ONE OF MY EARLY EXPERIENCES WHILE CHIEF OF POLICE OF OIL CITY--HOW A BAD
MAN, WITH A LONG RECORD, WAS TAKEN TO JAIL.
The notorious Tom Daly of Buffalo, New York, was arrested at Oil City,
Pa., early in the summer of 1872. Daly had been regarded in and around
the city of Buffalo for years, prior to his arrest at Oil City, as a
desperate and bad character. He had a police record almost as long as
the state statutes. He was a fighter and associated and lived with the
most vile and vicious characters to be found in the city. He was never
known to work at any legitimate trade or business. He did pretend to
gamble. He drank at times to excess, and was known to the police as a
strong-arm, or hold-up, man, and was considered by the police a hard and
bad man to arrest--a task which they were frequently called upon to
perform. But as bad as his general reputation was, he had what was
called a political pull in the slums district, in which he resided. He
had a following of his own class because he was more aggressive and more
physically powerful than his associates and followers, and not for the
reason of any superior intellect on his part.
A couple of days before his arrest at Oil City, complaint was lodged
against Daly and some of his associates by a man in Buffalo, who charged
them with having held him up and robbed him, by force, of a sum of
money. The man also stated that Daly and his confederates had brutally
beaten him, the marks of which he bore plainly. Two police officers were
instructed to arrest Daly and bring him to headquarters. As all the
officers who were located in and about the precinct in which Daly made
his home knew him personally, the two officers who were detailed to make
his arrest easily located him. When they approached him and told him
that they had been instructed to arrest him he smilingly inquired on
what charge, at the same time, as the officers were standing within his
reach, he promptly struck first one and then the other terrific blows
with his clenched fist, knocking both of them down. He then ran into a
brothel, or dive, in front of which he had encountered the police
officers. He, of course, disappeared and escaped being arrested.
The part of the city was known, at that time, as Rock Street, or the
Five Points, and was the worst and lowest district of not only the city
of Buffalo, but probably as bad, if not worse, than any other in the
country. It consisted principally of low dance halls and drinking places
which were patronized almost entirely by the lower grade of sailors and
canal boat men. As this district was bounded on the east by the Erie
Canal and on the west by the Buffalo Creek, which is the lake harbor of
Buffalo, it was consequently a peninsula, narrow, and frequented by the
class before mentioned.
After his escapade with the police, Daly, on the same night, made his
escape from Buffalo and went direct to Oil City, Pa., where he had some
friends and acquaintances. He arrived at Oil City the next day about
noon, where he met parties whom he knew and from whom he heard about the
prowess of a valuable bulldog, owned by a respectable citizen named
Ziegenheim, and who was connected with a meat market on Center Street.
This man Daly was about thirty-five years of age, was over six feet in
height and weighed at least two hundred pounds. He had an athletic
build, was dark complexioned and somewhat marked by the after effects of
small-pox. He had rather small dark eyes and the most villainous
expression I think that I have ever seen. He was considered an expert
boxer and was known to be a powerful man--at least by the two police
officers whom he had knocked down and escaped from in Buffalo. I had
heard of Daly and knew of his record, but I had never seen him until I
was called upon to arrest him in Oil City, and I did not know who he was
at that time.
When Daly had learned from the friends he had met in Oil City of the
valuable fighting bulldog before mentioned, he at once went to the meat
market, where he found Mr. Ziegenheim, and tried to purchase the dog
from him for the purpose of using him as a fighting dog. Ziegenheim
informed Daly, in a polite but firm manner, that his dog was not for
sale, as it was a pet of his wife and children, and that he would not
part with the dog under any consideration, and especially not for the
purpose Daly proposed to use him. Daly became angry and assaulted
Ziegenheim, who was fully as large a man as Daly, but was a gentleman,
and not a fighter. Ziegenheim immediately sought refuge behind a large,
round table, known as a meat block, which is used in all meat markets to
cut meat on. It was probably about four feet in diameter, and by keeping
on the opposite side Ziegenheim was out of Daly's reach. Daly picked up
a large cleaver, which he was holding in a threatening manner. At this
juncture I entered the shop, having been summoned by Mr. Steele,
Ziegenheim's employer, who had run from the meat market to my office,
which was just around the corner in the same block, and told me, in a
very excited manner, that there was a big man trying to kill Ziegenheim
in the shop.
At the time that Steele came into my office I was talking with the
Mayor, William M. Williams, and when Steele apprised me of Mr.
