 with an Iowa Sheriff, the balance of the posse having with- 
 drawn, continued into Missouri as far as Cameron Junction, 
 a cross road station, where the Sheriff left for additional 
 help; but Robert Pinkerton continued following the trail to 
 the Missouri River where the band separated, some cross- 
 ing at Sibley Ferry, others at Blue Mill Ferry, all meeting 
 afterwards at the Old Blufe Mill, -from which point they 
 continued South, evidently making towards the James home 
 in Clay County. Here, Robert Pinkerton, recognizing the 
 folly of continuing alone withdrew. 
 
 On July 20, 1873, the James brothers committed their 
 first train "hold-up" robbery on the Chicago, Rock Island 
 & Pacific R. R., wrecking the train fifteen miles east of 
 Council 1 fluffs, Iowa, murdered the unarmed engineer, 
 wounded the fireman, injured passengers and robbed the ex- 
 press car of a large amount of money. 
 
 January 31, 1874, the James brothers aided by the 
 Younger brothers, Clcll ^filler and Jim Cummings, com- 
 mitted their second train "hold-up" robbery, this, on the 
 Iron ^Mountain Roa^l ai < ;a<Miil], Mo., fiaggiwg the train to 
 a standstill and "Ivjld-up" and robbing it of $I0,000. Jn 
 
CLHLl. MILLHK aiul lilLL CIIADWlvLL. 
 
 [James band.] 
 
 Killed by posse after Northficld, Minn, bank raid. 
 
 23 
 
the investigation of this robbery Joseph W. Witcher, one 
 of our detectives from Chicago, on March lo, 1874, was 
 overpowered, bound with ropes and put on a horse, Clell 
 Miller and Jesse James taking him from their home in Clav 
 County, Mo., to near Independence, Jackson County, Mo., 
 where they assassinated him, leaving his body at the cross- 
 ing of the Deerington and Independence road where the 
 Iowa Sheriff left Robert Pinkerton three years before. 
 
 A few days later Louis Lull, a former captain of police 
 in Chicago, but then in our employ, in company with an 
 ex-Deputy Sheriff and a man named Daniels, met John and 
 Jirn Younger on a road near Montegaw Springs, St. Clair 
 County, Mo., and in the effort to arrest them. Lull killed 
 John Younger, but was himself mortally wounded, dying 
 six weeks later. Daniels was killed and Jim Younger was 
 seriously wounded. 
 
 The James brothers band also committed robberies on 
 the Union Pacific R. R., at Munsey, Kas., in December, 
 1875. securing $55,000, also on the Missouri Pacific R. R. 
 at Otterville, Mo., July 8, 1876, securing $[7,000, and when 
 McDaniels, one of the band being arrested with part of the 
 booty, was killed in an attempt to escape. 
 
 Their next serious crime was in Scptc]nl)cr, 1876, when 
 they attempted to rob a 1:)ank at Xorthfield, Minn., and 
 killed the cashier, J. L. Haywood. Citizens of the town 
 opened fight and killed P.ill Chadwcll. Clell Miller and 
 Charlev Pitt^. 1h>1) and |im ^^ninq-cr and Jesse James 
 
 24 
 
25 
 
were wounded. Cole Younger picked up Bob and carried 
 him away on his horse. A few days later. Cole, Jim and 
 Bob Younger, surrounded in a swamp, were captured. 
 
 Frank James managed to get Jesse into Dakota and 
 thence to the Missouri River, where they stole a skill and 
 made their escape. 
 
 Cole, Jim and Bob Younger were sentenced to long 
 terms of imprisonment in the Shelwater, Minn., State 
 Prison. 
 
 September i6, 1899, Bob Younger died in prison. 
 
 July 10, 1901, Cole and Jim Younger were pardoned by 
 the Minnesota State Board of Pardons. October 18, 
 1902, Jim Younger committed suicide at St. Paul, Minn. 
 
 April 3, 1882, Bob Ford, a former associate of the 
 James boys, for a reward of $10,000 offered by Gov. Crit- 
 tendon for Jesse's body dead or alive, killed him w^hile he 
 was hanging a picture in his home at St. Joseph, Mo. Bob 
 and Charles Ford surrendered themselves for this crime anvi 
 were convicted and sentenced to death, but pardoned by 
 Governor Crittendon and paid the $10,000; thus to Gover- 
 nor Crittendon is due the final disbanding of the James 
 brothers band of outlaws and in this he was aided by Sherift* 
 Timberlake of Clay County and Commissioner of Police 
 Craig of Kansas City. 
 
 Frank James afterwards surrendered to the Missouri 
 authorities, stood trial, and w^as acquitted of the Gallatin, 
 Mo., bank robbery. Governor Crittendon refused to sur- 
 render him to the Minnesota authorities, and he subse- 
 
 26 
 
quently settled in Western Missouri, and so far as I know, 
 is now living a straightforward life. 
 
 Jesse James and the Youngers are all buried at the 
 scenes of their boyhood days in Western Missouri. 
 
 Charley Bullard, alias *Tiano Charley" and ''Ike" Marsh, 
 alias "Big Ike", who first came into prominence as "hold- 
 up" robbers, have had rather an interesting career. 
 
 In 1869, Bullard and Marsh concealed themselves in a 
 Hudson River R. R. train between New York City and 
 Buffalo, "held-up", bound and gagged the messenger of the 
 Merchants Union Express Co., and stole one hundred thou- 
 sand dollars. 
 
 Bullard and Marsh were arrested in Canada, extradited 
 and lodged in the White Plains, N. Y., jail for trial, from 
 which, aided by ''Billy" Forrester, an old-time associate, 
 they escaped. 
 
 November 20, 1869, Bullard and Marsh with Adam 
 Worth and "Bob" Cochran, stole from the Boylston Bank, 
 Boston, Mass., cash and securities, valued at four hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars and fled to Europe with theil 
 plunder. 
 
 At the Washington Hotel, Liverpool, Bullard met and 
 married a beautiful bar maid named Kittie Flynn, went to 
 Paris, opened the famous American bar at Rue Scribe, 
 where his wife's beauty and engaging manners attracted 
 many American visitors as well as making it the head- 
 
 27 
 
quarters of American gamblers and criminals who here 
 planned many of their European crimes. 
 
 Bullard was, however, eventually, arrested and after a 
 sentence of one year in Paris for keeping a gambling house, 
 returned to the United States, was arrested in New York 
 City for the Boylston Bank robbery and sentenced to twentv 
 years in the State's prison at Concord, Mass., from which 
 he escaped September 13, 1878, and fled to Canada, where 
 he was arrested for a safe burglary and sentenced to five 
 years imprisonment at Kingston. After serving this, he 
 went abroad and with Max Shinburn, the notorious bank 
 burglar, was arrested in the act of robbing a Bank at Vi\-- 
 eres, Belgium. Bullard was sentenced to seventeen years 
 imprisonment, in the Belgium penitentiary, where he died 
 in the early part of 1890. Bullard was well educated, spoke 
 English, French and German, fluently ; was a skillful pianist, 
 from which he gained the sobriquet of 'Tiano Charley." 
 
 After the Boylston Bank robbery, "Ike" Marsh separ- 
 ated from Bullard and with George Mason burglarized the 
 First National Bank of Wellsboro, Pa., for which he was 
 arrested, convicted and sentenced to seventeen years 
 imprisonment in the Eastern Penitentiary, Philadelphia. 
 While there he became a stationary engineer, and after his 
 release, having reformed, followed his vocation as an engi- 
 neer in Philadelphia, and is still so employed there. 
 
 In the early seventies. Levy and Hillary Farrington, 
 from near Gilliam Station, West Tennessee, William Taylor, 
 
 2S 
 
\\ illiain Barton, formerly a railroad brakeman and George 
 Bertine, all from A\'estern Tennessee, commenced train 
 *1iold-iip" robberies on the Nashville and Northwestern and 
 Mobile and Ohio Railroads, and after each ''hold-up'' the 
 only trace of the robbers would be a skiff, left by the bandits 
 tloatini^- l)()ttnni up on the ^Mississippi. 
 
