REVIEW OF A CRIME WHICH RANKS WITH THE LOS ANGELES DYNAMITING CASE FOR
HEINOUSNESS--HOW CONFESSION WERE OBTAINED.
What many of my friends, who are familiar with the case in all of its
details, believe to have been my best piece of real detective work
during my long career at the business, was done on what is known as "The
Wyandotte Wrecking Case" in 1886. While much has been written about
this case, yet all the real facts have never appeared in print. The
crime, which was the aftermath of the Knights of Labor strike on the
Gould Southwest System that spring, occurred on the early morning of
April 26th. Freight train No. 38 on the Missouri Pacific was pulling
slowly into Wyandotte, now Kansas City, Kansas, and on reaching a point
near the north depot on the banks of the Kaw River, the engine and
several cars suddenly left the track, rolling down the embankment and
some of them into the river. The fireman, Benjamin F. Horton, and the
head brakeman, George Carlisle, who were on the engine, were pinioned
beneath the wreckage and were dead when taken out. The engineer, J. H.
Fowler, was severely injured, dying within a few months from his
injuries. The conductor, A. Spaulding, who was in the cupola of the
caboose, was thrown from his seat to the floor and painfully bruised and
badly shaken up. The rear brakeman, whose name I do not now remember,
was the only one of the crew to escape either death or injury.
The discovery immediately after the wreck of unmistakable evidence that
it had been caused by wreckers, and because of the prominence of the men
who had lost their lives thereby, caused a great sensation and much
indignation. The dead fireman was a member of the Brotherhood of Railway
Firemen and the brakeman a member of the Brotherhood of Railway
Trainmen. All of the newspapers, not only of Kansas City, but of the
entire country, denounced the wreckers in no uncertain terms, as did all
decent and law-abiding citizens. I will add right here that the facts
brought to light at the trial of the men charged with this crime, more
than to any other one thing, caused the disintegration or dissolution of
the Knights of Labor. In other words, it was the beginning of the end of
that once powerful organization. For the benefit of those readers who
are not familiar with the history of this order, I will state that it
had in 1886 something over a million members. It had a veritable
mushroom growth. No class of people were ineligible to membership; all
trades and professions, as well as races and tongues, provided they were
males over 18 years of age, and had the price of the initiation fee,
usually one dollar, could join. The color line was not even drawn, as it
is in most secret societies. Of course, some good honest men were on its
roster rolls, but it was dominated by a brazen gang of mountebanks,
agitators and crooked politicians and others seeking power and
prominence. To gain a point the officers of the organization would stop
at nothing. If coercion failed in its purpose, the boycott and more
harsher methods were substituted. In short, a veritable reign of terror
existed throughout the Middle West. To illustrate their methods better,
I will state that if a merchant or other person in business, through a
slip of the tongue or otherwise, made even the slightest remark
reflecting on the order, or even one of its leaders, he was a marked man
thereafter, his business ruined, and he, of course, driven from the
country. Business men were often subjected to this treatment--and
worse--for simply refusing to join the order. In many of the Western
cities it was impossible for a man who did not "jine" the order to be
elected to office, however deserving or competent he might be.
[Illustration: Scene at the Wyandotte wreck, a crime only paralleled by
the Los Angeles dynamiters.]
At the time the wreck occurred, I was very busy in St. Louis looking
after cases that had grown out of the great strike on the Gould System,
of which I was Chief Special Agent. The strike, which had been over but
about a month, was a long, bitter struggle, entailing much work on my
department, and had resulted in a victory for the company. I could not
get to Wyandotte to investigate the wreck until nearly a month had
elapsed. In the meantime the railroad company had offered $2,500 reward
for the arrest and conviction of the guilty parties, and $1,000 for any
information which would lead up to such conviction. After looking the
ground over, I became satisfied that this diabolical crime had been
committed by some member, or members, of the Knights of Labor, either
out of revenge or to harrass the company and divert traffic from the
road. After satisfying myself on this point, I returned to St. Louis and
requested Vice-President Hoxie to withdraw the offer of a reward for the
conviction of the criminals, as I was then, and am now, opposed to
offering rewards in such cases. Mr. Hoxie was in bed sick at the time,
but he issued the order as requested, and I promised him that I would
personally go to work on the case. A few days later, while I was engaged
in laying plans for working out a solution of the case, a bold attempt
was made to wreck another train near Tampoo, a short distance north of
where the first wreck had occurred. A couple of guards were on this
train and these men and some of the crew, who saw the wreckers, gave
chase and succeeded in arresting one of them. This man proved to be O.
