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 bank did not fail. That is, it did not fail
then.
On that Sunday afternoon, after we had removed a million and a half
from the vault, and paid a visit to Jack McCord’s house as related in
the last chapter, he went out of his house on that day, breaking his
custom in this respect. He hunted up the other members of the Ring, and
notified them all, including Captain Irving, to be at headquarters by
nine o’clock the next morning without fail.
At that hour one of my coaches with my finest team stood in Crosby
Street near Houston. My best driver held the ribbons over them. In
due time came the notice to headquarters of the robbery of the bank.
Captain Irving and Detectives McCord and Kelso thereupon hastened to
the corner of Crosby and Houston streets and boarded my coach. The
horses were started at their best gait, and the detectives were soon at
the scene of the loot.
By this time the robbery had become generally known in the vicinity
of the bank. The bank’s offices were filled with a mob of shouting
depositors and owners of boxes, who were clamoring for their money and
valuables. Irving turned them all out and locked the doors and then
began to question the bank officials. You will readily imagine that the
information which he derived from this questioning was of great benefit
to him--it told him so much that he did not know.
The detectives listened to the officials’ stories, looked wise,
consulted, and then determined that the job was the work of a Western
gang of burglars, which it had long been rumored was coming East.
Irving said that guards would at once be placed at all ferries and
railroad stations, and assured the bank people that it would be but a
day before the robbers would be bagged and the loot returned.
The confident manner of the detectives reassured the bank officials,
who began to feel that things were not so bad as they had at first
appeared. Irving then attended to the returning of the safe deposit
boxes to their owners in the crowd out in the street. The reception of
one of these boxes was generally followed by wails of sorrow, long and
deep. Then, after cautioning the bank officials to give nothing to the
press, but to refer all reporters to headquarters, the detectives left,
to place the cordon about the city.
And, to blind the press and the police officials not in the know, this
cordon was placed, and many a policeman watched a ferry-house or a
railroad station for mythical Western crooks. Yes, the members of the
Bank Ring put in their share of this kind of watching, too, though they
knew at all times where to find the looters. Indeed, I had a long talk
with Jim Kelso while he was stationed at the Harlem depot to catch the
robbers.
On the afternoon of the same day that they had visited the looted bank,
Irving, Kelso, and McCord met Shinburn and myself at Stetson’s in
Central Park. Here we had a wine dinner, and Irving then narrated to
us the happenings at the bank that morning. Of course, Shinburn and I
expressed the wish that the police might capture that bad Western gang.
But the detectives were more particularly interested in the amount they
were to get out of the robbery.
Shinburn and I had gone through the stuff we had taken, and found that
the precious sealed package, of which Taylor had told us, contained
non-negotiable paper, upon which a customer of the bank had borrowed
capital. No doubt the customer would have been pleased had the
package never been heard of again. We had made a tabulated statement
and, taking it with us, showed it to our table companions. It ran as
follows:--
Cash taken away $125,000
Cash left in bank vault 200,000
U. S. government bonds--then above par 1,475,000
Miscellaneous bonds, marketable 100,000
Western R. R. bonds, unsalable 850,000
----------
Total $2,750,000
In running over the list, McCord exclaimed: “Cash left in bank vault,
two hundred thousand dollars! What in hell do you mean by that?”
“We left that amount there,” I replied.
The detectives looked at me in wide-eyed astonishment. “Were you
crazy?” asked Kelso.
“No; just keeping a promise,” I replied. “It is nothing that interests
you people. But it’s funny that the bank folks didn’t tell you about
it.”
“Well, they didn’t,” said Irving.
This worried me, for I feared that the package had not been found and
that we had left it to no purpose. How this could have happened I could
not understand, as I had seen Taylor that morning, and told him just
where I had left it, and did not believe Taylor would hold it out.
However, it was found and used for the purpose intended. I learned
this from the papers next morning as well as from Taylor, later. How
the press got the news, I don’t know; but they got it.