 On the 6th of October, 1871, a train on the ■Mobile and 
 Ohio R. R. at Union City, Tenn., was attacked, the guard 
 and messenger overpowered and the safe of the Southern 
 Express Company robbed of $20,000. I was then supervis- 
 ing for our Agency, all train robbery cases, and with Pat- 
 rick Connell, Special Agent of the Southern Express Co., 
 and an assistant named Bedlow, traced the men, as usual, 
 to the Mississippi River, where an over-turned skiff* was 
 found and trace lost. After a most thorough scouring of 
 the country and up and down the Mississippi River, we 
 learned of a party of strange men in a swamp near Lester's 
 Landing, Tenn., where we subsequently determined, they, to 
 cover their real business of train robbery, had opened a 
 small store. This we surrounded and attacked ; the train 
 robbers, who were heavily armed resisting and in the re- 
 sulting fight, Henry Bertine was killed and Hillary Far- 
 rington and William Barton escaped. Hillary Farrington, 
 we traced to Western Missouri, near Vinita, on the edge ot 
 Indian Territory, where wdth the aid of a deputy sheriff 
 and some residents of the neighborhood, we surrounded the 
 house in which he was secreted, but finally had i^ hie 
 to it in order to r]i<;]odge and arrest him. 
 
 29 
 
A few days later Levy Farriiigton was arrested near 
 Farmington, Ills., b}^ the City Marshal and Robert A. Pink- 
 erton, while William Taylor, the last of the band, was ar- 
 rested by Patrick Connell and myself at Real Foot Lake, 
 Tenn., and all taken to Union City, Tenn., for examination. 
 When Levy Farrington arrived here in the custody of Rob- 
 ert A. Pinkerton, a friend named Toler, in attempting his 
 rescue, shot and killed the Assistant City Marshal and 
 seriously wounded a railroad watchman at Union City. 
 Toler was pursued and captured and a Vigilance Committee 
 was formed. Recognizing what might take place, we suc- 
 ceeded in getting Barton and Taylor out of the hotel where 
 they were confined and heavily guarded, to the Memphis, 
 Tenn., jail, but being unable to get the other prisoners away, 
 the Vigilance Committee overpowered the local officers who 
 were guarding them and that night shot and killed Levy 
 Farrington and lynched Toler. 
 
 Taylor and Barton afterwards pleaded guilty to train 
 robbery and were sentenced to long terms in the State 
 Prison at Nashville, Tenn. 
 
 For very many years after train robbery in West Ten- 
 nessee was an unknown crime. 
 
 In 1877, Sam Bass, Frank Hulfish, William Nixon, 
 Henry Underwood and James Berry, a gang of cowboys, 
 under the leadership of Joel Collins, near Big Springs, Neb., 
 "held-up" a Union Pacific R. R. train, stealing $60,000 in 
 gold, with which they started on horseback for Texas. Joel 
 Collins, son of a preacher, came from near Dallas, Texas, 
 
 30 
 
aii<l was one of four brothers, all of whom went wrong ex- 
 cept Joe, who was a prominent respectable cattleman. Col- 
 lins and Hulfish, ten days after the robbery near Ellsworth, 
 Kas., and resisting arrest by United States troops were shot 
 and killed : the money they carf ied with them was recovered. 
 About two weeks later Jim Berry, who was traced to ;i 
 farm near Mexico, Mo., was also shot and killed resisting 
 arrest. Bass, Nixon and Underwood escaped, Nixon sail- 
 ing from New^ Orleans, La., to Spanish Honduras, where he 
 is still a fugutive and where he invested his share of the 
 robbery, $10,000 gold, in business. 
 
 We located and caused the arrest of Henry Underwood 
 and returned him to Kearney, Neb., where he escaped from 
 jail and was last heard from as in the Indiana State Prison. 
 
 Sam Bass returned to Denton Co., Tex., where he has 
 been a deputy Sheriff, and had many friends. He soon 
 organized another band of train robbers, consisting of Wil- 
 liam and Albert Collins, brothers of Joel, James Pikes, Joe 
 Herndon, of the Collins homestead, Henry Jackson and 
 ''Arkansas Johnson." They attacked the Southern Express 
 ' the Texas and Pacific R. R. and the Houston and 
 
 ... Central R. R. and in the fall of 1877 committed a 
 r ^hhery at AFcsquit, near Dallas, Texas. We co-operated 
 witli the local authorities and Texas rangers, resulting in 
 t'i'" :n iv^t of AX'illiam Collins, Pikes and Herndon, the latter 
 convicted at Tyler, Texas, and sentenced to life 
 iiiipr. 'iinient in the United States Penitentiary at Detroit, 
 Mich. 
 
 31 
 
o 
 
 'A ^ 
 
 
 32 
 
Bill Collins forfeited his bond, bnt was located at Pem- 
 bina. A Finn., working as a cowboy. When Joseph Anderson, 
 DepiiiN I'. S. Alarshal from Dallas, Texas, attempted to 
 arrest him, both fired simultaneously, killing each other. 
 
 Albert Collins and "Arkansas Johnson" were killed re- 
 sisting arrest. Sam Bass, with a confederate, was decoyed 
 to Round Rock, Tex., by a friend, Jim Murphy, to rob a 
 bank and was surrounded by Texas rangers and detectives, 
 the Sheriff and his deputies; the effort to arrest them re- 
 sulting in the killing of Bass and his companion. Jim 
 Murphy, the "stool-pigeon," escaped unhurt, only to die 
 shortly after collecting his reward, and is said to have been 
 poisoned by friends of the Collins. Frank Johnson became 
 a fugitive from justice and is supposed to have settled in 
 Montana under an assumed name. 
 
 In 1888, Rube and Jim Burrows, originally from Ver- 
 non, Lamar County, Alabama, with W. L. Brock, all of 
 whom had been railroad employees, farm-hands and cow- 
 boys, robbed the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Pacific Ry. 
 in Texas, for which Brock was arrested and confessed, im- 
 plicating the Burrows brothers. The Burrows boys re- 
 tnnu<l tM Montgomery, Ala., where they were arrested. 
 While en route to the police station. Rube began firing and 
 escaped. Jim, however, was overpowered and taken to 
 Arkansas for trial for train robljery at Genowa, that state, 
 and died in jail. 
 
 Rube Burrows kept in hiding until 1893, when he "held- 
 
 33 
 
W. L. BROCK. 
 Associate of Rube and Jim Burrows. 
 
 34 
 
up" a train on the Illinois Central Ry., near Sardis, Miss. 
 He was subsequently killed by a posse, searching for him, 
 in Middle Florida, iirock served a short term in the peni- 
 tentiary. 
 
 In 1891, after the train left Tower Grove, a suburb of 
 St. Louis, two masked men boarded the ''blind" end of the 
 express car, crawled over the tender and forced the engi- 
 neer and firemen to stop the train at a cut near Old Orchard, 
 where two additional men, also masked, boarded the rear 
 end of the car. The messenger refused their demand to 
 open the side door of the car, turned down the light, se- 
 cured his revolver and began defending his trust. Immedi- 
 ately a heavy explosion occurred, tearing the car to pieces 
 and filling the air with flying debris, a piece of which struck 
 the messenger in the hip, knocking the revolver from his 
 hand. Then the robbers, entered, opened the safe with 
 nitro-glycerine, taking the contents, $10,000, and escaped. 
 Co-operating with Lawrence Harrigan, then Chief of Police, 
 and William Desmond of the detective department of St. 
 Louis, Mo., we determined the *'hold-ups" to be Marion C. 
 Hedgepeth, a notorius Western outlaw, James Francis, a 
 St. Louis burglar, Dink Wilson, an Omaha burglar, and 
 Adelbert Sly of St. Joe, Mo., at one time a driver for the 
 American Express Co., and who had stolen $20,000 from 
 them. We learned Sly had gone to Los Angeles, and there 
 Robert A. Pinkerton, aided by Detective Whittaker of San 
 Francisco and Detective TIawley of Los Angeles arrested 
 
 35 
 
MARION HEDGSPETH. 
 Stole $io,oo3 from St. Louis & San Francisco express. 
 
