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FROM BONIFACE TO BANK BURGLAR
FROM BONIFACE TO BANK BURGLAR
OR THE PRICE OF PERSECUTION HOW A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MAN, THROUGH THE MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE, BECAME A NOTORIOUS BANK LOOTER BY GEORGE M. WHITE Alias GEORGE BLISS BELLOWS FALLS, VT. TRUAX PRINTING COMPANY 1905 Copyright , 1905, By B. F. SLEEPER, Westminster, Vt. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A....
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PREFACE
PREFACE
While paying the penalty of a last misdeed, I resolved that no more of life’s precious years should be spent in sowing to the wind and that my life’s sun should not set in eternal night; and I have been able to keep my resolution. In the awful moments of lonesomeness in the prison cell, I conceived the idea of publishing my life history in so far as I could make it interesting to the financial world and general public. Many hours of solitude, while others slept, I devoted to rummaging through th
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PART I CHAPTER I MY HOTEL DAYS
PART I CHAPTER I MY HOTEL DAYS
“Here I am back again, Ellis, my dear boy!” I said to my clerk in the Central House, as comfortable and inviting a country hostelry as the average man of travel would want to make an occasional visit to, if I do say it myself. “Glad of it, Mr. White,” returned Ellis Merrill, as he reciprocated my hearty hand-grasp. He had been with me in the hotel business for some time, and I rather fancied him. And he was a most trustworthy young man too. I glanced at the register on the desk, as any hotel pro
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CHAPTER II THE WALPOLE BANK BURGLARY
CHAPTER II THE WALPOLE BANK BURGLARY
B. F. Aldrich was the cashier of the Walpole Savings-bank, and the bank was in his general merchandise store. Thus it can be readily understood that the village of Walpole wasn’t much from the viewpoint of map-makers, though its residents were not a little proud of their abiding-place. These facts being known, it will not be difficult to imagine the consternation of the Walpole people, when one morning, just prior to Thanksgiving Day in 1864, they got out of bed to find that their only bank had
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CHAPTER III ONE SHERIFF I KNEW
CHAPTER III ONE SHERIFF I KNEW
“Good afternoon, George!” “How do you do? Upon my word, sheriff, but you’re the last man I expected to see in Stoneham to-day. How’s business in Fitchburg?” Such was my response to Sheriff Butterick, who, with a young man, very sprucely dressed, had called at my hotel. It was a delightful afternoon on the second day of June in 1865. “Shake hands with Mr. Golden—Mr. Tim Golden!” said the sheriff, introducing his companion, and a warm hand-clasp followed. I told the sheriff that I was pleased to m
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CHAPTER IV THE UNEQUAL FIGHT
CHAPTER IV THE UNEQUAL FIGHT
May no other man realize what I suffered in the weeks of confinement in the jail at Keene. Innocent of the crime of burglary, a man who had always stood up boldly among his fellow-men, looking all squarely in the eye, to be thus ignominiously, horribly entangled in the meshes of the law was to set upon him the torments of hell. I doubt, if there be a corner set apart, in the infernal region, in which certain condemned ones must meditate forever over their evil deeds, whether their mental agony w
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CHAPTER V HANGING OF THE MILLSTONE
CHAPTER V HANGING OF THE MILLSTONE
It was toward the middle of October that Shinburn and I were brought to trial, in the meantime the grand jury having presented indictments against us, but that didn’t seem to affect me greatly, for the reason that I was becoming more hopeful every day. Having been admitted to bail and afforded an opportunity to be among my friends once more, the despondency which attacked me in jail had given way to a feeling of almost certainty that I would be declared not guilty. My attorneys, the day before t
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CHAPTER VI PERSECUTION
CHAPTER VI PERSECUTION
I awoke the next morning, with a start, from a night of interrupted slumber. The closing hours of the trial and the escape of Shinburn had command of my brain till it was a relief to open my eyes and become conscious of my surroundings. As I thought of Shinburn away from the horror of the jail, I will not attempt to deny that I had a sense of gladness for him. I had seen considerable of this man in jail, and I had to confess to myself that he possessed the rare faculty of winning the friendship
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CHAPTER I SIDETRACKED
CHAPTER I SIDETRACKED
Hunted out of honest employment, I found myself very much in the position of the pursued rabbit; therefore I was compelled to seek the first cover that presented itself. I had been robbed of every dollar of my hard-earned fortune. A fugitive from justice, there was a reward proclaimed abroad for my arrest, though I was an innocent man. All this was awful to realize, the bitterness of it eating still deeper into my soul. What would the end be? Anxious to begin life afresh, I had sought a strange
