A SAN JUAN FIDDLER IN THE ROLE OF ROMEO--SALLY BERNHEIM LEAVES A WIFE
AT LAKE CITY AND STARTS TO EUROPE, FINDING A NEW JULIET ON BOARD
SHIP--A FLIRTATION OF THE SEA RIPENS INTO LOVE ON THE RHINE AND
MATRIMONY UPON RETURNING TO THE CENTENNIAL STATE--THE DESERTION OF THE
SAN JUAN WIFE FOLLOWED BY THE DESERTION AND ROBBERY OF THE DENVER
BRIDE--PURSUIT AND CAPTURE OF THE FLEEING BIGAMIST AND THIEF--A TERM
IN THE PENITENTIARY.
During the latter part of October, 1877, Judge Foster, a judge in one of
the districts of the United States courts in Kansas, was spending a few
days in Colorado, enjoying the delightful autumn weather of this climate,
when there came a sudden call upon him to go home to hear proceedings in
an important railroad suit, in which the Kansas Pacific company was
interested. It was a case demanding almost immediate attention, and
distance must be annihilated in some way. The Kansas Pacific railroad was
the connecting link between Denver and the point at which the judge's
presence was wanted. He had hardly expressed his desire one evening to be
in Lawrence, Kan., the next morning in time to open court, when an engine
with a sleeping car attached was announced to be at his disposal. A few
moments later and Judge Foster had seated himself in the car and the
engineer was told to fly.
Just as the car wheels were beginning to revolve, an encited individual
rushed unnoticed through the dark and caught the car as the rear end
passed by him. Swinging himself from the ground to the seat of the rear
platform he became a fellow traveler with Judge Foster on his lightning
express, they being the only passengers. There was considerable difference
between the two men, in social position, in official rank and all that
makes man well-to-do and respected in the world. The man who had joined
the judge was a thief, a bigamist, a strolling fiddler and now a fugitive
from justice. A queer combination--the same fast train hurrying one
individual off that he might mete out justice and another that he might
evade justice.
The train rushed out of Denver into the prairie land beyond, and pushed on
through the darkness towards the east at the rate of fifty miles an hour.
Judge Foster lay back in his cosy apartments and went to sleep. His fellow
passenger clung desperately to his hard board seat in the rear and busied
himself in holding his place, while the train bounced junkety junk over
the rail couplings. The subject of his revery as he sat thus confined to
his seat must have been a medley of women, of dance hall music, of police
officers, of a lovely little home with wife and child down in the silvery
San Juan, of a voyage and illicit courtship on the ocean, of wandering
along the banks of foreign streams talking of home in the Rocky mountains,
while still he was far away in the Faderland. Whatever the reverie may
have been, it was suddenly interrupted after it had had full sway for some
five hours, by a heavy hand falling upon the shoulder of the fugitive.
"Who are you?" was demanded.
"My name is Bernheim."
"What are you doing here?"
"I am going east."
"How did you get on?"
"I jumped on."
"With whose permission?"
"With my own."
"Then you will have to get off."
"All right."
This is a portion of a conversation which our fugitive had with the
brakeman of the little train. The party was nearing Wallace, Kan., where
it was desired to stop, and the brakeman had come out to be at his post of
service when the whistle of the locomotive should warn him that it was
time to apply the brake. The shrill cry was heard just as the conversation
was concluded, and the trainman turned to do his duty. In a few seconds
the train had stopped perfectly still and the brakeman turned to the
unwelcome passenger to renew his command to move off. But the fellow had
anticipated him and had jumped off as the train slackened and had
disappeared. He thus bade adieu to Judge Foster and his fast train, the
latter having been of all the service to him that it was possible to be,
as he had cleared the limits of Colorado and felt that he had given the
officers a slip which one scamp in ten thousand does not have the
opportunity to give.
We, too, dismiss the judge and his whirling car and also for the present
the fugitive from justice and take him up at another time of life. We
still for the present stick to the Kansas Pacific road, however.
In the fall of 1876, a year previous to the occurrence above described, on
an eastern-bound train, two Germans, a man and a woman, became acquainted.
At first the acquaintance was commonplace, made up of formal courtesies,
but when upon comparing notes the two travelers found that each was bound
for the same country, Germany, and that that was the native land of each
of them, and when later they became passengers on the same vessel across
the ocean, the acquaintance assumed something of a romantic nature. To
make it brief, they landed in the old world affianced. The lady's name was
Miss Maggie Harencourt, of Denver, a cousin of Mr. Jacob Schuler, of the
same place, and she was visiting Germany for her health. The man's name,
as given the lady, was Sally Bernheim, a native of Dusseldorff, Germany,
and as he represented to Miss Harencourt, a merchant from Lake City,
Colo., on his way to visit the scenes of his boyhood.
In Germany they saw much of each other, Bernheim urging the lady to become
his wife, and she repeatedly refusing on account of her health. When he
returned to America, which he did in the following spring, he obtained
from his sweetheart a promise to marry him on her return to this country.
She at the same time informed him of a legacy to which she had recently
come into possession, the amount of which she did not disclose, but it was
supposed to be something handsome.
A correspondence was opened between the two, which was kept up with
regularity and fervor on both sides. The lady had proposed that the
marriage take place upon her arrival in New York, Bernheim to go to that
point from Colorado to meet her. Pleading the unnecessary expense and the
demands of his business, the lover succeeded in gaining the consent of his
fiancee to a marriage in Denver, to be consummated whenever Bernheim
should learn from her of her arrival in the city. Miss Harencourt arrived
October 20, 1877, and registered at the American house, and notified her
waiting true love at Lake City of the fact of her presence. She remained
at the hotel three days and then repaired to the residence of her cousin,
Mr. Schuler, whom she told of her expected early marriage.