J. Lloyd, a member of the Executive Board of the Knights of Labor, in
charge of the late strike. Prior to the strike he had been employed by
the Missouri Pacific Company as a switchman and had been a very active
member of the committee.
About this time my department was badly in need of a thoroughly trained
criminal lawyer to prosecute the cases growing out of the big strike,
and at my earnest solicitation, Marshall F. McDonald, former Circuit
Attorney of St. Louis, one of the best criminal lawyers of his time,
was retained by the company for the purposes named, and given authority
by Vice-President Hoxie to employ all other counsel needed. Mr. McDonald
accordingly employed Ex-Judge Laughlin and Judge R. S. McDonald to
assist him. A few days later, these three lawyers and myself met the
Hon. Bailie P. Waggoner, General Attorney for the State of Kansas for
the company, by appointment at Kansas City. We visited the scene of the
crime. As we were on the bank overlooking the place where the engine and
cars had left the rails, I told the lawyers that I was satisfied that
Lloyd, the man in jail for the Tampoo affair, was also implicated in the
Wyandotte crime, and that I proposed to get a confession from him.
"How are you going to go about it, Tom?" asked Judge McDonald.
"I am going to get it through a Knight of Labor," I replied, and gave
the gentlemen a short outline of the plan I had evolved in my mind for
getting the confession. After I had finished the lawyers all thought my
scheme was a good one, but not one of them thought it could be carried
out. I will admit that, because of the peculiar situation in Wyandotte
County at that time, I knew I would have to be very careful or my scheme
would not work. The mayor, sheriff, jailor and, in fact, all of the city
and county officials, even policemen and constables, excepting Judge
Hineman of the Circuit Court, were members of the Knights of Labor, and
of the same local lodge as the prisoner, consequently were very friendly
disposed towards him. As every one familiar with such organizations as
the Knights of Labor knows, I would have had but little trouble to find
a member among them who would betray the secrets of the order for a few
paltry dollars and thus enable me to obtain the information I so much
desired from Lloyd, but I decided on another plan, as I never
considered a man who would violate his obligation to be upright and
honorable. In a word, in trusting such men one is liable to receive what
is known in slang parlance as "the double cross."
Locked up in a safe in my office was a ritual and by-laws of the Knights
of Labor, and a book of instructions showing how to initiate new
members, together with the annual and semi-annual pass words, and the
"hailing" and "distress" signs and various signals used by the members
of the order, so I decided to set up a little Knight of Labor factory of
my own and make a member that I could trust with the work in hand. I had
an operative in my employ at that time named George Fowle. He had for a
long time been in the train service of different railroads of the
country, and I selected him as the man to be trusted with securing the
confession from Lloyd. I took Fowle into my private office, and after
instructing him carefully as to how to carry out my plans, he was
initiated into the mysteries of the order. We took our time and went
through the initiatory work carefully, so that when Fowle left for
Wyandotte the next day to play the part of Brother Alfred in the drama
that I had staged for that town, he was as well posted on the secret
work of the order as though he had just passed through the Grand
Assembly, as the governing body of the order was called.
On arriving at Wyandotte, Brother Alfred proceeded at once to the
headquarters of the organization, where he made himself known as a
special envoy and minister plenipotentiary of the head assembly of the
order at Scranton, Pa. His mission was to investigate the conditions as
he found them in Wyandotte, so that the head officers at Scranton would
know exactly what was going on in the west. He also hinted that the
General Master Workman and Grand Treasurer Hayes had empowered him to
use his own judgment about what was to be done in the case of Lloyd, who
was in jail on the train wrecking charge.