 36 
 
him and later the San Francisco ix)Hce, after a desperate 
 struggle arrested Hedgepeth in that city. Hedgepeth and 
 Sly were returned to St. Louis, convicted and sentenced to 
 20 years imprisonment. Sly is now at Liherty, but Hedge- 
 ])eth. after his release continued his life of crimtr. 
 [Is now, October, 1907, awaiting trial at Council Bluffs, 
 Iowa, for a safe burglary there on September i, 1907.] 
 Francis was killed near Pleasandon, Kas., resistmg arrest. 
 Wilson shot and killed Detective Harvey of Syracuse, N. Y., 
 for which he was electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison, N. Y., 
 and his brother Charley, wlio \\a^ with Dink when Detec- 
 tive Harvey was killed, who we located in Buffalo, N. Y., 
 and caused lii> arrest, wa> sentenced to prison for life. 
 
 In 1891, at Western Union Junction on the Chicago, Mil- 
 waukee & St. Paul R. R. not far from Racine, Wis., a train 
 was "held-up" and on the express messenger refusing to 
 surrender the express car was attacked with dynamite, lit- 
 erally blowing the safe to pieces and the messenger barely 
 escaped with his life. 
 
 Later at Mankato, Minn., on the Xorthern Pacific R. R. 
 a similar robbery was attempted, d lie identity of the "hold- 
 ups" in these two robberies was unknown, but in the latter 
 case, two suspects ha\in.^ ])urchased tickets for California 
 via Portland, Ore., we. In telegraphing the numbers of these 
 tickets and descriptions of the suspects to our Portland, 
 Ore., office the suspects were put under surveillance, 
 located at \'isalia, Cal.. and identified as John and George 
 Sontag, brothers, originall\ from Mankato. Minn., who 
 
 37 
 
O 
 
 o 
 
 38 
 
had joined Chris Evans, an associate. Our watching of 
 them developed the fact of their purchasing dynamite, and 
 other circumstances towards verifying the suspicion against 
 them, but not estabhshing evidence to act upon, our sur- 
 veillance was stopped for the time being. 
 
 At Collins Station, Fresno Co., Cal., August 3, 1892, 
 a Southern Pacific R. R. train was "held-up", the express 
 car dynamited and $2,300 stolen. With the information of 
 our previous investigation the railroad detectives and ex- 
 press special agents established the fact that the robbers were 
 the men wt had followed to Visalia, Cal., and an attempt 
 to arrest them resulted in one of the officers being killed, 
 another dangerously wounded, and the bandits escaping. A 
 regular man-hunt, one of the most exciting that ever oc- 
 curred on the Pacific Coast followed for months through 
 the mountains of California, resulting finally in the arres'. of 
 George Sontag, who, forty hours after was sentenced to life 
 imprisonment in the Folsom, Cal., Penitentiary. SeverJ 
 months afterwards John Sontag and Chris Evans were cap- 
 tured, after a long and desperate fight with a posse, both 
 were badly wounded, Evans losing his right eye and one 
 arm. 
 
 John Sontag died in jail, soon after his arrest. Evans 
 was sentenced to life imprisonment, but escaped from jail 
 at Fresno, December 28, 1893; ^^as recaptured, February 
 18, 1894, and is now serving a life sentence in the Folsoni, 
 Cal., prison. 
 
 39 
 
CHRIS EVANS. 
 Associate of Sontag Bros. 
 
 40 
 
The Dalton brothers. Rill, Bob, Emmctt and Grattan, 
 committed a series of robberies in Missouri, Arkansas, In- 
 dian Territory, Oklahoma and California, from February, 
 1891, to May, 1894, operating with Joe Evans, ''Texa^ 
 Jack,'' Tom Littleton, Jim Wallace, Charles White and ]wi 
 Jones. They ''held-up'' a train on the Southern Paciiic 
 R. R. at Alila, Tulare County, California, killed the express 
 messenger and fireman ; '*held-up" the Wells Fargo Express 
 at Red Rock, Indian Territory, ''held-up" a Missouri, Kan- 
 sas and Texas passenger train at Adair, Indian Territory, 
 securinj^ the contents of the Pacific Express Co.'s safe. 
 
 At Cotteyville, Kansas, on October 5, 1892, one band 
 attempted to rob a private bank, while the other made a 
 similaV attack on the First National lUmk. The cashier 
 of the former temporized with the bandits by telling them 
 the safe opened with a time lock, and the money could not 
 be reached until ten o'clock, giving time for a raiding party 
 to be organized, resulting in the killing of Bob Dalton, Joe 
 Evans, ''Texas Jack," Grattan and Emmett Dalton and sev- 
 eral citizens. Bill Dalton, the only member who escaped, 
 organized another gang and on May 23, 1894, *'held-up" the 
 First National Bank at Longview, Texas, presenting the fol- 
 lowing note to the president: 
 
 "I Ionic, May 27,.'' 
 First Xaii' Mial liaiik. Longview. 
 
 This will intn^ducc to you Charles Sprecklcmcyer, 
 who wants some money and is going to have it 
 
 W. & F." 
 aVftcr the president read the note, he found Dalton 
 
 41 
 
o " 
 
 m 
 
 o 
 
 PQ 
 
 42 
 
pointing a rifle at him, while a confederate stole. $2,000 from 
 the paying teller's cage and decamped. A posse, who pur- 
 sued the robbers, killed Jim Wallace, one of the band, the 
 other escaping. Of the stolen money, three ten dollar and 
 nine twenty-dollar bills were new^ unsigned bank notes and 
 through these Bill Dalton was traced to Ardmore, I. T., 
 and on June 8, 1894, was killed while resisting arrest. 
 
 Nearly every member of this gang 'Vlied with his boots 
 on. 
 
 After the death of Bill Dalton, Bill Cook collected the 
 remnants of the Dalton gang and formed one of the most 
 desperate and notorious bands of outlaws, desperadoes and 
 murderers in the West. The band at various times, in- 
 cluding Bill Cook, Jim Cook, Jim French, Bill Doolin, Craw- 
 ford Crosby, alias "Cherokee Bill," ''Buck Wightman,'* 
 "Columbus Means," Thurman Palding, alias "Skeeter," Joe 
 Jennings, Charles Clifton, Sam Brown, George Newton, 
 Perry Brown, George Newcomb, alias ''Slaughter Kid." 
 Charles Pierce, alias "Bitter Creek," Tom Ouarles, Elmer 
 Lucas, Lou Gordan, Curtis Deason, Ol Yantis, Henry Mun- 
 son, "Tulca Jack," Dick Yeager and Zip Wyatt. Bill, Tom, 
 Jim, Lulu and Rose Cook were half-breed Cherokee In- 
 dians. 
 
 July 18, 1894, Bill Cook, "Skeeter," "Cherokee Bill," 
 Henry Munson, Curtis Deason and Elmer Lucas, "held-up" 
 a Frisco train at Red Fork, Ark. Munson was killed trying 
 to escape, but Deason was captured. The others escaped. 
 Deason was sentenced to a long term in the penitentiary. 
 
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 hf) 
 
 H^ 
 
 
 hJ 
 
 r^ 
 
 w 
 
 fl 
 
 H 
 
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 P^ 
 
 'r? 
 
