[Illustration: RUBE BURROW.]
RUBE BURROW,
KING OF OUTLAWS,
AND HIS
BAND OF TRAIN ROBBERS.
AN ACCURATE AND FAITHFUL HISTORY OF THEIR
EXPLOITS AND ADVENTURES.
BY
G. W. AGEE,
Superintendent Western Division Southern Express Company.
PUBLISHERS
THE HENNEBERRY COMPANY
CHICAGO
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY THE AUTHOR
TO HIS COMRADES AND CO-WORKERS
IN THE EXPRESS SERVICE
OF AMERICA.
“Some hapless souls are led astray,
While some, themselves, seek out the way.
Some fall, unthinking, in the pit,
While others seek about for it.
’Tis probable, if Satan should
Strive for the universal good,
And close his gates and bar them well,
Some souls would still break into Hell.”
PREFACE.
Since the days of the James and Younger brothers, bold types of Western
outlawry, which were the immediate products of the late civil war, no
banditti have challenged such universal attention as those led by the
famous outlaw, Rube Burrow. The press of the country has woven, from
the wildest woof of fancy, full many a fiction touching his daring
deeds, and manufacturers of sensational literature have made of the
bandit as mystical a genius as the “Headless Hessian of Sleepy Hollow.”
With the view of correcting the erroneous accounts heretofore given
the public, I have yielded to the solicitations of many friends in the
Express service and consented to give a faithful and accurate history,
compiled from the official reports of the detectives, detailing the
daring deeds, the thrilling scenes and hair-breadth escapes of the
outlaw and his band of highwaymen. Important confessions of some of
the principal participants in the eight train robberies committed,
covering a period of nearly four years, are also given, without color
of fiction or the caprice of fancy.
It is the province of this volume, therefore, not to laud evil
endeavor, but rather to chronicle the hapless fate of those who,
turning aside from the paths of peace and honor, elect to tread the
devious and thorny road which leads on to the open gateway, over which
is emblazoned, in letters of living fire, the accursed malediction,
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
G. W. AGEE.
_Memphis, Tenn., December, 1890._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Lamar County, Alabama--The Home of the Burrow Family--
Biographical Sketch of Rube Burrow’s Ancestors 1
CHAPTER II.
Rube Leaves Lamar County, Alabama--His Early Life in the Lone
Star State--His Brother Jim Joins Him--The Bellevue, Gordon
and Ben Brook, Texas, Train Robberies 8
CHAPTER III.
The Genoa, Ark., Robbery, December 9, 1887--Arrest of William
Brock--His Confession 19
CHAPTER IV.
The Pinkertons After Rube and Jim Burrow in Lamar County--Their
Narrow Escape 27
CHAPTER V.
Rube and Jim Board an L. & N. Railway Train at Brock’s
Gap--Their Arrest and the Subsequent Escape of Rube 31
CHAPTER VI.
Rube Burrow Returns to Lamar County--Joe Jackson Joins Him in
March, 1888--Their Trip into Baldwin County, Alabama 38
CHAPTER VII.
The Ride into Arkansas to Liberate Jim Burrow--Failure and
Return to Mississippi 42
CHAPTER VIII.
Rube Burrow and Joe Jackson Leave Arkansas--They Turn up as
Cotton Pickers in Tate County, Mississippi 45
CHAPTER IX.
Jim Burrow Arraigned--Trial Postponed--His Return to Little
Rock Prison--Letters Home--His Death in Prison 49
CHAPTER X.
The Duck Hill, Miss., Robbery--The Killing of Passenger Chester
Hughes 52
CHAPTER XI.
The Cold-blooded Murder of Moses Graves, the Postmaster of
Jewell, Alabama 61
CHAPTER XII.
Smith Joins Rube Burrow and Joe Jackson--The Buckatunna Robbery 68
CHAPTER XIII.
The Capture of Rube Smith and James McClung at Amory, Miss.--
McClung’s Confession--A Plan to Rob the Train Falls
Through--A Safe Robbery Nipped in the Bud 82
CHAPTER XIV.
A False Alarm--The Ox-cart Trip to Florida--The Separation--
Rube Located at Broxton Ferry--His Escape 91
CHAPTER XV.
Capture of Joe Jackson 104
CHAPTER XVI.
Confession of Leonard Calvert Brock, _alias_ Joe Jackson, made
at Memphis, Tenn., July 19, 1890, and Corrected and Amended
at Jackson, Miss., October 16, 1890 107
CHAPTER XVII.