Brother Alfred also called on the sheriff, who was a Knight of Labor,
and after giving him the grip, asked to be allowed to consult with
Lloyd. The sheriff readily granted the request and Brother Alfred was
ushered into the jail, where he was closeted with Lloyd for more than an
hour and a half. After introducing himself to Lloyd, Brother Alfred
dispensed with all formalities and at once began a discussion of the
charge against the prisoner. "Of course, Mr. Powderly, Mr. Hayes and the
other head officers of the order and myself, know that you are all
right, Lloyd, and that you will not make a confession, but in cases of
this kind, where there are so many on the job, some one will squeal when
they are arrested, as they all will be, for the Goulds have a lot of
detectives on the case, headed by Tom Furlong, and it is only a question
of time until they are all run down. Furlong, as you know, is not only a
great detective, but he is also very unscrupulous and will not stop at
anything to secure a conviction in these cases. Now, the order at this
time cannot afford to have this crime laid at its door. If one of the
men implicated in it would confess, which some of them would be sure to
do, as I stated before, it would be a great blow to the order and cast
an odium over it that would take years to eradicate. Another thing, the
men charged with this crime could not get a fair trial here at this
time, as the people here are very sore, as are the members of the
Brotherhood of Firemen and Brotherhood of Trainmen, of which orders the
two men killed in the wreck were members. I have, therefore, evolved a
scheme to outwit these capitalistic bloodhounds, and thus save the
order. I have a lawyer over in the city from headquarters, Brother
Thomas, who will get you out of here on bond, and I will take you east
and get you a job on a railroad where Furlong cannot find you, and will
do the same thing with the other men who were with you."
"That is true about some of the gang squealing," replied Lloyd. "We have
been afraid of at least two of them giving the snap away, and I know
they will do it if they ever fall into the clutches of Furlong and his
hirelings."
Lloyd further expressed himself as being delighted with the scheme, and
within a few hours he was released from jail and taken by Brother Alfred
in a circuitous route through Kansas City to Independence, Mo., where
the two boarded a train for St. Louis. I had been informed of their
movements by wire, and had one of my operatives meet them at the Union
Station and escort them to the room of another operative in my employ at
17th and Pine Streets. That evening Marshall F. McDonald and myself and
a stenographer called at the room, and I was introduced to Lloyd as the
"headquarters' attorney," Brother Thomas. I corroborated all that
Brother Alfred had told Lloyd, and O. K.'d the scheme to get all of
these men in the job out of the country, and promised to do all I could
to further the scheme. Lloyd then gave us the names of his partners in
the crime. They were George H. Hamilton, Mike Leary, Robert Geers, Fred
Newport and William Vassen, all prominent and active members of the
local executive board of the Knights of Labor.
The next morning, Lloyd, in charge of Operatives Bonnell, McCabe and two
guards, and myself, boarded a special car at Union Station, and it was
attached to west-bound passenger train No. 1. Of course, Lloyd did not
know he was in charge of officers. At Independence the special car was
placed on a siding and I went on to Kansas City. The next morning, which
was Sunday, a conference was held at the St. James Hotel between the
attorneys for the Pacific Company and myself. It was late in the evening
when the conference ended, after which I decided to at once arrest the
men named by Lloyd as his partners in the Wyandotte crime. I proceeded
to Wyandotte and procured the warrants. As the arrests had to be made
quickly, and all my experienced men in that vicinity were in
Independence guarding the special car, I secured the services of Frank
Tutt, who had been employed by me as a guard for the railroad during the
strike, to go with the sheriff and myself to make the arrests.
The first man arrested was George Hamilton, chairman of the executive
committee in charge of the strike. We found him in ViceRoy Park,
Armourdale, where he was acting as a special policeman. When Hamilton
was pointed out to me, I approached him saying:
"I want you, officer."
"What for?" asked Hamilton.
"Murder," I replied.
Had Hamilton been cracked on the head with his own club he would not
have been more surprised. Before he could recover the club was taken
from his hand and his pistol from his pocket, and his big star from over
his palpitating heart. He made a feeble attempt to get indignant, but
failed lamentably and broke down completely, and wanted to confess. He
was taken to jail and locked up.
We then got in the hack and were driven to Armourdale, where we arrested
Robert Geers, after breaking through several doors. While arresting
Geers we came near getting our heads blown off by an irate roomer, whose
door we had broken open by mistake. After locking up Geers, we went
across the river and stopped in front of a shack in the bottoms, and
entering it arrested Fred Newport and took him to jail, leaving his wife
and six children in tears.