 
 Q 
 
 o 
 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 44 
 
July 31, 1894, ^t about ten o'clock in the morning, Bill 
 Cook, Elmer Lucas, Jack Star, "Tulca Jack" and one other 
 rode into Chandler, O. T., *'held-up" the Lincoln County 
 Bank, killed a citizen named J. ^I. ^Mitchell, who had tried 
 to give the alarm, rode from the town followed by a posse 
 who came up with them and a fifteen-minute battle resulted. 
 One of the bandits, Elmer Lucas, was badly wounded and 
 captured, the rest escaping. Lucas was sentenced to 15 
 years in the penitentiary. 
 
 October 20, 1894, this band wrecked the Kansas City and 
 Memphis express at Corretta, L T., by throwing a switch 
 running it into a string of empty cars, marched the engineer 
 and fireman to the baggage and express cars, forced the 
 messenger to open the door, but, as the messenger insisted 
 that the safe was locked and could not be opened until it 
 reached its destination, the gang went through the train and 
 obtained about $500 from the passengers. While still en- 
 gaged in this, a freight train whistled nearby and the bandits 
 fled. 
 
 October 23, 1894, at Watooa, the bandits under Bill 
 Cook's lead, drove every citizen to cover and then robbed 
 ^very store in town. 
 
 November 13, 1894, some of the gang led by Bill Cook, 
 ^'Cherokee Bill" and Jim French, "held-up" a Missouri, 
 Kansas and Texas train, at Wybank, a blind siding, within 
 four miles of Muskogee, L T., by side tracking the train. 
 They attempted to enter the express and baggage cars, but 
 failing, shot out all the windows in ihc c:\v<, riddled the 
 sides of the cars and then robbed the passenger^. 
 
 45 
 
WILLIAM MINER. 
 
 An old time Pacific Coast stage and train robber. Escaped Aug. 8, 1907, from 
 
 Westminster Penitentiary, British Columbia, where 
 
 he wasyserving a life sentence. 
 
 46 
 
November 28, 1894, Jim French and several others at 
 Chrotah, I. T., '*held-up" nine people in a store, plundered 
 the store, the bandits retiring without firing a shot. 
 
 Little by little, however, at the cost of the lives of many 
 brave officers and the expenditure of a large amount of 
 money, the members of the Cook band were exterminated or 
 imprisoned and after the United States Government had 
 offered $250 each for the capture of these outlaws. Nov- 
 ember 21, 1894, Jim Cook was sentenced to 8 years in the 
 penitentiary for murder. November 22, 1894, "Skeeter" 
 at Ft. Scott, Ark., pleaded guilty and was sentenced to the 
 penitentiary. February 12, 1895, Bill Cook in the U. S. 
 Court at Fort Smith, Ark., was sentenced to fifty years in 
 the N. Y. State Penitentiary at Albany, N. Y. January 30, 
 1895. "Cherokee Bill" was captured at Nowata, I. T., after 
 he had started to organize a new band. 
 
 Others of these outlaws killed while resisting arrest were 
 Dick Broadwell, Ol Yantis, Charles Pierce, alias "Bitter 
 Creek,*' George Newcomb, alias "Slaughter Kid," Bill Dool- 
 in, "Tulca Jack," Henry Munson and Zip Wyatt. 
 
 "Black Jack" McDonald, who was originally one of the 
 Dalton gang, began operations in the Southwest in 1896 
 with George Musgrave, Bob Hayes, Cole Young, Bob Lewis 
 and Sid Moore, principally "holding-up" general stores and 
 post offices and killing those who attempted to arrest them. 
 
 August, 1896, they unsuccessfully attempted to rob a 
 bank at Nogales, Arizona. October, 1896, they attempted to 
 rob an Atlantic & Pacific R. R. train but a Deputy United 
 States Marshal, who was on the train, organized a posse, 
 
 47 
 
killed Cole Young and the others escaped without getting 
 any booty. The others were eventually killed resisting ar- 
 rest, ^'Black Jack," the last of the Mohicans, so to speak, 
 being killed in Grant Co., New Mexico, in 1897. 
 
 "Old Bill" Miner, who escaped from the New West- 
 minster Penitentiary, New Westminster, B. C, August 8, 
 1907, where he was serving a life sentence for the robbery 
 of the Canadian Pacific R. R. train at Furrer, British 
 Columbia, on the early morning of May 9, 1906, in his early 
 criminal career was one of the most remarkable single- 
 handed stage and train robbers who ever operated in the 
 far West, always going about his work in a matter-of-fact 
 way, never posing as a bad man, and never taking human 
 life. He never belonged to any organized band of "hold- 
 ups," generally worked alone until later years he picked up 
 others to assist him. 
 
 As early as 1869, he served a term for stage robbery in 
 San Quentin, Cal., prison. In 1879, after his release he, 
 with others, robbed the Del Norte stage in Colorado, of 
 thirty-six hundred dollars. An associate, Leroy, was cap- 
 tured and hanged by a Vigilance Committee, but Miner es- 
 caped with the booty, to Chicago, then to Michigan, where 
 he posed as a California capitalist, until his money was ex- 
 hausted when he again returned to Colorado and committed 
 several other "hold-up" robberies. 
 
 In 1 88 1, Miner, Jirh Crum, Bill Miller and a man named 
 Jones, "held-up" a stage between Sonora and Milton, Cali- 
 fornia. All were captured except Jones. Crum confessed. 
 
 4H 
 
Miller and MiiK-r were >ciUciice(l to 25 years each, Crum to 
 twelve years. Miiur was released from San Ouentin, CaL, 
 on June 17, 1901, and two year? later on September 23, 
 1903, with two others he "held-u]) " and n )bbed the Oregon 
 Railroad and Navigation passenger train No. 6, at Mile 
 Post 21, near Corbett, Oregon. One of his companions was 
 badly wounded. The other was later arrested and both 
 were sentenced to long terms, but ]^Iiner, for whom a re- 
 ward of $1,300 had been offered, was not captured. ]\Iiner 
 on September 10, 1904. at Mission Junction, British Colum- 
 bia, "held-up" the Canadian Pacific Co.'s railway's trans- 
 continental express, securing $10,000 in gold dust and cur- 
 rency. For his capture $5,000 reward was offered by the 
 Government of the Dominion of Canada, $5,000 by the 
 Canadian Pacific and the Dominion Express Co. and $1,500 
 by the Province of British Columbia. Rewards of $12,800 
 seems to have had no terrors to Miner, for on the morning 
 of May 9, 1906, he again "held-up'' the Canadian Pacific 
 Railway train, this time at Furrer, B. C, the robbers com- 
 pelling the engineer to uncouple the mail car and haul it 
 a mile away, where they rified it of registered mail. ^liner 
 believed the express packages were in the mail car and 
 when he found they were not, he lost his nerve, abandoned 
 the robbery and escaped. Large rewards induced posses to 
 take up the pursuit. The Canadian Constabulary, after a 
 fight in which one of them was wounded, on May 14, 1906, 
 arrested Miner, also his confederates, Louis Colquhoun and 
 Thomas Dunn. Miner anrl Dunn were given life sentences, 
 Colquhoun 25 years. 
 
 49 
 
'■ Black Bart," the 
 
 I '.LACK BART. 
 ' P. ()." ^ stage and train i 
 
 50 
 
Miner is said to have originated the expression, "Hands- 
 up," and was one of the first highwaymen to operate on the 
 Pacific Coast. 
 
 From 1877 to 1883, stages in the mountains of Califor- 
 nia were *'held-up" by a lone highwayman, always wearing 
 a conical circus clown hat, an old linen duster and a jute 
 bag about his lower legs. 
 
 At times, near the intended ''hold-up", he would arrange 
 a screen of jute bagging or canvas, placing behind it dum- 
 mies made of slouch hats on sticks and all so realistic as to 
 readily deceive. While ordering the dummies not to shoot 
 until he directed or there was some sign of resistance, he 
 would request the driver to please throw out the box and 
 mail bags, the "box" being the treasure box or safe of the 
 Wells Fargo Express Co., containing a large sum of money. 
 He was always polite to the passengers, especially to the 
 ladies, and after each robbery there would be a few lines of 
 doggerel poetry, signed "Black Bart, the P. O. 8." This and 
 the handwriting showed the lone robber to be of more than 
 ordinary intelligence, well bred, and not of the rufHan 
 type. 
 