Rube Smith’s Plot to Escape from Prison--His Plans Discovered--
The Tell-tale Letters 136
CHAPTER XVIII.
Rube Burrow Harbored in Santa Rosa--The Flomaton Robbery 142
CHAPTER XIX.
Rube Routed from Florida--The Chase into Marengo County,
Ala.--His Capture 151
CHAPTER XX.
Rube’s Last Desperate Act--Escape from Jail--The Deadly Duel on
the Streets of Linden--The Outlaw Killed 164
CHAPTER XXI.
Tragic Suicide of L. C. Brock, _alias_ Joe Jackson--He Leaps
from the Fourth Story of the Prison into the Open Court,
Sixty Feet Below, Causing Instant Death--His Last Statement 176
CHAPTER XXII.
Rube Smith’s Trial for the Buckatunna Mail Robbery--An
Unsuccessful Alibi--Perjured Witnesses--Masterly
Speeches--Conviction and Sentence 185
CHAPTER XXIII.
Conclusion 191
RUBE BURROW.
CHAPTER I.
LAMAR COUNTY, ALABAMA--THE HOME OF THE BURROW FAMILY--BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH OF RUBE BURROW’S ANCESTORS.
Lamar County, Alabama, the home of the Burrow family, has become
historic as the lair of a robber band whose deeds of daring have had
no parallel in modern times, and the halo of romance with which that
locality has been invested has converted its rugged hills into mountain
fastnesses, its quiet vales into dark caverns, and the humble abodes of
its inhabitants into turreted fortresses and robber castles. The county
of Lamar, divested of the drapery of sensationalism, is one of the
“hill counties” of northern Alabama, and takes high rank in the list
of rich agricultural counties of the State. It possesses a charming
landscape of undulating hill and dale, watered by limpid streams, and
amid fertile valleys and on the crests of its picturesque uplands are
found the peaceful and prosperous homes of many good and law-abiding
people, thus proving that good people are indigenous to every clime
and land where the hand of civilization has left its kindly touch. “It
does not abound in grand and sublime prospects, but rather in little
home scenes of rural repose and sheltered quiet.”
Lamar County was formed in 1868 from the most fertile portions of
Fayette and Marion Counties, and has changed its name three times;
first it was called Jones, then Sanford, and, finally, it was named
Lamar, in honor of the distinguished statesman and jurist who now
adorns the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. This
section of the State, though not until the last decade possessed of
the advantages of development which more fortunate sections have
long enjoyed, has always had an excellent citizenship. Here, in the
olden time, were found ardent followers of the political faith of
the founders of the Republic, and while the bonfires of the zealous
pioneers of that day and time lighted the hill tops, the valleys of
that section of northern Alabama reverberated with the campaign songs
of their enthusiastic compatriots. From this section, no less renowned
in war than in peace, a large company of soldiers was sent to the Creek
war, and a full quota of gallant men went forth to the Confederate
army, three companies of which were in the Twenty-sixth Alabama
Infantry, one of the most superb regiments in the Army of Northern
Virginia.
This much, in truth and justice, should be said in behalf of Lamar
County, which has gained an unenviable notoriety as the birthplace of
Rube Burrow, and later as the rendezvous of his confreres in crime.
When metropolitan places, with well-equipped police powers, give
birth to such social organizations as the anarchists in Chicago and
the Italian Mafia in New Orleans, and become asylums for organized
assassins, the good people of these cities are no more responsible for
the resultant evils than are the law-abiding people of Lamar County,
Alabama, for the deeds of outlawry of which one of her citizens, by
the accident of birthplace, was the chief exponent. The Burrow family,
however, were among the earliest settlers of Fayette County, Alabama,
from which Lamar was taken, and from their prolific stock descended a
numerous progeny, who, by the natural ties of consanguinity, formed a
clan amongst whom the bold outlaws found ready refuge when fleeing from
the hot pursuit organized in the more populous localities which were
the scenes of their daring crimes. Chief among Rube’s partisans and
protectors was James A. Cash, a brother-in-law.