We then visited Kansas City and arrested Mike Leary. He was locked up
about 4:30 A. M. There was one man yet missing, William Vassen. We
experienced considerable trouble in locating him. He had left his home
to go to work for Wood Bros., the Kansas City ice dealers, where he was
employed as a driver to deliver ice. We obtained a list of his
customers, and finally overtook him near the Kansas City Union Depot, at
about seven o'clock. He broke down at once and wanted to confess. After
a good breakfast I took him to the St. James Hotel in Kansas City and
into the presence of the attorneys for the company. The prisoner broke
into tears, as soon as we entered the room, and made a piteous appeal to
the gentlemen to see that the wants of his sick wife and children were
attended to. "I have never been arrested before, and I was led into
this. I went into it at the point of a pistol," he said, crying
bitterly. "Damn the Knights of Labor," he continued, and expressed the
intention of making a clean breast of the whole affair. He was told by
both the lawyers and myself that he did not have to talk if he did not
want to. "I have been weighted down too long; I want to tell all about
it. I will suffer, I guess, but I deserve it." Then he made a full
confession, giving the most minute details of the terrible crime.
It was the intention of the gang, according to the confession, to wreck
a passenger train. The tools with which the spikes were pulled, and the
fish plates removed, were stolen from a tool house of the company,
located between the depot and the scene of the wreck.
Geers and Newport also made confessions, and all these men took the
stand at the trial of the defendants when they were arraigned the
following January. The testimony of these men was corroborated in every
detail, but the jury failed to reach a verdict, standing 7 to 5 for
acquittal. The Knights of Labor representatives, through the court
officers, who were all, excepting Judge Hineman, members of the order,
had succeeded in getting several of its members on the jury. The Knights
of Labor employed the best attorneys in the west to defend the men.
Among them were Ex-Governor Chas. P. Johnson, Ex-Senator William Warner,
Thomas P. Fenlon and others; in fact, the officers of the order spent
money very freely to bring about the desired end.
After the mistrial, the attorneys for the defense made application for a
change of venue, and the cases were sent to Olathe. The officers of the
Knights of Labor immediately sent a swarm of organizers into Olathe and
Johnson County, and through coercion and other mysterious methods,
succeeded in getting almost every male citizen of the county into the
order. The second trial resulted in another farce, the jury again being
packed with Knights of Labor.
About this time there was a change of management in the legal department
of the road, and the cases were all nollied at the request of the
company--even the three men who had made confessions were turned loose.
Peculiar conditions existed in the west at that time. The laboring men
knew nothing about the real benefits of unionism. They had been herded
into the Knights of Labor like sheep into a pen, and were educated by
those who led them into believing that any kind of crime was all right
when committed during a strike, or against a firm or company against
which there was a grievance, and the latter were often, as in the case
of the big strike on the Gould System, proved to be imaginary.
I and my men were only interested in this strike in so far as it was our
duty to see that no acts of violence were committed; in short, to
protect the company's property from vandals and thieves. The rank and
file of the order were led to believe by their leaders, however, that we
were a lot of crooks, who regarded a man's liberty and life lightly and
would violate any of the laws on the statute books to secure a
conviction in any case we were called into. And strange to say, there
are some men who believe this to be true, even to this day.
I want to say right here, that this crime was one of the most diabolical
and fiendish crimes of the century. Had it not been for a mere accident,
a loaded passenger train would have been wrecked instead of the freight,
but, luckily, the passenger was late, and the freight was given orders
at Leavenworth to proceed into Wyandotte on the passenger train's time,
with the disastrous results told in the preceding portions of this
narrative. The officers of the Knights of Labor knew these men were
guilty, for three of them had gone on the witness stand and testified to
the facts, while Lloyd, one of the leaders, had furnished evidence to
corroborate them.
The investigation, at the next grand assembly of the Knights of Labor,
at the insistence of a few good men in the order as to how much money
had been spent in defense of these men, revealed a big scandal within
the order. While it was true that a great deal of money had been
expended, yet it was learned that the sum was not more than one-fourth
of the amount claimed by the officers in charge of this fund.
