A BATTERED HULK STRANDED ON A SHORE TO WHICH NO TIDE RETURNS.
I am glad to say that during the almost lifetime I passed at Chatham
there were only a scant half dozen Americans who came down to keep me
company. One, Stoneman by name, interested me. He was a man of great
nerve and quick apprehension, and very truthful, therefore I found his
stories of his adventures most interesting, besides the fact that his
history was another proof of the truth that wrongdoing never pays.
Stoneman was of good parentage, and had entered the army in 1861, making
a good record up to and including the battle of Gettysburg. There, owing
to a quarrel with his captain, he deserted, and became a bounty jumper,
making a large amount of money, but when the war ended, finding his
occupation gone, he entered upon a life of crime, starting out first as
a very successful express robber. The last robbery he engaged in in that
line was on the New Haven road near Norwalk. His share amounted to some
thousands, but he was literally bowled out, and by a singular
circumstance. One of his confederates by the name of Riley had been
arrested, and was confined at Norwalk. He engaged as counsel for his
chum a well-known criminal lawyer of New York by the name of Stuart, and
arranged with him to go up to Norwalk to see Riley the following day.
Although Stoneman had plenty of money, he told Stuart he had none, but
Riley had. Then he gave Riley's wife $2,500, and told her to be present
at the interview between the lawyer and her husband. At the interview
Riley told him he would give him $2,500 if he cleared him or $1,000 if
he got him off with a sentence of two years or less. Stuart was hungry
as a shark to finger the money, and writing out a receipt for the full
amount inserted the conditions agreed upon. Putting the money in his
pocket he started back to New York with Mrs. Riley. Stoneman was on the
train waiting for them, and as soon as they started he joined them. It
happened the train was crowded, and they had to stand. It seems some
pickpocket saw Stuart pull out the money, and determined to get it from
him. On the arrival of the train in New York he succeeded in doing so.
Stoneman had hurried out of the station, and, of course, knew nothing of
the loss. So soon as Stuart discovered his loss he blamed him for it,
and, being in a fury, he flew to Police Headquarters, secured the
services of a friendly detective, and, going to the hotel that he knew
Stoneman frequented, had him arrested on a charge of robbing him. The
end of it all was that Stuart and the detectives got all his money, and
then, knowing him to be a daring man, one that would neither forget nor
fear to avenge his wrong, to get him out of the way they betrayed him to
the Connecticut police as one of the express robbers. He was sent to
Norwalk to stand his trial, was convicted and sentenced to five years,
and sent to Weathersfield. Being a good mechanic, he was put in the
blacksmith shop, and there, with an eye to the future, he did what is
frequently done by professional gentlemen in our prisons, made a
complete and most finely tempered set of burglar tools. They were too
bulky to be smuggled out by friendly warders, so he secreted them in the
shop where he worked and ruled. Many of the prisoners in Weathersfield
are expert workmen, and from the machine shops there a high class of
work is turned out. Among other workshops, there is one for the
manufacture of silver-plated ware. Stoneman had made chums with one of
the prisoners who held a confidential position in the silverware
manufactory. As Stoneman's sentence was the first to expire, he gave him
points, and it was plotted between them that the prison itself should be
burglarized by Stoneman on a certain night after his release. The
confidential man was to leave the way clear to the safe where the silver
bars used in the business were stored. He in due time was liberated,
with the customary injunctions from the warden and officers "not to come
back any more." He did come back, but in a way entirely unanticipated by
them.
He, of course, knew the whole routine of the place, the stations of the
guards, and that the wall after 8 p.m. was left entirely unguarded. The
second night after his liberation found him beneath the wall with no
other implements than a light ladder of the right height. In a minute he
was on top, had pulled his ladder up and lowered it inside.
Once inside, every inch of the place was familiar to him, and he had a
clear field. The shops, although inside of the boundary walls, were
quite separate from the main building, where the men, closely guarded,
were confined. He entered the familiar room where he so long had worked,
and easily placed his hands on his (to him) precious kit of tools, and
carried his jimmies, wedges, sledges, bits, braces, drills, etc., to the
wall, and then landed them safe outside. Then he returned and entered
the room where the plunder he sought lay. Thanks to his friend, the way
was easy, and his art was not required to secure it. There were 600
ounces in silver bars, a pretty good load in avoirdupois, but he only
made one journey of it, mounted the wall and speedily was over.
Stoneman was a long-headed fellow. He had taken, without the owner's
leave, one of the many boats on the banks of the near-by river. He
carried his plunder and tools down to the boat, and pulled across the
river, two miles down, to where quite a stream empties into the
Connecticut. He pulled some distance up it; then putting everything into
bags he sank them in the creek. Then drifting back into the Connecticut
River again he threw his ladder over and turned the boat adrift. At 7
o'clock the next morning he was in New York.
In due time, in the idiom of the professionals, he "raised his plant,"
and the burglar's kit manufactured in the Connecticut State Prison did
what Stoneman considered yeoman service. With all his art and cunning,
justice would not be cajoled by him, but weighed him in her balance, to
a good purpose too. His success in his particular line was great, but he
paid dearly for it all. Many times he escaped detection, but not always.
Not to escape, but to be brought to the bar, means a fearful gap in the
life of a criminal. He was, as I say, famous in certain circles for his
success in his lawless course, yet in the twenty years between 1865 and
1886 he passed sixteen years in captivity. In that year he went to
England with a confederate, and a few hours later in London they
snatched a parcel of money from a bank messenger in Lombard street. Both
were caught in the act, and sentenced at the Old Bailey to twenty years
each. To-day Stoneman is toiling under brutal task-masters, and it is
all but certain he will perish at his task, friendless, alone, unpitied.
Better so even, for should he ever be freed it will not be until the
twentieth century is well on its way to the have beens of time, then
only to find himself a battered hulk stranded on a shore from which the
tide has ebbed forever.