Two or three days after the robbery we were told that there was a
possibility that the bank might call in the services of the Pinkertons,
who a few years before had established their New York branch. The Bank
Ring also had some fear of this; and Irving was insistent in his demand
that such a thing should not be done, as it would interfere with the
plans laid by the police. And so it would have done, but not in the
manner that the bank officials were led to suppose. If the Pinkertons
were to get into the case, Shinburn and I felt that it would be better
to have none of the proceeds of the robbery where they could be traced
to us. Therefore we discussed what would be the best disposition to
make of it--it was still in my rooms, all except the cash, which had
been banked. Finally, we agreed to go to Peekskill and bury the stuff
in a safe place.
In pursuance of this plan we got large fruit-jars and filled them with
bonds, etc., crowding them down as tightly as we could. We placed the
jars in tin cans and sealed them up. With a part of these jars we went
to Peekskill by train, hired a livery rig, and drove out about two
miles northeast of the town. Here, in a wood, near an old mill, we
buried the cans we had brought. The next day we took the rest of the
cans to Staten Island and buried them in the woods then standing back
of what is now known as St. George.
The weeks went by, and the Bank Ring succeeded in preventing the
employment of the Pinkertons. One day I went down to Staten Island and
drove up to where our plant was. Right over the spot where our cans
lay buried was a tramp, stretched out, fast asleep. I left at once,
but in great trepidation. The next day I returned and dug down to the
treasure. It was all there, safe and sound. As everything seemed to
be safe so far as the Pinkertons were concerned, I took up the cans,
placed them in my wagon, and carried them back to town, where I put
them in our box in the Safe Deposit Company’s vaults.
A few days after this a terrific storm swept over the lower Hudson
valley, uprooting trees, throwing down buildings, and washing away
hillsides. Shinburn and I feared that the rain might have washed bare
our plant at Peekskill. Therefore we visited the plant and found it
undisturbed; but we dug the cans up and took them back to New York,
and put their contents in the deposit vault along with the rest. This
burying of the treasure proved to have been an unnecessary precaution;
but if the Pinkertons had been put to work on the job, this burial
would no doubt have saved us from being caught with the goods on us.
However, we were never molested, nor was suspicion ever directed to
Shinburn or myself on account of this robbery, great as it was. For
weeks the press of the country teemed with items about it. Many and
wild were the speculations as to who were the robbers, whence they had
come and whither they had gone. But the truth has never been known
until revealed in these pages--except to the robbers themselves and to
the members of the police Bank Ring.
Furthermore, we sold all the government bonds without attracting the
least attention to ourselves, though Detective George Elder was at one
time pretty hot on the scent. However, his brother officers steered
him off. Yes, he was even sent on several wild-goose chases after
“suspected men” to keep him from interfering with us and our plans. The
disposing of these bonds will make a good story. I may tell it later.
All of the non-negotiable paper that we took, amounting to eight
hundred and fifty thousand dollars, turned up mysteriously one night
on the steps of Captain Jourdan’s station-house, in Franklin Street,
enclosed in the paying teller’s trunk, and was by the captain returned
to the bank. Therefore the par value of the property that we actually
realized on amounted to one million seven hundred thousand dollars. The
government bonds, though, were worth at that time about one hundred and
sixteen, if I remember rightly, which would make the real value of
the entire property one million nine hundred and thirty-six thousand
dollars. We did not realize this sum, however, as we had to sell the
bonds at some discount.
The proceeds of the robbery were distributed as follows:--
Paid Insurance Agent Kohler $50,000
Paid our assistants, etc. 25,000
Paid Bank Clerk Taylor 275,000
Divided equally between Shinburn and myself 1,225,000
----------
Total $1,575,000
The amount paid to the police was divided as follows:--
To James Irving, head of Detective Bureau $17,000
To John McCord, detective 17,000
To George Radford, detective 17,000
To James Kelso, detective 17,000
To Philip Farley, detective 17,000
To John Jourdan, Captain Sixth Precinct (afterward
Superintendent) 17,000
To John McCord for Detective George Elder 17,000
To one other police detective 1,000
To Inspector Johnson 1,800
To John Browne 500
To Frank Houghtaling, Clerk Jefferson Market Police Court 10,000
--------
Total $132,300
In addition to the above amounts paid police and court officers, James
Kelso, and Frank Houghtaling were each given a James Nardenne, Swiss
movement, hunting-case watch and long chain, bought at Benedict
Brothers’ for five hundred dollars apiece.