 First a mail coach in the Sierras was attacked, next he 
 would be heard from in the Siskiyou Mountains, on the 
 old trail into Oregon, and so on, altogether committing 
 twenty-three robberies, and for whose apprehension, a large 
 reward was offered. Only once did a driver get a good 
 look at him and described him a- an American, fifty years 
 of age, with long gray hair, thin face, deep set eyes, promi- 
 nent teeth and somewhat dignified appearance. 
 
 51 
 
The only record of "Black P3art" being shot at was on 
 November 3, 1883,, between Milton and Sonora, in 
 Tiiolomne County, about three miles from Copperopolis, 
 Cal., on the old mail road from Yosemite. On this particu- 
 lar trip, McConnell, the stage driver, allowed a boy of the 
 neighborhood, who had a gun, to ride with him, but the lad 
 got down just before the stage was stopped and had gone 
 into the woods. The robber who, as the stage approached, 
 as was his custom, had used powerful field glasses to de- 
 termine if an armed guard was aboard, as he "held-up'' the 
 stage asked the driver what had become of the man with 
 the gun. The driver told him the truth, but as ''Bart'' 
 started off w^ith the boxes and mail bags of gold valued at 
 forty- four hundred dollars, also five hundred and fifty 
 dollars in coin, the boy returned and McConnell snatching 
 the rifle from him, fired four shots at the retreating robber, 
 but failed to hit him. 
 
 Immediately after this, as well as after "Bart's" other 
 robberies, detectives promptly explored the surrounding 
 country, this time near a camp fire, finding a slouch hat, 
 silk handkerchief and a linen cuff with blood stains upon it, 
 the cuff having on it a laundry mark. This was the first 
 real clue and resulted in the detectives finding the San Fran- 
 cisco laundry that had placed the mark on the cuff and de- 
 termining that it belonged to one E. C. Bolton. The arrev.t 
 and identification of **Black Bart'* followed. He was also 
 known as Charles E. Benton and Charles E. Bowles, had 
 lived at an unpretentious boarding house in San Francisco, 
 passing as a mining man and which accounted for his oc- 
 
FRANK SHERCLIFFE. 
 Lone Highwayman. Train bank and Faro bank Robber. 
 
 53 
 
casional absence. He pleaded guilty to his last robbery, 
 but strenuously denied that he was the ''Black Bart" who 
 committed the others and declared to the Court that it was 
 only urgent necessity that drove him to commit this crime. 
 On November 17, 1883, he was sentenced to six years in the 
 prison at San Ouentin, Cal. He originally came from De- 
 catur, Ills., where he had worked on farms, and from where 
 in Company B, 160 Illinois Regiment, served three years in 
 the Civil War. He w^as known in his regiment as ''Wrest- 
 ling Charlie," and so far as could be learned outside of his 
 "hold-ups" had led a respectable life, was a teetotaler, a 
 man of fine education, a remarkably good story teller and 
 since his release he has been seen more or less in honest 
 occupations on the Pacific Coast. 
 
 During "Black Bart's" criminal career he never took a 
 life or injured a human being. 
 
 Early in the evening of November 4, 1892, at Omaha, 
 Frank Shercliffe, alias Sherman W. ^Morris, boarded a Sioux 
 City and Pacific Railroad train, and as it neared California 
 Junction, Iowa, completely disguised w^ith a false beard, he 
 attacked William G. Pollock, a New York diamond mer- 
 chant, with a bag of shot, until it was broken open, then 
 seriously wounding him in the arm and shoulder with a 
 revolver ripped open his vest and stole therefrom unmount- 
 ed diamonds valued at twenty thousand dollars, signaled the 
 train to stop, and escaped. 
 
 As a result of our liandling the matter for the Jeweler-' 
 Protective Union, Sherclift'e was arrested and tried at Lo- 
 
 54 
 
"CAPT." EUGENE BUNCH. 
 Southern Express Robber. Killed Evadinj;? .\rrest. 
 
 55 
 
gan. Iowa, and >LMUL'nce(l to Mwiiiecn years in the Fort 
 Madison, Iowa, penitentiary. 
 
 He is believed to be the lone ''hold-up" man who, during 
 1892. prior to the attack on ]\Ir. Pollock, robbed gamblers 
 and proprietors of gambling houses in the Northw^est, usu- 
 ally entering at late hours of the night, while all were en- 
 gaged in their games and relieving them of such money 
 as they had on hand. 
 
 He began his career as a criminal when a boy seventeen 
 years of age, by robbing a safe at Aurora, Illinois, shot at 
 the officers who attempted to arrest him, but was captured. 
 Since then he has been engaged in a number of daring 
 robberies in the middle and far West. Like the average 
 professional criminal, he squandered his ill gotten gains, 
 but since his release from prison in 1904, still young, but 
 broken in health and prematurely aged he has married and, 
 seemingly is endeavoring to lead an honest life. 
 
 In November , 1888, a United States Express messenger 
 was "held-up" on a train near New Orleans, La., and robbed 
 of $20,000. , Investigation proved the robber to be Captain 
 Eugene F. Bunch, alias Captain Gerald, a former newspaper 
 editor of Gainesville, Texas. 
 
 Acting with the special officer of the Southern Express 
 Company, and a local official, we finally located Bunch in 
 a swamp near Franklinton, La., where, on August 21, 1892, 
 he was killed resisting arrest. 
 
 September 30, 1891, Oliver Curtis Perry boarded a 
 New York Central R. R. train at All)any. X. Y., sawed an 
 opening through the rear door, crawled over the freight to 
 
OLIVKR CURTIS I'EKKV. 
 Single handed train robber. Operated in Now York State- 
 
 57 
 
the centre, covered the messenger with a revolver and stole 
 five thousand dollars and some jewelry, after which nea" 
 Utica he made his escape by cutting the air brakes, thereby 
 bringing the train to a stop. 
 
 February 21, 1892, Perry again boarded an express 
 train near Syracuse, N. Y., concealed himself on the roof 
 of the express car until the train was in motion and then 
 with a rope fastened to a hook in the roof of the car while 
 the train was traveling fifty miles an hour, lowered himself 
 to a window and, covering the messenger with a revolver 
 ordered him to throw up his hands. The messenger at- 
 tempted to pull the bell cord, but Perry shot him in the 
 hand, the messenger following with several shots. Just as 
 Perry fired his last shot, the train pulled into Lyons and he, 
 in attempting to escape drove the fireman and engineer from 
 a locomotive which stood on a siding, started the engine 
 at full speed, but was followed by railroad employees on 
 another locomotive, who subsequently overtook him and 
 after considerable shooting caused his arrest. 
 
 On May 19, following he was sentenced to 49 years ^\v\ 
 three months in the Auburn, N. Y., State Prison, from 
 which he escaped October 22nd, but was recaptured in less 
 than 24 hours. Soon after showdng signs of insanity he was 
 transferred to the asylum for the criminal insane at Mar- 
 teawan, from which he escaped April 10, 1895, but four 
 weeks later was arrested by a railroad detective at Wee- 
 hawken, N. J. This detective liad a di>])utc with the Super- 
 intendent of the railroad about Perry's capture, killed him 
 and was hanged in Xcw Jcr-cy for liis crime. After hi-, 
 
 58 
 
return to Matteawan Asylum, Perry destroyed both eyes 
 with a saddler's needle and is now a blind raving maniac. 
 Perry was born in Amsterdam, N. Y. ; at fourteen was sent 
 to a State Reformatory for burglary; afterwards served a 
 term at Rochester, N. Y., then went to Minnesota, burglar- 
 ized a store, served three years in the Stillwater, !Minn., 
 prison, became a cowboy, returned East and imposed upon 
 religious people by pretending to reform, and finally com- 
 mitted the "hold-up" crimes as alleged. 
 
