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 afternoon in the next August I returned to my apartments and found
him there, waiting for me. I was delighted to see him, but could not
help noticing that he did not present a very prosperous appearance.
He had very little to say of his Western experience, but asked many
questions about business prospects in New York City.
I soon saw that in following Horace Greeley’s advice he had met with
the same fate that so often befell others who acted upon the suggestion
that this worthy gentleman was always so free with.
After we had dined, and while we were alone together, Meriam pulled out
a five-cent piece, saying:--
“That’s all that’s left of my fifty-four hundred dollars.”
He then went on and told me a hard luck story about buying a
half-interest in a business and subsequently finding the stock
mortgaged, so that his capital was swept away. In order to get back to
New York he had had to pawn his trunk.
As I have before stated, Meriam was my friend; consequently it was up
to me to help him to a new start. I know Russell Sage would not look at
it in this way--but that’s wherein I differ from Uncle Russell. I told
Meriam not to worry, that fortunately I was pretty well heeled, and
that we would join forces in a livery business somewhere in the city, I
to furnish the capital and he to run the concern. This verbal agreement
continued between us for sixteen years without a single disagreement.
It would doubtless have continued longer but that it was broken by
Meriam’s death in 1884.
At the time Meriam and I made our verbal agreement to go into business
together, a Mr. Westcott, founder of the Westcott Express Company,
was transferring baggage for the New York Central Railroad, but had
no passenger service. We obtained from him the right to conduct a
passenger transfer under his name, and at once started with eight
horses and two Concord coaches, each of the latter bearing the
inscription, “Westcott’s Transfer Coach.”
This venture proved so lucrative that, within a few months, Mr.
Westcott decided to run it himself, and made us an offer for our stock,
etc. As our agreement was verbal only, and for no specific term, we had
perforce to sell to him.
In February, 1869, we bought from A. R. Matthews the stock and business
of the Brevoort Stables, 114 Clinton Place, for a cash consideration
of twenty thousand dollars, I furnishing the money; and the title was
taken in my wife’s name. In fact, I gave it to her, though Meriam
received one-half the profits, and it was always conducted under the
name of “Meriam’s Brevoort Stables.”
Until the advent of the London cheap cabs this business netted over
twelve thousand dollars per year. During my business career in New York
I was known as George Miles, the latter being my middle name; but in
the world of crooks I was known as Bliss and by other names. While in
the livery business, I must add here, I had a sort of blind brokerage
office in Broad Street, which was of service to me in more than one way.
The stable, as well as the hotel, was on land leased from the Sailors’
Snug Harbor Association, to which it belonged, and at the time we hired
it Messrs. Clark and Wait, then proprietors of the Brevoort House,
owned the lease of the stable also. We hired from them under a verbal
agreement, and, during the fifteen years or more that we were their
tenants we never had a single dispute, and our original agreement stood
during the whole of that time.
When, on the death of his father, Charlie Wait came into control of
the hotel, he got the aldermanic bee in his bonnet. In furtherance of
his ambition, he made a political deal which embraced the letting of
our stable to a certain politician. Consequently we were obliged to
vacate and also to sell our stock at a great sacrifice. At this time
Meriam was dead and I was finishing a twelve-year term of imprisonment
in Vermont, where I had been since 1876, for the robbery of the Barre
Bank. Consequently my wife was conducting the business with the aid of
a manager, and she could not cope with Wait’s political aides.
When I had been sent to prison, I had been robbed of nearly every
dollar I had by the New York police and was stone broke. Therefore this
livery business was my wife’s sole dependence for her livelihood; and
when deprived of it she was left in a bad way. On my release, in 1888,
we were practically without a dollar--thanks to Charlie Wait. But he
was no better off, having lost his whole fortune, including a one-third
interest in the Windsor Hotel in Fifth Avenue.