All moneys paid police and court officers, except John Jourdan’s share,
I paid direct to John McCord as early as November 1. Jourdan’s rake-off
was paid to him personally by me at his home in Prince Street on a
Sunday evening three days before Shinburn sailed for Hamburg. At this
meeting McCord was present, and it was arranged that McCord and Radford
should be at the Hoboken pier to protect Shinburn from the Pinkertons.
As to the money paid to McCord for George Elder, the latter claimed he
never received it. The five hundred dollars to Browne was paid after
he had been bounced from the police force, and while he was runner for
Mayor Oakey Hall. This money was not paid to Browne for services, but
for the following reason: He came to me some time after the robbery,
and, pleading poverty, said that he should have been “seen” in the
Ocean Bank affair. I told him that I did not know what I had to do
with that. He tried a bluff, but it didn’t work. Finally he came
down, said he was in trouble over a girl, and that she would have
him arrested if he did not give her five hundred dollars. Purely out
of compassion--more for the woman than for him--I paid her the five
hundred dollars and she released him. Later, Browne tried to hold me
up again--this time for one thousand dollars. We had some rather hard
words and he got nothing, and we have not been friendly since.
Many and varied were the episodes that grew out of this great robbery,
owing to the great notoriety it gained throughout the country. Messrs.
Linenthal and Co., wholesale tobacconists, had two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars in government bonds on deposit with the bank as
security in a lawsuit they had pending with the government. Linenthal
and Co. sued the bank for the value of the bonds, claiming that the
robbery was put up by some of the bank officials. To prove this claim
they obtained a pardon for a convict in Sing Sing who claimed to be
one of the burglars. He knew absolutely nothing about the robbery, and
what, if any, testimony he gave I do not know. But he got his pardon.
At another time a crook named John Irving, being stranded in San
Francisco and desirous of coming East, “confessed” that he was one of
the burglars. The New York police were notified, and the Commissioners,
not being in the “know,” ordered Captain Irving to go West after his
namesake. Consequently he started, accompanied by Detective Dusenbury.
About a month later I was at Suspension Bridge, on my way to attempt
the robbery of a bank at Goodrich, Canada. A train from the West had
just arrived, when I heard my name called. On looking up, I saw Captain
Irving on the platform of a car of the east-bound train.
“Come over here, George,” he said. I walked across to the car and shook
hands with him.
“Come inside,” said he. “I have something to show you.”
Together we went into the car, where we found a man handcuffed to
Detective Dusenbury.
“This,” said Irving, pointing to the prisoner, “is, it is claimed, one
of the Ocean Bank burglars.”
“You don’t mean it!” I replied. “How did you catch him?”
“Oh, he confessed, out in San Francisco, and the Commissioners sent
us out after him. But by the time we got out there he had changed his
mind and put up a fight. We have him, however; though, to tell you the
truth,” said Irving, winking, “I don’t believe he did it. His story
don’t sound right.”
And it didn’t sound right to the bank’s counsel, either; therefore the
prisoner got his free ride to New York and was not tried for the Ocean
Bank robbery. But, unfortunately for him, there was an old indictment
against him, and on that he got five years in Sing Sing.
There were lots of just such fake stories based on the robbery.
Then the pretended selling of the stolen bonds was another scheme.
Billy Matthews, my former gambler friend, in conjunction with one Jack
Sudlow, worked this game for some time. Sudlow was an East-side boy who
had gone to West Virginia and by some means become president of a bank
there. He finally wrecked the bank, taking everything but the safe and
a five-cent postage stamp. He overlooked the stamp and didn’t think of
it till he had reached Baltimore--then it was too late to go back after
it. The safe had been too heavy for him to carry.