 Bert Alvord, a train robber, was once City Marshal of 
 Wilcox, Arizona, and Deputy Sheriff of Cochise County, 
 said to have been a fearless, , diligent and conscientious 
 officer, became a train robber and "hold-up" as he claimed, 
 on account of a reward of $i,ooo offered for the arrest of 
 a "hold-up" which he was not able to collect, "held-up" a 
 train and took from the express messenger $i,ooo declar- 
 ing he had earned this money and that there was no other 
 way to collect it, thereafter committing many robberies, but 
 was finally hunted down by the rangers and rurales. 
 
 In January, 1902, Alvord joined forces with Bravo Juan, 
 Augustine Chicon and Bill Stiles, Texas and Mexican out- 
 laws, working along the border. Alvord and Bravo Juan 
 were captured in the Sierra Madre mountains of Sonora, 
 Texas, tried and acquitted. Later Alvord and Stiles were 
 arrested for a train robbery at Cochise. • Alvord was sen- 
 tenced to two years in the penitentiary at Tombstone, Ariz., 
 but with Stiles awaiting trial in the same jail on six indict- 
 ments and thirteen other prisoners on December 15, 1907,, 
 
While brakeman on St. L( 
 
 express II 
 
 HARRY SCHWARTZ. 
 
 < and vSan Francisco Ry. with Newton Watt, murfk-red 
 -t.ii<4er Kellogcr Xichols. Stole $20,000. 
 
 60 
 
broke jail, this being the second time Alvord and Stiles 
 escaped ivom this, prison ; on the previous occasion. Stiles 
 seriously wounding the jailer. Alvord was later recaptured 
 and served his time in the Yuma, Ariz., penitentiary and 
 was released during October, 1905. 
 
 Kellogg Nichols, a United States Express messenger, 
 was found murdered in his car on the Chicago, Rock Island 
 and Pacific R. R. train, at Morris, Ills., on the night of 
 March 13, 1886, the safe open and $21,500, mostly $100- 
 bills, stolen therefrom. My personal investigation at the 
 time, assisted by Frank Murray, then Chief of Police, of 
 Joliet, and afterwards for many years one of our Superin- 
 tendents, John T. Smith, Chief Special Agent of the Chi- 
 cago, Rock Island and Pacific R. R. and other officers de- 
 veloped that Nichols had been shot in the shoulder with a 
 .;^2 calibre pistol, a kind not used by train robbers, and his 
 brains literally beaten out with a car stove poker, which, 
 was returned to the hook where it belonged and where any 
 Mi'linaiy criminal would not have placed it after making the 
 use that was made of it. 
 
 These circumstances together with being unfavorably 
 impressed with the statements of Newton Watt, baggage- 
 man and Harry Schwartz, front brakeman of the train, led 
 to the suspicion that Nichols was killed by either Watt or 
 Schwartz because Nichols by tearing off the mask of the 
 robber had recognized the wearer. The following day on 
 the railroad tracks near Minooka, between Joliet and Mor- 
 ris, where Nichols was last seen alive, was found a mask 
 
 t 
 
 61 
 
FRED WHITROCK, alias Jim Cummings. 
 
 Lone train robber. Stole $is7,ooo from St. Louis ^: San Francisco express train. 
 
 Died recentlv. 
 
made from the tail of an old coat and which showed evi- 
 dence of having been torn from the wearer. 
 
 Ample evidence of their guilt eventually obtained result- 
 ing in their conviction and sentence to life imprisonment. 
 Watt died in the penitentiary, but Schwartz's sentence being 
 commuted by Governor Altgeld, he was released from the 
 Joliet penitentiary, September 2, 1896. 
 
 A short distance out of St. Louis, Mo., October 25, 1886, 
 a lone highwayman boarded a St. Louis & San Francisco 
 R}-. train, pres-ented a forged letter from the Adams Ex- 
 press Co., prevailed on the Adams Express messenger to 
 open the door of the car. The robber then compelled the 
 messenger, D. W. Fortheringham, to open the safe and de- 
 liver the contents, $57,000, to him, then binding and gagg- 
 ing the -messenger, left him lying on the floor of the car. 
 
 Robert A. Pinkerton and two detectives from our Chi- 
 cago office, several weeks afterwards arrested Fred Witt- 
 rock, formerly of Leavenworth, Kas., for this robbery, who 
 then admitted that four to five other men were concerned 
 with him in the crime and that to each he had sent a por- 
 tion of the stolen money ; that the robbery was conceived by 
 ' I Taight, a fornu i rxpress messenger and associated 
 
 V. iii iiiin was Tho-. W'r-Awv of Chicago. Aided by the local 
 police, of his confc 1' i;ii(- w^ arrested Weaver in Chicago 
 and Haight in \a^h\ ilK . Tenn., two of Wittrock's friends 
 in Leavenworth and two in Kan -as City, to whom Wittrock 
 had given some of the -toleii ni<;iK\ and a Chicago printer 
 
who printed the forged letter head. A\'e recovered 90 per 
 cent of the stolen money. 
 
 Wittrock, Haight and \\'eaver all pleaded guilty and 
 were sentenced to long terms in the ]Missouri penitentiary. 
 Wittrock served his sentence, returned to his old home in 
 Leavenworth, Kas., and died quite recently. 
 
 On the Mineral Range Railway, Michigan, at 9:30 A. M.,. 
 September 15, 1893, ^^ ^ crossing in the woods, called Bos- 
 ton, in a sparsely settled countr}^, masked men boarded the 
 locomotive and express car and forced the express messen- 
 ger to deliver to them a package containing seventy thousand 
 dollars in currency, the pay roll of the Calumet & Hecia 
 Mining Co. As there was no telegraph office at Boston, an 
 alarm was not given until the train reached Calumet, when 
 the local authorities were notified and arrested Jack Butler, . 
 an ex-convict, and Jack King, at that time the champion 
 Cornish wrestler of the United States. 
 
 For the American Express Company, I took charge of " 
 this investigation, going with the manager of the company 
 and several assistants to the scene of the robbery. Our 
 investigation assisted by the local authorities showed that 
 the robbers had used a horse and buggy to escape with, 
 and of which we obtained a good description from the 
 natives thereabouts ; also a close examination of the foot 
 prints of the horse, showed he wore racing plates, instead 
 of the usual heavy shoes worn by horses of that section. 
 This horse was subsecjuently identified as ^'Camp K," the 
 property of a Red Jacket, ^Nfichigan, saloon-keeper, from . 
 
 64 
 
LliAKlJvS I. SHAKCICV. 
 Aquia Creek, Va., Express Hold-up robber. 
 
 65 
 
whom the ''hold-ups" had obtained it. Our work resulted in 
 the additional arrest of La Liberty, a former railroad fire- 
 man, Dominick Hogan, an American Express messenger, 
 and his brother Edward Hogan, who had planned the rob- 
 bery. La Liberty made to me a confession that the stolen 
 money had been placed in his trunk at. the depot, but on 
 searching the trunk we found only eleven hundred dollars. 
 It was then determined that the night depot master at Mar- 
 quette, Michigan, and a local livery stable keeper had stolen 
 the money from La Liberty's trunk, resulting in my re- 
 covering altogether $69,935.00 of the $70,000 stolen. 
 
 All of these men were convicted and sentenced to long 
 terms in the Michigan penitentiary. 
 
 In the fall of 1895, at Aquia Creek, Stafford County, 
 Virginia, two men, shortly after the train was under way, 
 boarded an express train, one the express car and the other 
 the locomotive, cutting the locomotive and express car from 
 the balance of the train, forcing the engineer to take them 
 a considerable distance where the express messenger was 
 overpowered, the safe blown and over ten thousand dollars 
 stolen, the "hold-up" men escaping, notwithstanding a battle 
 with a posse. 
 