A few nights later the Denver and Rio Grande train from the south brought
among its passengers Mr. Sally Bernheim, of Lake City, who took a room at
the American. The next day he called upon his promised bride, and their
meeting was most affectionate. A speedy marriage was urged by Bernheim and
consented to by the lady.
In the course of the forenoon they took a walk about the city, and the
confiding Miss Maggie told Bernheim that she had nine new $100 bills, with
which she hoped to endow him, a small portion of the legacy to which she
had lately come into possession. With a natural and becoming solicitude
the groom expectant urged the impropriety of her carrying so large a sum
of money with her, and suggested that she entrust the funds to him, and
that he would deposit the money in the Exchange Bank in her name and
subject to her check. A thankful consent was given, and leaving the lady
at her house, Bernheim went to the bank and deposited the $900--in his own
name.
That afternoon at 3 o'clock the pair called at the residence of Rev. J. G.
Leist, of the German Methodist church, and the twain were made one flesh.
They, now Mr. and Mrs. Sally Bernheim, repaired at once to Brunell's
boarding house, then a fashionable place, on Fourteenth street, where the
best the house afforded was extended to them, and Sunday was passed in the
delectability of the honeymoon. Monday forenoon a man giving his name as
H. A. Thompson, who was introduced to Mrs. Bernheim by the husband as a
friend from Garland, called on them at Brunell's, the bearer of a letter
from Bernheim's partner at Lake City, which stated the necessity of
purchasing a bill of groceries at Kansas City. The letter was written in a
business-like manner and shown to the bride, who was forced to admit the
necessity of a brief separation from her husband, for, of course, the
expense and trouble of her accompanying him was not to be thought of. It
was decided then that Bernheim was to go East to purchase goods.
For some reason this plan was not acted upon, or rather a new phase in the
affair changed the course of the plot, as will be seen. The following day
Mr. and Mrs. Bernheim repaired to Dr. Buckingham's office, the lady
requiring medical attention. While there a man entered the office, and
walking to Bernheim, said loudly:
"How is wife number two?"
Receiving no reply he turned to the horrified bride and asked:
"Are you this man's wife?"
She replied, greatly agitated, "I am, sir."
"Why," said the stranger, "you are not; and this man, if he has married
you, is a bigamist, and has a wife and child in this very state. I am a
sheriff from his home and have come to arrest him."
Imagine the feelings of the poor woman, her dream of happiness thus rudely
brought to a close. But where was the man who had wronged her? While the
stranger and the woman had been talking, Bernheim had slipped out of the
room and could not be found. The stranger rushed in pursuit, but had no
sooner passed out of the office than the husband returned, saying he had
simply hidden. He admitted to the weeping woman the truthfulness of the
charge. He was married, but was carried into the terrible wrong he had
done by his passionate love for her. Now, nothing remained for him but to
fly. He left the heart-broken woman swooning in the office and started by
the rear entrance to the building for the depot. This was about 3 o'clock
in the afternoon.
Dr. Buckingham was informed by the woman of the wretchedness of her
condition, and that worthy gentleman hastened at once to the office of the
Rocky Mountain Detective Association, where he laid the matter before
Chief Cook, bringing that officer and also Sheriff Abe Ellis, of Pueblo,
who was in the office, to the room where Mrs. Bernheim was waiting their
coming. In broken sentences the woman told them her story. Sheriff Ellis
at once recognized from her description of her husband a somewhat noted
character of Southern Colorado, named Charles Blume, a fiddler who had
furnished music for social parties and dance houses in Garland, Lake City,
Las Animas and other towns for the past three or four years. He had
married a young woman at Las Animas in 1875, who with their baby was
living in Lake City.
The detectives undertook to find Bernheim, or Blume, if possible, although
the outlook seemed very gloomy. No one could be found who had seen the
rascal since he had disappeared from Dr. Buckingham's office, and there
was no trace to be had of him. The next day the man Thompson, who had
brought the letter to Bernheim, was arrested at the American house. He
denied all knowledge of the affair, except that he bore a letter from Lake
City to Denver for Bernheim. But when, upon searching him, a telegram,
written to be sent Bernheim at Wallace, was found in his pocket, he
confessed that he knew something was wrong, and that he had come to Denver
in answer to a telegram from Bernheim, and had received from that worthy
the letter he represented as having brought from Lake City. He said,
furthermore, that his name was H. A. Morris, and that he took a fictitious
name at Bernheim's instigation, as he knew that party had done. Thompson
was locked up.
The next morning, November 1, Deputy Smith, at the instigation of Chief
Cook, took the east-bound express on the Kansas Pacific in pursuit of
Bernheim, or Blume, it being very evident from the dispatch found on
Thompson that he was somewhere on that road. At noon of the same day a
telegram was received from Deputy Smith to the effect that Bernheim had
stolen a ride on the special car carrying Judge Foster to Wallace, and
instructing the officers to head the man off by telegraph. The wires were
at once clicking, sending word to the agents of the detective association
at Junction City, Topeka, Leavenworth and Kansas City, and that night
about 9 o'clock word came over the wire from Sheriff D. R. Kiehl, at
Junction City:
"Your man Bernheim is under arrest."
He was brought back without difficulty, and had to serve out an eight
year's sentence in the penitentiary at Cañon City. At last accounts his
first wife was still living in Lake City, and the second was still in
Denver. Morris was discharged from custody.
TWO OF A KIND.