This Jack Sudlow could lie like a bulletin board and make one believe
that black was white. Well, he and Billy juggled many a good dollar
out of the people’s pockets and gave in return a package supposed
to contain stolen bonds, but which, in reality, held naught but an
old newspaper or two. And it was not only “come-ons” that they beat,
either. They took fifteen hundred dollars out of Elias, the original
“sawdust man,” who was called the “king of swindlers.” And they “beat”
Banker Sam A. Way, of Boston, out of twenty-one thousand dollars. The
mode of beating Way was as follows: Way was president, and practically
the owner, of the Bank of Metropolis, 36 State Street, Boston. He was
widely known as a purchaser of stolen bonds if the price was right
and no risk, and he was considered a very slick man. Sudlow went to
him, and, showing a genuine one-thousand-dollar bond, said that he had
twenty-five more that he would like to sell, at the same time stating
that they were part of the Ocean Bank loot. Way bit, and finally
purchased the twenty-six at thirty per cent discount on the market
price, which was then one hundred and sixteen. Therefore the purchase
price was twenty-one thousand one hundred and twelve dollars. The price
having been agreed upon, Sudlow said:--
“Very well, I will leave this bond with you”--laying the genuine bond
on Way’s desk--“and will bring the other twenty-five to-morrow. Please
have the money all ready in large bills.”
The next afternoon, just before time for the bank to close, and when
business there was the liveliest, Sudlow rushed in and said:--
“Here are the bonds, Mr. Way. Have you the money ready?” at the same
time laying down a package marked “25--$1000--$25,000--U. S. Coupon
Bonds 5/20 of 1863,” and fastened with wax seals bearing the imprint of
the Park Bank of New York.
The successful pulling off of a swindle of this kind lies in the manner
of the swindler. Sudlow had the right manner, and Way paid over the
money without opening the package. Later he found that he had one good
bond and a collection of newspapers.
When the Ocean Bank robbery had become an event of the past, it can be
readily understood that I realized a comfortable sense of relief and
security, as far as wealth could bring about that satisfactory state. I
felt as though I was in that class of men known to the present period
as Captains of Industry. In accumulating wealth I had the same object
in view as have Russell Sage, John D. Rockefeller, J. Pierpont Morgan,
Charles M. Schwab, John W. Gates, the United States Ship Building
Company, and similar financiers and corporations, whose scheming to-day
is to obtain something for nothing. I piled for myself earthly treasure
outside of the Golden Rule, and they are accumulating colossal fortunes
for themselves with the same persistent and bold disregard for that
biblical admonition before them. However, I proceeded on somewhat
different lines to gather in the shekels, though our incentives
sprang from the same parent--desire for riches. Instead of employing
expensive attorneys to keep me from getting into jail, I solicited the
valuable assistance of the inner Bank Ring of the Police Department,
whose services were expensive, I frankly admit, as was demonstrated
in the percentage I paid the members of the Ring from the Ocean Bank
haul. Nevertheless the Ring’s protection enabled me to remain in New
York without being compelled to hide behind the cellar door, which is
considerably more than some of my co-speculators of that period could
say for themselves.
No doubt there are memories able to recall how Jay Gould and Russell
Sage drove the Missouri Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad into
insolvency by playing Wall Street tag with its stocks, and then through
shrewd legal counsel secured for themselves the receivership of that
valuable property. The same memories will also recall how Messrs.
Gould and Sage so juggled the finances of that railway that the
original stockholders were practically frozen out of their holdings,
and how those stockholders rose in their righteous wrath and appealed
through the criminal courts for justice and the recovery of their
own. In that great crisis Jay Gould, the master wrecker of railroads,
suddenly found himself in ill health, and, hastily provisioning his
palatial steamer the _Atlanta_, sailed away on an extended ocean
voyage, thus making himself safe against the pursuit of the officers of
the law armed with warrants for his apprehension.
In closing this chapter I will add that the Ocean Bank is no more,
though the building in which it was still remains intact. The various
floors are now used as offices and small stores for tradesmen. The
bank itself went to pieces in 1876, several years after my handiwork
depleted its rich vault; but another class of crooks was the author
of its ruin. The Tweed gang of politicians got in their greedy work,
and when they were done, little remained to be divided among the
honest people who patronized the bank. It was long a trite saying in
Wall Street that the bank suffered much from the encroachment of the
burglars, but that was but a mere trifle compared with the blow given
it by the politicians.
The legend in great brownstone letters, “Ocean Bank,” may yet be seen
over the main entrance to the building, a vivid reminder of the burglar
craft and corrupt politicians of nearly twoscore years ago.