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CHAPTER II VISITED BY THE WHITECAPS
CHAPTER II VISITED BY THE WHITECAPS
Eddie Hughes was to be the leader in the crack at the Wellsburg Bank, and soon he, with suggestions from others, laid out the plan. I took no part except that of the snubbed one at the hands of the snubber, Jack Utley, who lost no opportunity to exercise that much-relished self-constituted right. I don’t know but that I enjoyed it as much as he, for the time had come when I disliked him so much that his snubs were more acceptable to me than would have been his praise. The bank which we were to b
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CHAPTER III THE CADIZ BANK LOOT
CHAPTER III THE CADIZ BANK LOOT
We were to be ready at ten o’clock that night to begin our work, and the hour having come upon us almost too soon, there was not a little hurrying to the various points at which each man had his part to perform. I, having been assigned to the car shanty, proceeded there, my purpose being to break through the lock and have the car ready to be pushed on to the track the moment my companions came to me. I was cautioned to make no mistake; not to be misled, by any one else walking on the track, into
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CHAPTER IV AN EXPENSIVE CHICKEN
CHAPTER IV AN EXPENSIVE CHICKEN
At midnight the first telling stroke in the attack on the Cadiz Bank was made when Eddie Hughes, with a pair of nippers, “turned off” the key in the front door of the cashier’s house. With him were Big Bill, Jack Utley, and Tall Jim. On the outside of the house was George Wilson, standing on guard, ready to send a warning if danger were approaching from that quarter. “You remain here in the front hall,” said Hughes to the trio, as he vanished in the still greater darkness, his only guide being t
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CHAPTER V A ROCK CLEFT FOR ME
CHAPTER V A ROCK CLEFT FOR ME
Jack Utley’s persistent disregard of all caution worried me much. As I thought of his chicken-stealing episode and of the fire he insisted upon having in the old hut, it occurred to me that we might even at the moment be under the surveillance of some of our enemies. Seeing the smoke in the distance, they might have suspected that we were the cause of it, and, circling to our rear, come over the hill and rush down on us. I determined to keep a close watch on all sides. I was gazing up the hill,
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CHAPTER VI ’TWAS A SWEET BABE
CHAPTER VI ’TWAS A SWEET BABE
To get out of town I determined to do at the first opportunity, and by railroad too. I looked up the best hotel I could find on short notice and consulted a time-table. A train was due eastward in forty minutes. It would be a bold move to get out of town thus, but I vowed I’d attempt it. I was certain that one man, or indeed two travelling together, would be objects of suspicion, so I went to the reading-room and waited an opportunity to strike an acquaintance with at least three men who would l
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CHAPTER VII POLICE SHIELD NOT WORN FOR HEALTH
CHAPTER VII POLICE SHIELD NOT WORN FOR HEALTH
“I was wondering whether you were one of the bunch captured,” remarked Billy Matthews, whom I went to see at 681 Broadway, the same day I arrived back in New York. I related, in all its details, the story of the gang’s exploits, from the moment we left Steubenville, not forgetting our abortive attempt on the West Virginia bank, how we had been surprised by the deputies, nor neglecting to tell how I used, on the train, in self-defence, the little woman and her sweet babe. “The newspapers printed
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CHAPTER VIII SHERIFF SMITH’S BRIBE—THE LITTLE JOKER
CHAPTER VIII SHERIFF SMITH’S BRIBE—THE LITTLE JOKER
Mark Shinburn, under remarkable circumstances, escaped from Concord prison, after his sudden leave-taking of the jail at Keene the day he was convicted, and his recapture and final incarceration. The prison bars at Concord held him only a few months, when his old partner in crime, John Ryan of Buffalo, and Laurie Palmer, another crook, began work on a plan to break him out of durance vile. The manner of Shinburn’s escape is soon told. He was a man who did not make many friends, but those that he
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CHAPTER IX BREVOORT STABLES
CHAPTER IX BREVOORT STABLES
In the fall of 1866 my old Boston friend Charles Meriam sold out his business at that place, and, with the proceeds, some fifty-four hundred dollars, set out for the West to grow up with the country. On his way he stopped over a few days with me. I tried to discourage him, and, not being successful, finally said, in a joke:— “Well, Charlie, when you go broke, come back to me, and I will start you in business again.” Charlie set out for the West with visions of future wealth before him. One after
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CHAPTER X I CORRUPT A BANK CLERK
CHAPTER X I CORRUPT A BANK CLERK