The amount of money expended by me for the company, in working up the
case, was very small, as all of the men who did any work on the case
were employed by the month on a regular salary and expenses. In fact,
there were not cents expended in this case, when dollars were expended
in running down the dynamiters who blew up the Los Angeles Times, the
latter crime being the only one which has occurred within my time that
could at all compare with the Wyandotte wrecking case for cold-blooded
fiendishness. It is also the only case in which big rolls of money were
expended by labor organizations, knowing that the men were guilty.
Because of my work in this case, I incurred the lasting enmity of all
the heads of the Knights of Labor, from Terrance V. Powderly, the Grand
Master, on down the line. This was evidenced several years later. In
1889, I was tendered the position as chief of the secret service bureau
of the treasury department at Washington by President Harrison. I was
not overly anxious to accept the job, as the pay at that time was only
$3,600 per year, and I had a good business in St. Louis, as head of the
agency which bears my name, but at the solicitation of friends, I agreed
to accept the position. Somehow, the fact that I was to be the new chief
of the secret service had leaked out in Washington, and immediately the
Knights of Labor "tipped their hand," to use a slang phrase. The
President had gone to Deer Park, Maryland, to recover from the fatigue
caused by his inauguration, and his few first months of service.
Telegrams poured in on him from all points of the United States. They
came from the east and the west, and from the north and the south, and
from towns I had not known were on the map. Some of these telegrams were
long and others short, but all showed the vindictiveness of the members
of the order towards me. After the President returned from Washington he
sent for me, and on my arrival at the White House, told me of the
protests. To offset these, I presented letters from Ex-Governor Johnson
and Major William Warner, chief counsel for the men I had arrested for
the Wyandotte crime, which stated in terms that could not be
misconstrued, that I had done nothing but my duty in that case, and
testifying further that I had been very respectful and magnanimous to
the prisoners on trial--in short, that I had done nothing to secure a
conviction that was not entirely honorable.
"You are all right, Furlong, and I am going to appoint you, as soon as
this storm dies down a little," said the President. Of course, I was a
little put out by the delay, and told the President that if I accepted
the place my commission would have to be handed me not later than
January 1st. After further assurance from the President that I would
have my commission before the date mentioned, I returned home. A few
days before January 1st I was again called to Washington by the
President. I visited the White House in company with the Hon. Richard
Kerens. After a short discussion of the matter, the President told me to
go over to the treasury department and get my commission. On my arrival
there, I did not find the Secretary, Mr. Windom, in, he being detained
at home on account of sickness. My presence in Washington again revived
the rumors that I was to be appointed, and these rumors also put the
Knights of Labor to work again, with the result that the White House was
again flooded with a lot of telegrams protesting against my appointment,
and my commission was again held up. I then dropped the matter and
returned to St. Louis.
In conclusion, I wish to state that I assumed at the time all the
responsibility for the manner in which the evidence in this case had
been secured. The plan for obtaining the confession from Lloyd, which,
in reality, was the beginning of the case against the men, was worked
out myself; Fowle, or Brother Alfred, as he was known, simply played, or
acted the part assigned him. True, he played the part fairly well, and
carried out my instructions to the letter. At the time of the arrests,
and on several occasions thereafter, a certain strike guard employed by
the company, succeeded in getting his name and picture into the papers
of Kansas City as one of the chief unravelers of the mystery surrounding
the crime, but he had absolutely nothing whatever to do with the capture
of the criminals, beyond guarding them after the arrests had been made
by Sheriff Ferguson and myself. The "dope" he handed the papers was mere
rot. There was also considerable said in the papers about the part a wig
would play in the case prior to the trial, but all who were present at
the trial will remember that the wig was not introduced in evidence.
This wig was a "pipe dream," to use a slang expression.
"MOONSHINING" IN THE OIL REGIONS.
DESPERATE STRUGGLE ON A BRIDGE WITH A THIEF CARRYING A CARBOY FILLED
WITH NITROGLYCERINE--NARROW ESCAPE FROM DEATH OF PRISONER AND CAPTOR.
Early in the 70's, while I was Chief of Police of Oil City, Pa., a long,
wooden covered bridge spanned the Allegheny River at Oil City. This
bridge was at least fifteen hundred feet in length, had a driveway
through its center wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. This
driveway was boarded up closely with siding, which separated it on
either side from the footwalks, which were about six feet in width with
a high railing on the outside. There were lights at intervals along the
footwalks, about a hundred feet apart. The main structure of the bridge
was about forty feet above the river.