Ziegenheim's danger I sprang to my feet and was about to leave for the
meat market when the Mayor said to me, "Tom, you had better take a club
or a gun with you. Steele has said Ziegenheim's assailant is a big,
strong fellow." I hastily grabbed up a mace, or club, which was hanging
on a rack near where I was standing, and hastened to the shop, where I
found Daly standing in front of the meat block before described, with
his back to the door. He was holding a cleaver, as I said before, and
facing Ziegenheim, who was at the opposite side of the block. I
approached him from the rear without being noticed by him, and placed my
left hand upon the right collar of his coat as though I meant it, at the
same time commanding him to drop the cleaver. Whereupon he immediately
turned his head and looked down upon me with a very disdainful and
defiant expression. I saw in his eyes the most vile expression that I
have ever seen. I instantly realized that I was in for trouble. He was
wearing a stiff derby hat set back fairly well on his head, and it
seemed to be tight fitting. Upon noticing the expression on his
countenance I instantly struck him as hard a blow as I could with the
mace, which I held in my right hand, at the same time tightening my grip
on his coat collar and vest. However, before I struck him he made a
desperate backward lunge, evidently intending to get clear of me so that
he might get far enough away from me to strike me with his fists. But,
by reason of the strong hold I had on him I had drawn myself up close
to him, and in his lunge he was so much heavier and larger than I that
he carried me back with him, probably a distance of four or five feet.
It was while he, or rather we, were making this lunge, that I struck
him. My mace caught him, or more truthfully speaking, his hat, just
above his forehead. It forced his hat, which was a stiff one, as stated,
and drove it down over his forehead to his eyebrows. The hat was tight
and the lining was leather, and with the force of the blow the lining
cut the skin clear across the top of his forehead, and as the hat was
forced down the skin peeled down over his forehead, and of course, the
blood spurted over both of us. He fell to his knees with the force of
the blow, but immediately tried to rise, when I hit him a second time,
which felled him to the ground. I was still holding on to his collar,
and when he fell I started for my office, dragging him behind me. He was
upon his back and therefore helpless so long as I kept him moving. He
regained consciousness when he had gone about a hundred feet and began
pleading with me to let him up, which I did, with the understanding that
he was to accompany me peaceably. This he agreed to and did.
It being at the time of the day when the streets were crowded with
people, an immense crowd was attracted by the excitement, and a great
many comments were heard, many of them condemning my action as brutal
and uncalled for. There was both a morning and an evening paper
published in Oil City at that time. The evening paper got out an extra,
which censured me severely, and was entirely in accord with the previous
comments made by many of the crowd. They were, by the way, entirely
ignorant of the facts which led me to act as I had found it necessary.
The crowd filled the Mayor's office to overflowing, and among those
present were a few friends and former associates of Daly's, who
succeeded in getting one of the citizens, a saloon proprietor and
considered a good citizen and fairly well off, to come forward and
intercede with the Mayor, who at that time, in accordance with the laws
of Pennsylvania, was a committing magistrate. Daly's friends told the
Mayor that they would pay his fine and the costs and would see that he
left town within the hour, if he (the mayor) would let Daly go upon the
payment of the fine and costs for his having assaulted Zeigenheim.
The Mayor assented and fined him one hundred dollars and costs, three
dollars and fifty cents, making a total of one hundred and three dollars
and fifty cents. The citizens before mentioned paid this fine and Daly
left town immediately thereafter. He gave an alias to the Mayor, and his
friends did not betray him, and for this reason the Mayor or myself did
not know who he was until after he had departed.
Mr. St. John, who was the editor of the evening paper, and who had so
unmercifully roasted me, had always, prior to this occurrence, acted in
a friendly manner towards me. The write-up that he had given me that
evening, therefore, hurt my feelings beyond description.
A Mr. Bishop, who was the editor and proprietor of the morning paper,
had come from Buffalo, where he was born and raised, to Oil City, and he
at once took it upon himself to investigate, through correspondents in
Buffalo, by wire, what and who this man Daly was. The result of which
was that he devoted the entire first page of his paper, on the following
morning, to Daly's complete history, setting forth his police record,
his vocation and his desperate character, as well as the full
particulars and details of his most recent encounter with the two
Buffalo police officers, his escape from Buffalo and his subsequent
arrest by me at Oil City. The article wound up with the most
complimentary comments that I have ever received, considerable space
being devoted to the fact of my having succeeded in subduing and
arresting Daly unassisted by any one. This article caused a majority of
those who had so loudly denounced my actions of the previous evening to
apologize for their hasty conclusions. Mr. St. John, of the evening
paper, was among the first to approach me with an apology for his
publication of the evening before.
If I had known that it was the notorious Tom Daly I had been called upon
to arrest I don't believe that I could have been pulled into that meat
market with a large rope attached to my neck; but I was fully convinced
that prompt and decisive action was required on my part the instant that
I saw that vicious, and I might say, hideous expression on Daly's face.
The result of this arrest had more to do with securing me the confidence
and respect of the law-abiding citizens of Oil City than any other one
arrest that I had ever made, and I had made many of them.