“Who’s that pale-looking chap at the first table to the left?” asked Chelsea George, one of Jack Hartley’s coterie of misfit burglars. His remark was addressed to a faro dealer at his side. “The feller that’s just cashin’ in his last case?” whispered the dealer. “Yes—he’s got the look of a farmer not long used to city ways and clothes,” said Chelsea George. “You’re half right, sir; he’s a bank clerk. He came from Montreal way not long ’go,” volunteered the faro dealer. “But he’s a good thing her
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CHAPTER XI A COLOSSAL BANK BURGLING ENTERPRISE
CHAPTER XI A COLOSSAL BANK BURGLING ENTERPRISE
The Ocean National Bank occupied the first floor of the building on the southeast corner of Fulton and Greenwich streets. Fulton Street at this point has quite a downward slope running westerly, and, therefore, the first floor of the building in question was much higher from the ground at the corner than at its easterly end. The entrance to the bank, which was at the corner, was reached by a flight of stone steps, while the entrance to the offices above, being at the other Fulton Street end of t
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CHAPTER XII JUGGLING WITH DEATH
CHAPTER XII JUGGLING WITH DEATH
“Curses on it, George; my key won’t lock it!” groaned Mark Shinburn, as he turned, twisted, and in every way tried to move the bolt of the key lock in the door of the big steel vault. “Don’t give it up, Mark,” I whispered encouragingly, and he manipulated the key again, until, cold night as it was, the perspiration stood like tiny bubbles on his face. I could see it with the aid of the candle which threw a dim light in the banking office. “No use, George,” he burst out again, presently, throwing
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CHAPTER XIII CAPTAIN JOHN YOUNG’S GRAB
CHAPTER XIII CAPTAIN JOHN YOUNG’S GRAB
The “Little Joker” won for Mark Shinburn, me, and our associates the contents of the vault of the New Windsor Bank of Westminster, Carroll County, Maryland, while the Ocean Bank enterprise was hatching. All of the combinations were mastered in five nightly sittings. I had arranged the details, such as purchasing a team for a safe “get-away,” and mapping a route for Shinburn, who was to do the work on the vault. While he was at it I went to Buffalo for the treasure of the St. Catharines robbery,
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CHAPTER XIV PLOTTING AGAINST YOUNG
CHAPTER XIV PLOTTING AGAINST YOUNG
When Captain Young left Police Headquarters for Maryland, it was whispered that he’d gone to Albany. This rumor was confused with another, to the effect that he’d been called South. The conflicting stories served to make anxious my good friends in the Detective Bureau, who were bound to give me the best possible information. Detective Phil. Farley was among the first to hear of the arrest of Shinburn and our agent, and he hurried to me with the facts, including the different stories of Young’s s
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CHAPTER XV MY PATENT SAFETY SWITCH AND JIM IRVING
CHAPTER XV MY PATENT SAFETY SWITCH AND JIM IRVING
I would not have the impression go abroad that I believed the New York Police Department, as a whole, or even its detective force, at the period of which I have written, were in league with professional criminals. Quite the reverse. Though the force had a great many patrolmen, plenty of commanding officers, and the Detective Bureau had its Bank Ring, which had for its backing high ranking officers in the department and tremendous political influences on the outside, all of whom conspired with th
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CHAPTER XVI HARD WORK UNDER GREAT DIFFICULTIES
CHAPTER XVI HARD WORK UNDER GREAT DIFFICULTIES
The day following our reconciliation, Shinburn and I went down to look over the Ocean Bank and its surroundings. It was most essential that we should know the habits of the policemen on the beats around and near the bank, and the comings and goings of the janitor and other occupants of the neighborhood, as well as of the general public, day and night. Therefore it was decided to obtain quarters from which all this could be watched, and a front room on the second floor of the building on Fulton S
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CHAPTER XVII MARK MAKES PI OF LOCK TUMBLERS
CHAPTER XVII MARK MAKES PI OF LOCK TUMBLERS
Too many irons in the fire spoiled an opportunity to add a few thousand dollars to our cash capital. This occurred in that busy year, 1869. Mark Shinburn and I got word of a bank at Lambertville, New Jersey, that seemed to hold out golden inducements, so he went to make the strike, while I remained in New York to keep an eye on more important matters, but ready to answer his summons for the final attack. The failure was, I believe, unique in every sense of the word. Neither before nor after did
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CHAPTER XVIII DISPOSITION OF OCEAN BANK LOOT
CHAPTER XVIII DISPOSITION OF OCEAN BANK LOOT
I have no doubt that my readers will readily believe that shortly after the opening of the Ocean Bank vault on the morning after our departure there was a considerable stir in the financial world, especially that part of it located at the corner of Fulton and Greenwich streets. The two hundred thousand dollars that we left on the vault floor enabled the bank to meet its engagements at the clearing house that day; the police closed the bank’s doors early in the day, thus preventing a run; and the