 Shortly afterward a stranger displaying considerable 
 money, was arrested at Port Royal, Virginia, from whom 
 Robert A. Pinkerton, representing the express company, 
 who was investigating the robbery, obtained a confession. 
 The robber proved to be Charles J., Searcey, of Texas, and 
 he implicated Charles Morgan, alias Morganfield, whose 
 
 66 
 
PAT CROWi:, 
 
 67 
 
arrest we brought about in Cincinnati. Searcey was sen- 
 tenced to ten years and ]\Iorganlield to seventeen years in 
 the Richmond, Va., penitentiary. 
 
 During 1902, 1903, 1904 and 1905, several train rob- 
 beries occurred in California, Colorado and Oregon. The 
 identity of the robbers could not be settled at the time but 
 we eventually determined that they were committed by 
 George and Edward Vernon Gates, brothers of California, 
 who on March 15, 1905, at Lordsburg, New Mexico, with 
 rifles attempted to commit a series of ''hold-up" robberies 
 and wdio killed themselves when the officers attempted to 
 arrest them. 
 
 Pat Crowe, notorious as the kidnapper of Eddie Cudahy, 
 son of John Cudahy, the millionaire Omaha packer, for 
 which crime, through a miscarriage of justice, he was ac- 
 quitted and afterwards acknowledged being the abductor, 
 pleaded guilty to train robbery on the Chicago, Burlington 
 and Quincy R. R. in 1894, about which time there were a 
 number of attempts upon trains in the vicinity of St. Joseph, 
 Mo. Crowe was supposed to have the Taylor brothers of 
 St. Joseph associated with him. 
 
 After these robberies we located Crowe in the Milwau- 
 kee Work-house, and had him held, charged with a diamond 
 robbery in Denver, Col. Before the extradition papers 
 arrived he sent for the officials of the Chicago, Burlington 
 and Quincy R. R. and stated that he was concerned in the 
 
 6S 
 
69 
 
robberies near St. Joseph. Certain parts of his story ap- 
 peared very improbable to me and I went to Denver, made 
 arrangements with the poHce authorities to permit him to 
 plead to these train robberies in Missouri. The night the 
 arrangements w^ere completed, Crowe escaped from the jail. 
 Crowe, after his escape, wrote me that all the statements 
 made by him were falsehoods. Later we caused his arrest 
 in Cincinnati. He was taken to St. Joseph, Mo., where he 
 pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in the Mis- 
 souri States Prison at Jefferson City, from which he wrote 
 letters to the railroad officials and myself, threatening to 
 kill all who had to do with his prosecution. 
 
 When his sentence expired in Missouri, Crowe was re- 
 turned to Denver for the diamond robbery, but through 
 friends it is claimed he compromised the matter. 
 
 Crowe has lately written a book telling how he com- 
 mitted some of his crimes. He claims he now intends to 
 atone for all the crimes he ever committed by demonstrat- 
 ing to the young the folly of criminal life. 
 
 He was lately tried for robbery in Council Bluffs, but 
 acquitted. 
 
 One of the most notorious bands of train robbers and 
 bank "hold-ups" who operated in the West and Southwest, 
 from Wyoming to Texas from 1895 to 1902, was known 
 as ''the Wild Bunch." After each robbery they would 
 hide in the "Hole in the Wall" country of Wyoming, and 
 after the excitement had blown over would return to then 
 headquarters in small cities of Texas. 
 
 This band from time to time included Tom Ketcham, 
 alias "Black Jack," leader, wlio was lianged at Clayton, New 
 
^ "\ 5 
 
 71 
 
Mexico, April 26, 1901, for killing Sheriff Edward Farr, of 
 Whalensburg, New ]\Iexico, who was attempting to arrest 
 him for a train ''hold-up." 
 
 William Carver, alias ''Bill" Carver, second leader, 
 killed April 2, 1901, while resisting arrest in Texas for a 
 murder committed at Sonora. 
 
 Sam Ketcham died June 24, 1900, in the Sante Fe, New 
 Mexico, penitentiary, of a wound inflicted by a posse of 
 officers attempting to arrest him for the robbery of the 
 Colorado Southern R. R. Co. at Cimarron, New Mexico. 
 
 Elza Lay, alias McGuinness, is now serving a life sen- 
 tence in the Sante Fe, New Mexico, penitentiary for par- 
 ticipation with "Black Jack" Ketcham in the Cimarron train 
 robbery. 
 
 Lonny Logan and Harvey Logan, alias ''Curry broth- 
 ers." Lonny was killed at Dodson, Mo., February 28, 1900, 
 while resisting arrest. 
 
 George Curry, alias "Flat Nose George," third leader, 
 killed near Thompson, Utah, April 15, 1900, resisting ar- 
 rest by a Sheriff's posse. 
 
 Bob Lee, alias Bob Curry, now serving a ten-years'" 
 sentence in the Rawlins, Wyoming, State Penitentiary, for 
 the robbery of the Union Pacific train at Wilcox, June 2, 
 1899. 
 
 Among the bank and train robberies committed by the 
 "Wild Bunch" in recent years were : Butte County Bank, 
 member American Bankers' Association, Belle FourchCj 
 South Dakota, June 28th, 1897. 
 
 Union Pacific Express train "hold-up." Wilcox, Wyom- 
 ing, January 2d, 1899. 
 
 72 
 
73 
 
Union Pacific Express train "hold-up," Tipton, Wyo- 
 ming, August 29th, 1900. About 1900, after these robberies^ 
 under the leadership of Harvey Lv:)gan, alias ''Kid" Curry, 
 the band included O. C. Hanks, alias "Camila" Hanks, alias 
 "Deaf Charlie;" George Parker, alias ''Butch" Cassidy; 
 Harry Longbaugh, alias "Sundance Kid;" and Ben Kil- 
 Patrick alias "The Tall Texan." A part of this band on 
 September 19, 1900, at the noon hour, "holding-up" the 
 officials with rifles and revolvers, robbed the First National 
 Bank, Winnemucca, Nev., a member of the American 
 Bankers' Association, of $32,640 in gold. 
 
 July 3, 1901, Logan, Cassidy, Longbaugh, "Will" Carver,. 
 Ben Kilpatrick, "Deaf Charlie Jones," alias Hanks, at Wag- 
 ner, Montana, "held-up" a Great Northern Express train, 
 securing $40,500 of unsigned bills of the National Bank 
 of Montana, and the American National Bank of Helena,. 
 Mont., and for which Ben Kilpatrick, alias "The Tall 
 Texan," was arrested by the police in St. Louis, Mo., No- 
 vember 5, 1901, with a number of the unsigned stolen bills 
 in his possession. He was sentenced to fifteen years in the 
 Columbus, Ohio, penitentiary, since transferred to the 
 United States Penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga. In Kilpatrick's 
 room of the Laclede Hotel, the police arrested Laura Bul- 
 lion, a companion of Kilpatrick, as she was leaving with a 
 satchel containing several of the unsigned bills. She was 
 convicted of being an accomplice and sentenced to two years 
 and 'six months in the Missouri Penitentiary, at Jefferson. 
 
 December 13, 1901, at Knoxville, Tennessee, two police- 
 men who attempted to quiet a pistol fight over a game of 
 pool were shot by one of the participants, a stranger who 
 
 74 
 
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afterward ''held-up" the occupants of the saloon, backed 
 out of the rear door and jumped thirty feet into a railroad 
 cut, but was eventually traced and arrested in an exhausted 
 condition from cold, exposure and injury from his jump. 
 We subsequently identified this man as Harvey Currey, 
 alias Harvey Logan. Logan was convicted and sentenced to 
 a term of twenty years in the United States Penitentiary at 
 Columbus, Ohio, for uttering bank notes stolen at Wagner 
 on which notes the signatures had been forged. On Novem- 
 ber 29, 1902, while awaiting transfer to that institution, he 
 made his escape by ''holding-up" the guards in the Knox- 
 ville jail; fleeing to the mountains on horseback. He has 
 not been recaptured. 
 