Allen H. Burrow, the father of Rube, was born in Maury County, Tenn.,
May 21, 1825, his parents moving to Franklin County, Ala., in 1826, and
who, in 1828, settled within the vicinity of his present home in Lamar
County, Ala. In August, 1849, Allen Burrow married Martha Caroline
Terry, a native of Lamar County, who was born in 1830. From this union
were born ten children--five boys and five girls. John T. Burrow, the
oldest child, lives near Vernon, the county seat of Lamar. Apart from
harboring his brother Rube, while an outlaw, he has always borne a fair
reputation. He is of a rollicking disposition, possesses a keen sense
of the ridiculous, is a fine mimic and recounts an anecdote inimitably,
and, though crude of speech and manner, having little education, is a
man of more than average intelligence. Jasper Burrow, the second son,
is a quiet, taciturn man; he lives with his father, and is reputed to
be of unsound mind. Four of the daughters married citizens of Lamar
County. The youngest, who bears the prosaic name of Ann Eliza, is
a tall blonde of twenty summers, and is yet unmarried. She is of a
defiant nature, has a comely and attractive face, and is a favorite
with many a rustic youth in the vicinage of the Burrow homestead.
She was devoted to Rube, afforded a constant medium of communication
between the parental home and the hiding place of the outlaws, and was
the courier through whom Rube Smith was added to the robber band while
in rendezvous in Lamar County.
Reuben Houston Burrow, the outlaw, was born in Lamar County, December
11, 1854. His early life in Lamar was an uneventful one. He was known
as an active, sprightly boy, apt in all athletic pursuits, a swift
runner, an ardent huntsman and a natural woodsman. He possessed a
fearless spirit, was of a merry and humorous turn, a characteristic of
the Burrow family, but he developed none of those traits which might
have foreshadowed the unenviable fame acquired in after-life.
James Buchanan Burrow, the fifth and youngest son, was born in 1858,
and was, therefore, four years the junior of his brother Rube, to whose
fortunes his own were linked in the pursuit of train robbing, and which
gave to the band the name of the “Burrow Brothers” in the earliest days
of its organization.
The facilities for acquiring education in the rural districts of the
South, half a century ago, were limited, and Allen Burrow grew to
manhood’s estate, having mastered little more than a knowledge of the
“three R’s,” and yet talent for teaching the young idea how to shoot
was so scant that Allen Burrow, during the decade immediately preceding
the late war, was found diversifying the pursuits of tilling the soil
with that of teaching a country school. Among his pupils was the
unfortunate postmaster of Jewell, Ala., Moses Graves, who was wantonly
killed by Rube Burrow in 1889. Many anecdotes are current in Lamar
County, illustrating the primitive methods of pedagogy as pursued by
Allen Burrow. It is said that the elder Graves, who had several sons
as pupils, withdrew the hopeful scions of the Graves household from
the school for the reason that after six months’ tuition, he having
incidentally enrolled the whole contingent in a spelling bee, they all
insisted on spelling every monosyllable ending with a consonant by
adding an extra one, as d-o-g-g, dog; b-u-g-g, bug.
Allen Burrow served awhile in Roddy’s cavalry during the civil war,
but his career as a soldier was brief and not marked by any incident
worthy of note. Soon after the close of the war he made some reputation
as a “moonshiner,” and was indicted about 1876 for illicit distilling.
He fled the country in consequence, but after an absence of two years
he returned and made some compromise with the Government, since which
time he has quietly lived in Lamar County. While possessed of some
shrewdness, he is a typical backwoodsman, with the characteristic
drawling voice and quaint vernacular peculiar to his class. Martha
Terry, the wife of Allen Burrow, claims to be possessed of the peculiar
and hereditary gift of curing, by some strange and mysterious agency,
many of the ills to which flesh is heir, and had she lived in the days
of Cotton Mather she might have fallen a victim to fire and fagot,
with which witchcraft in that day and time was punished. There are
many sensible and wholly unsuperstitious persons in northern Alabama,
where old Mrs. Burrow is well known, who believe in her occult powers
of curing cancers, warts, tumors and kindred ailments, by the art of
sorcery. Capt. J. E. Pennington, a prominent citizen, and the present
tax collector of Lamar County, tells of two instances in his own family
in which Dame Burrow removed tumors by simple incantation. The witch’s
caldron “boils and bubbles” on the hearthstone of the Burrow home, and
whether the dark and fetid mixture contain
“Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog;
Adder’s fork and blind worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing,”
or what not, many good but credulous people come from far and near
to invoke the charm of her occult mummery, despite the fact that our
latter-day civilization has long since closed its eyes and ears to
the arts of sorcery and witchcraft. Here, amid the environments of
ignorance and superstition, evils resulting more from the inherent
infirmities of the rugged pioneer and his wife than the adversities of
fortune, the family of ten children was reared. It is from such strong
and rugged natures, uneducated and untrained in the school of right and
honesty, that comes the material of which train robbers are made.