The bridge connected Oil City and South Oil City, extending from the
south end of Seneca Street in Oil City to South Oil City. South Oil City
then, as it is now, was the principal residence portion of the city,
while the north side of the river was, and is, the business portion.
This bridge was a toll bridge, and there were night and day toll
collectors stationed at the little house provided for their use at the
north end of the bridge. Their duty was to collect the toll from all
drivers of vehicles, and two cents from each pedestrian who passed their
window at the toll house.
There lived in Oil City at that time a notorious character by the name
of Tommy Griffith, whose face and form had become familiar to all the
residents of the town, also of the adjacent country. Griffith was a
Welchman by birth, middle aged, stout and heavily built in stature; had
a wife and a large family, and resided in South Oil City, at that time
owning his own home, and was apparently fairly prosperous. He was a man
addicted to drink, and was known throughout the country as the "Prince
of Moonshiners."
Moonshiners, in the oil region, were men who made a business of putting
explosives, which were called torpedoes, into oil wells for the purpose
of increasing the flow of oil. The oil-bearing rock, or crevices in the
oil-bearing rock, which were usually found near the bottom of the oil
wells, would get clogged with an accumulation of parafine. After the
well had been producing for a while the inlet to the well would become
clogged with this accumulation, when the owner of the well would resort
to the torpedo. These torpedoes were composed of a tin can or case,
which would hold from one to four quarts of nitro-glycerine, which is a
liquid that resembles lard oil very much, and is one of the most
powerful explosives known, if not the most powerful. The cases, or tin
cans, were round and nearly the size of the wells in diameter. The oil
wells in those days were usually four and one-half or five inches in
diameter. The cases were long enough to hold the quantity required for
the explosion, and were lowered from the top of the well by means of a
copper wire, which was attached to the percussion cap at the proper
depth in the well, then a heavy weight, the wire through its center,
would be sent down from the top over the wire and would strike the cap
on the torpedo. This would cause the explosion, and would shatter the
oil-bearing rock and jar the parafine, thereby making the opening by
which the oil found its way into the well, and increased the production
wonderfully for a period, or until the opening became clogged again from
the same causes. Then the same remedy would be applied, and for this
reason the torpedo business was a very profitable business, as this
nitro-glycerine was sold at the rate of about ten dollars per quart.
There was, at the time I am writing of, a company known as the Roberts
Torpedo Co., who had a monopoly of all the explosives and torpedoes used
in the oil wells for the purpose before mentioned. The Roberts Company
owned and operated the factories at which nitro-glycerine was made. They
employed only men who were experts in the torpedo business, as the
handling of torpedoes was very hazardous and dangerous, the
nitro-glycerine being treacherous and liable to explode at any time,
either from concussion, friction or heat. In fact, nitro-glycerine is
liable to explode spontaneously or without any apparent cause, so that
the most expert handler of the stuff does not really know when he may
consider himself safe when near a quantity of it. The Roberts Company
also had a number of what they call magazines, which were located in
isolated spots all through the oil regions. These magazines were places
for storing quantities of the nitro-glycerine, and usually close to a
producing district, so that the operator in charge of said district
could obtain a supply of it when he required it for use in his
territory. The moonshiner made a practice of breaking into these
magazines and stealing the explosives, which usually were placed in a
square tin can which held from twenty to forty pounds. These heavy tin
cans, or cases, were called carboys, and had a heavy wire handle
attached to the top with a short spout at one corner of the top of the
carboy from which the nitro-glycerine could be poured. As I said before,
it was like lard oil, and of about the same consistency.
These moonshiners would steal three or four carboys at a time,
concealing it in the mountains, and when they got an order from a
producer for a torpedo they would fill the order and put in the torpedo
in proper shape, as they were as expert in the handling of this
dangerous explosive as the Roberts Company's men were, as many of them
were ex-employes of that company. Prejudice existed among the smaller
producers against the Roberts Torpedo Company, as they complained that
the Roberts Company were charging them extortionate prices for
torpedoes, therefore the moonshiners were protected to an extent in
their nefarious business.