Meanwhile, during our separation, Shinburn had not fared much better
than I. He pulled off one good trick, got arrested for it, and
escaped. This trick was the robbery of the Lehigh and Susquehanna
Navigation Company at Whitehaven, Pennsylvania. A few days after our
arrival in New York from the Steuben County jail, Shinburn went to
Scranton. Here two sporting men of that city put him on to the safe in
question, which on one night in each month contained a large sum of
money with which to pay the employees of the company. Shinburn obtained
wax impressions of the keys to the safe and had duplicates made.
On the night when the pay money was supposed to be in the office
Shinburn entered the building and unlocked the safe. For some reason
the expected amount of money was not there, the safe containing at the
time only six thousand dollars. Shinburn decided not to take it, but to
wait until the full amount was on hand. Therefore, replacing the six
thousand dollars, he relocked the safe and left. The next month, on
the day that the large sum of money was again supposed to be on hand,
he returned, opened the safe, and found thirty thousand dollars. This
he took, thus getting twenty-four thousand dollars as a reward for his
patience.
He and one of the sporting men had driven over from Scranton in a rig
that had been hired from a livery in that city. After looting the safe,
they returned to Scranton by the same means, and would doubtless have
escaped detection but for one of those mysterious happenings which
seem to lie in the wake of the evil-doer to bring about his downfall.
The night of the loot was rainy, and the roads were muddy. When the
robbery was discovered, fresh wagon and horse tracks were found leading
to and from the village. The tracks showed a broken shoe on one of the
horse’s feet. These tracks were traced to Scranton, where a search of
the livery stables discovered the horse with the broken shoe.
This led to the arrest of the two sporting men, one of whom had hired
the rig. One of these gentlemen squealed, implicating Shinburn, who,
some weeks later, was arrested and taken to Wilkesbarre. Here, pending
a hearing of the case, he was kept at a hotel in charge of a special
deputy sheriff, who, on retiring to bed at night, handcuffed himself
and Shinburn together.
Shinburn saw that he was caught dead to rights, and that, unless he
could escape, he had a term of imprisonment before him. He therefore
broached the subject of escape to his jailer, and finally induced him
to consent to permit his prisoner to pick the handcuff lock and get
away.
For this Shinburn agreed to give his jailer two thousand dollars. He
did not have this amount with him, but, by convincing the deputy that
he had nothing to lose, the latter was induced to take Shinburn’s
promise of payment. Therefore, about midnight, while the deputy was
snoring like a trooper, Shinburn picked the lock of the cuff on his own
wrist with a common pen which had been bent to serve the purpose.
There was another guard in an adjoining room, with an open door
between. Therefore Shinburn quietly gathered up his own clothes, taking
also his jailer’s overcoat and gun, and slipped out into the hall and
there dressed himself. He then dropped to the ground from a window,
walked to Pittston, boarded a gravity railroad coal car, and rode to
Waymart. From here he was driven to Great Bend on the Erie Railroad,
where he boarded a train and landed safely in New York.
And now comes the sequel, which proves that crooks of a certain grade
are as careful of their promises as are the most honored business
men. Shinburn did not find it convenient to pay the promised two
thousand dollars until July, 1869. Then he sought to reach his whilom
jailer, but learned that he had left Wilkesbarre. All inquiries as to
where he had gone failed to locate him. Thereupon Shinburn inserted
a personal in the _New York Herald_, so worded that the person for
whom it was intended, and he alone, would understand it. After weeks
of advertising, the man was heard from. He came on to New York at
Shinburn’s expense, where he was paid the promised two thousand
dollars.
I was present when he received this money, and I can tell you he was a
happy man. He said:--
“It’s lucky that I did not get this money when you escaped. If I had,
it would all be gone with the rest of my money. I lost everything I had
in a deal I went into, and have been dead broke ever since. This money
will start me to going again.”
I wish I could say that with that money he built up an enormous
fortune; but as a matter of fact I never heard of him after he left us,
so do not know what finally became of him.