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CHAPTER XIX A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH
CHAPTER XIX A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH
Shortly after the Cadiz burglary, having been able to insure myself from arrest at the hands of the New York police by lining their palms with gold, and the life of a criminal having been accepted as a means of regaining my standing, if possible, in New Hampshire, I turned my face east in the belief that all-powerful gold would purchase there what justice, as dealt out at Keene, had withheld from me. With this object in view I sent for A. V. Lynde, one of my attorneys in the New Hampshire case,
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CHAPTER XX TALL JIM MOVES FROM COLUMBUS PRISON
CHAPTER XX TALL JIM MOVES FROM COLUMBUS PRISON
A letter came to me in the summer of 1868, two years after the Cadiz, Ohio, bank robbery. It was in June, and upon opening it, with no little curiosity, it proved to be from Mrs. Hammon, a sister of Tall Jim. As will be remembered, Jim was sent to the prison at Columbus. “If possible, come on to Ohio at once,” the letter said, among other things, “for Jim has reason to think he has a plan to free himself, George Wilson, and Big Bill. As for Jack Utley, he’ll be left to his fate.” “Well, I think
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CHAPTER XXI JIM BURNS AND HIS CONGRESSMAN PAL
CHAPTER XXI JIM BURNS AND HIS CONGRESSMAN PAL
Late in May of 1870, I was driving up Fifth Avenue in one of my finest carriages, for an afternoon spin in Central Park. My name was called, and, glancing toward the sidewalk, I saw Jim Burns, a pal of Hub Frank and Boston Jack, three of the most successful sneak thieves of their day. As an inkling to their right to this credit—from the professional standpoint—I will say that in the fourteen years they conspired together, Hub Frank and Boston Jack were never arrested, and Burns only once. During
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CHAPTER XXII WILLIAM HATCH, ESQUIRE, DAY WATCHMAN
CHAPTER XXII WILLIAM HATCH, ESQUIRE, DAY WATCHMAN
After the ingenuity of a master cracksman has been taxed to its utmost in an effort to get the combination numbers of a presumably impenetrable vault, and success seems assured, is it not most provoking, and disheartening too, when the unexpected pops up and thunders down failure upon his head? It was thus in my attempt to possess the millions kept in the vault of the Corn Exchange National Bank of Philadelphia in the winter of 1872 and the spring of the following year. In December of 1872 Detec
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CHAPTER XXIII THE PLOT THAT FAILED
CHAPTER XXIII THE PLOT THAT FAILED
Despite the discovery by the bank officials that a plot was afloat to obtain the riches of their vault, and regardless of the fact that I had lost three of my trained men, I determined to push on to success. It was in vain that I more than half regretted my decision not to “turn off the trick” on a week-day morning, while Billy was on duty, inasmuch as he had offered to take every risk. “But,” I said to myself, “why wail over what can’t be undone? It’s up to you, George, to act.” More than ever
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CHAPTER XXIV THE PERFIDY OF CAPTAIN JIM IRVING
CHAPTER XXIV THE PERFIDY OF CAPTAIN JIM IRVING
“The hounds—interfering, sneaking hounds—I hate ’em!” roared Captain James Irving, the head of the New York Detective Bureau in Mulberry Street. “The infernal meddlers—that’s what they are, cap!” said Detective Sergeant Phil Farley, bolstering up his captain’s fury. “I wish they were in ——!” continued Irving, as he paced—almost ran—from one end to the other of his private office. “That same, cap—and the devil keep ’em there till it freezes over.” “By the eternal, they’ll not beat me out of my ow
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CHAPTER XXV SOME DETECTIVES I FOUND USEFUL
CHAPTER XXV SOME DETECTIVES I FOUND USEFUL
After the failure to capture the Corn Exchange Bank treasure, my Police Headquarters friends were exceedingly anxious that I try to even up accounts by obtaining the wealth of the United States sub-treasury vault in New York City. They contended that there were plenty of other banks in that city, at which I might take a hand, if the sub-treasury was too hard a nut to crack. I knew that it was, and said so, whereupon they insisted that I give it a trial. “No, I will not,” I said; “it’s impossible
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CHAPTER XXVI THE MICROBE “CALLOUSITIS”
CHAPTER XXVI THE MICROBE “CALLOUSITIS”
It has been, and is yet, claimed by companies which make it a business to supply banking institutions with burglar-alarm systems, that while bank clerks and night watchmen may be corrupted, the alarm, if kept in excellent repair, can always be depended upon. While it is true that the incorruptible cannot be corrupted, nor can the ever inanimate be imbued with life-blood, yet I shall endeavor to show beyond question how, in my experience, the burglar-alarm system, with all its boasted infallibili
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