Upon the night of which I am writing it was after midnight when I left
my office at the City Hall on the north side, and started for my home on
the south side. I started on foot, and when I reached about the middle
of the bridge before described, I heard footsteps coming towards me on
the same foot-walk that I was on. I looked up and saw and recognized the
familiar form of Tommy Griffith, as he was passing a light which was
about a hundred and fifty feet from me. He was coming directly towards
me, and was evidently intoxicated, as he staggered from side to side of
the foot-walk. First he would stagger against the enclosed side, and
then back to the outside railing. Every time he came in contact with the
bridge I could hear a slight thud. He was carrying a gunnysack upon his
shoulder, containing a carboy of nitro-glycerine, and I thought it would
explode any moment, as he was continually striking it against the sides
of the bridge as he staggered. Then again he was liable to stumble and
let it fall, which would have been fatal both to himself, me and the
bridge. I thought of all of these things in a great deal shorter time
than it has taken me to write about it. It was in the winter, and I was
wearing rubber overshoes, and for this reason I made no noise in
walking. After recognizing Griffith and his condition, I instantly
turned and started back for the north side of the bridge. I am satisfied
that I made a record-breaking sprint until I got safely to the toll
house at the end of the bridge, where I hastily told Samuel Ervin, who
was on duty as night toll collector. I insisted on Ervin remaining at
his position as usual until Griffith arrived at the window, where I felt
sure he would stop long enough to pay his toll. Ervin was sitting in a
bay window with a slide in front of him through which he could take the
toll, and he could also see every person coming or going over the
bridge. I hid myself around the angle of the bay window in such a manner
that Griffith could not see me as he approached the toll window, and
when he neared the window he presented his toll with his right hand
while he was holding the end of the gunnysack with his left hand. This
bag contained the carboy and was hanging over his back. I noiselessly
approached him from behind, and, seizing the gunnysack containing the
carboy, jerked it away from him, while Ervin held on to his collar so
firmly that he could not get away or interfere with me until I had
deposited the case of nitro-glycerine on the ground, which, of course,
did not take me very long. I then grabbed Mr. Griffith, and he being a
husky, stout little fellow, and full of pluck and whiskey, made a
struggle, but I quickly overpowered him and promptly conveyed him to the
lock-up.
[Illustration: "Recognizing Griffith and seeing he was loaded down with
nitro-glycerine, I hot-footed it to the end of the bridge."]
I then returned to where I had deposited the nitro-glycerine. I found
Mr. Ervin standing upon the railroad crossing, which was about
seventy-five or a hundred feet from the tool house. I was then obliged
to carry the carboy of nitro-glycerine on my shoulder to the nearest
Roberts magazine, which was located in a ravine known as Sage Run, and
about three miles from the north end of the bridge. The carboy weighed
about forty pounds, and the walking was icy and slippery, and of course
my progress was necessarily very slow. It was nearly daylight when I got
home. It is needless to say that I was very tired.
We had been informed of the theft of more than a ton of nitro-glycerine
from a Roberts magazine, which occurred a few days prior to the night in
question, and after daylight the following morning I visited the home of
Griffith, which was situated in a good residence portion, and surrounded
by a number of good homes and families. I found in the basement of
Griffith's house the remainder of the ton of nitro-glycerine, which was
hidden under a stairway running from the kitchen of the house into the
basement. At the time I entered the house I found Griffith's children
playing and running up and down these steps under which the explosive
was standing in the original packages. There was nitro-glycerine enough
under those stairs to have blown up the entire city.
I was then compelled to procure a team and sleigh and do the driving
myself, and to load the stuff into the sleigh and drive it to the
magazine and there unload it. I could not induce any person to assist
me, as I did not have time, being compelled to move the stuff
immediately for the safety of not only Griffith's family, but the whole
neighborhood, and, therefore, could not wait to send word to the Roberts
Co. and have them send their own men, who were accustomed to handling
it. It was one of the most trying situations I ever found myself placed
in.
Griffith was tried in the court in due time, and was sentenced for seven
years in the state penitentiary at Allegheny, on the charge of grand
larceny.
Col. Roberts, who at that time lived at Titusville, Pa., and was
president of the Roberts Torpedo Company, sent me a check for five
hundred dollars, which I accepted.
Griffith served out his sentence, and returned to Oil City, where he was
living at my last account of him, and was following his old vocation,
that of moonshining, in a more moderate manner than of yore.