 O. C. Hanks, alias ^'Camila'' Hanks, of Texas, another 
 one of this band, in Nashville, Tenn., on October 2.y, 190T, 
 offered a merchant one of these notes, circulars describing 
 which had been sent by us broadcast throughout the United 
 States. The merchant became suspicious and telephoned the 
 police who responded quickly, but Hanks, noting what oc- 
 curred, quickly drew a revolver, ''held-up" the officer tem- 
 porarily, jumped into an ice wagon and forcing out the 
 driver drove rapidly down the street ; abandoned the wagon 
 and at the point of his revolver captured a buggy and in 
 this escaped through the marshes to the Cumberland River, 
 where he forced two negroes to row him across in a boaJ: 
 and was lost trace of. 
 
 On April 17, 1902, he was killed by officers in the streets 
 of San Antonio, Texas, while resisting arrest. In 1892, 
 Hanks and Harry Longbaugh ''held-up" a Northern Pacific 
 train in Big Timber, AFontana, for which Hanks was ar- 
 
 76 
 
ETTA PLACiv. 
 
 Mrs, Kid Longbough. 
 
 of 
 
 "Wild I'.iuirli."- 
 

 o 
 
 78 
 
rested, convicted and sentenced to ten years in the Deer 
 Lodge Penitentiary, from which institution he was released 
 April 30, 1901, rejoining his old companions in "hold-up'* 
 robberies. 
 
 "Butch" Gassidy with Harry Longbaugh and Etta Place, 
 a clever horsewoman and rifle shot, fled to Argentine Re- 
 public, South America, where they, it is said, have been 
 joined by Logan. Being expert ranch men they engaged 
 in cattle raising on a ranch they had acquired, located on 
 a piece of high table land from which they commanded a 
 view of 25 miles in various directions, making their capture 
 practically impossible. During the past two years, they 
 committed several "hold-up" bank robberies in Argentina 
 in which Etta Place, the alleged wife of Harry Longbaugh, 
 it is said, operated with the band in male attire. We advised 
 the Argentina authorities of their presence and location, but 
 they became suspicious of preparations for their arrest, fled 
 from Argentine Republic and were last heard from on the 
 Southwest Coast of Chili, living in the wild open country. 
 
 Edward Estelle, alias "Conn. Eddie," George Gordon, 
 alias "Brooklyn Blacky," William Browning, alias 
 "Browney," Thomas Clark, alias "Pa. Butch" and Johnny 
 Bull, all "yegg" men, on August 5, 1902, "held-up" a train 
 of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy R. R., near Marcus, 
 Ills., after subduing the engineer, fireman and conductor, 
 and shooting up and down the railroad track to intimidate 
 the passengers, secured three thousand dollars from the 
 Adams Express Company's safe in the baggage car. 
 
 79 
 
<; 73 
 Q o 
 
 o :r 
 
 80 
 
George Gordon, alia- ' I '.r(>< )klyn Blacky," approaching: 
 from the front of the locomotive was mistaken for a rail- 
 road man and shot in the thigh by Estelle, who, when he 
 discovered he had woinided a member of the gang, en- 
 deavored to have Gordan flee with him, but on the latter 
 pleading that he was too badly wounded, Estelle, uttering 
 an oath and telling him that he would not be left to squeal 
 on anybody, blew Gordon's brains out and then wanted to 
 burn Gordon's bQdy in the fire box of the engine, which 
 Clark prevented. 
 
 We identified Gordon's body, found on the railroad? 
 tracks and this materially aided us in establishing the iden- 
 tity of the others of the ''hold-ups." We located the gang: 
 at Memphis, where, acting with the police, we arrested 
 Fstelle and Clark. Browning, alias "Browney," was shot 
 and killed at McCloud, Texas, while attempting to rob a 
 bank, the owner of which took Browning's pistol from him, 
 killing him with it. Clark and Estelle were sentenced to life 
 imprisonment in the Joliet, 111., States Prison. 
 
 A gang of ''yegg" nun "lield-up" a through train of the 
 Illinois Central Railroad near Harvey, 111., on the night of 
 August I, 1904, with revolvers, compelling the passenger^ 
 to deliver their money and valuables. These "hold-ups" 
 were traced to a St. Louis lodging house by St. Louis and 
 Kansas City police detectives, who arrested one man as he 
 left the house. The detectives on entering the house to 
 arrest William Bruce Morris and Albert Rosenauer were 
 attacked by these criminals and a fierce battle ensued. Both 
 rrimliinU were killed hnt nr)t before they killed Detective 
 
WILLIAM BR()\VXIX(;. 
 Yegg Ivxpress "Mold ujj." 
 
 82 
 
John J. Shea and Special Officers Thomas F. Dwyer an.l 
 James A. McCluskey. Morris in an ante morten statement 
 confessed to the IlHnois Central "hold-up" ; also to an at- 
 tempted "hold-up" of a Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific 
 train near Leets, Iowa, July 29, 1904. 
 
 Although the "hold-up" men have usually been successful 
 in their "holding-up" of stages, trains and banks, there have 
 been occasional instances where the "tables were turned" on 
 them. 
 
 One of these was near Gilliam, Missouri, shortly afte: 
 midnight, Sunday, December 26, 1906, when a lone robber, 
 who had boarded the train at Slater, Mo., compelled the 
 sleeping car porter and the train conductor to accompany 
 him through the cars, the porter awakening the passengers 
 in the Pullman sleepers, collecting their valuables and hand- 
 ing them over to the robber. As the train reached Glasgow, 
 Mo., the next stop for the train, the robber disappeared, but 
 while the conductor was reporting the robbery to a tele- 
 graph operator, the "hold-up" by signal to the engineer 
 started the train, although the conductor succeeded in having 
 it stopped and informing the engineer of what had occurred 
 started through the train, when he met the porter, the flag- 
 man and the "hold-up" man, who under the "hold-ups" 
 direction were continuing to relieve the passengers of their 
 valuables. The robber agaiji forced the conductor to be- 
 come a member of the "hold-up" party. On reaching the 
 last car, the "hold-up" locked the flagman and porter in the 
 ladies* toilet and started to take the plunder fn^ii the ilag- 
 
V5 
 
 man's hat. Elias B. Haywood, the conductor, watching 
 what was occurring, found the ''hold-up" robber off his 
 guard, grappled with him and both wrestled about the car 
 floor, but finally the robber released himself from the con- 
 ductor's grasp and disappeared out of the door on the plat- 
 form, the conductor firing several shots after him with the 
 robber's revolver which the conductor had captured during 
 the struggle. The conductor believed the robber had jumped 
 or fallen from the train which was running at forty miles 
 an hour, but on going on the car platform, found the ''hold- 
 up" man crouching on the lower steps, gave him a severe 
 beating, pulled him back into the car and held him until the 
 train pulled in at Armstrong, Mo., where the police, having 
 been notified by the Glasgow operator, were in waiting. 
 
 The robber gave his name as Jesse Clyde Rumsey, and 
 claimed that his brother "held-up" the Chicago passenger 
 train near Glasgow, Mo., on November 8, 1906, at which 
 time a similar robbery was committed, and from whom he 
 received his instructions how to operate. 
 
 What I have maintained that no crime pays and that 95 
 per cent of criminals die in debt and frequently in want is 
 most aptly illustrated by the history of the "Hold-up" Rob- 
 ber." 
 
 I know of few train robbers or "hold-ups" alive and out 
 of prison to-day. Only in a very limited number of in- 
 stances are these in comfortable circumstances and from 
 honest means only after giving up their lives of crime. 
 
 Crime does not pay! 
 
 ^4