THE GENOA, ARK., ROBBERY, DECEMBER 9, 1887--ARREST OF WILLIAM
BROCK--HIS CONFESSION.
Express Train No. 2, on the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway, left
Texarkana, Ark., on the evening of December 9, 1887, at 5:50 P. M.,
fifty minutes late. Nothing unusual occurred until just as the train
began to pull out of Genoa, Ark., a small station thirty miles north of
Texarkana. Engineer Rue, on looking about, discovered two men standing
just behind him, with drawn revolvers, covering himself and fireman.
“What are you doing here?” asked Rue.
The answer was, “Go on! Don’t stop! If you stop I will kill you!” And
further: “I want you to stop about one and a half miles from here, at
the north end of the second big cut. I don’t want to hurt you or your
fireman, but we are going to rob this train or kill every man on it.”
Arriving at the spot designated, the leader abruptly said, “Stop!” The
engineer and fireman were then ordered down from the engine, and the
leader said, “Boys, how are you all?”
A voice from the brush, where a third man was in waiting, said, “All
right, boys!” The latter then walked towards the passenger coaches
and with a sixteen-shooting rifle opened fire in the direction of the
coaches. The two men in charge of the engineer and fireman were closely
masked, and were armed with a brace of forty-five caliber Colt’s
pistols, with Winchester rifles strapped across their backs. Messenger
Cavin, of the Southern Express Company, put out his lights and, like
Br’er Fox, “lay low” for some time. The robbers demanded admittance,
showering volleys of oaths and shots in one common fusilade. The heavy
Winchesters sped shot after shot through the car, the balls piercing
it from side to side, and yet young Cavin held his ground until Rube
Burrow ordered the engineer to bring his oil can and saturate the car
with the contents. The engineer was ordered to set fire to the car, but
before doing so he made an earnest appeal to the messenger, who agreed
to surrender, under the condition that he should not be hurt. The
robbers were some thirty minutes gaining access to the car. Having done
so, they secured about two thousand dollars.
This was the first train robbery in the territory of the Southern
Express Company for a period of seventeen years. Not since the robbery
of the Southern Express car on the Mobile and Ohio Railway at Union
City, Tenn., in October, 1870, by the celebrated Farrington brothers,
had highwaymen made a raid on a Southern Express train. The Pinkerton
Detective Agency having been given charge of the Union City, Tenn.,
case, and all the participants in that crime having been punished to
the full extent of the law, the management of the Southern Express
Company called to their aid at once the Pinkerton force.
Assistant Superintendent McGinn, of the Chicago agency, reached
Texarkana in about forty-eight hours after the robbery, and immediately
repaired to the scene of the occurrence. Genoa is a small railroad
station only a short distance from Red River. The winter rains had
filled the bottom lands with water, and the dense and impenetrable
growth of matted brush and vines, denuded of their foliage, made the
landscape a picture desolate and uninviting. Here in this wild woodland
came Superintendent McGinn, on the morning of the third day after the
robbery, to take up the tangled skein from which to weave the net for
the capture of the train robbers.
On the night of the robbery a report of the occurrence had been
telegraphed to the officials of the Express Company at Texarkana,
and a posse at once started to the scene of the robbery. A few miles
north of Texarkana the posse, being in charge of Sheriff Dixon, of
Miller County, came upon three men on the railway track, walking
towards Texarkana. This was about three o’clock A. M. The three
men were allowed to pass, when the sheriff’s posse, turning about,
commanded them to halt. The latter ran, taking refuge in a railway
cut some thirty yards distant, and the sheriff’s posse at once opened
fire, which was promptly returned, and a score or more of shots were
exchanged.
The night being very dark the firing on each side was done at random,
and no casualties ensued. After daylight that morning two rubber coats
and a slouch hat were found in the vicinity of the fight, and these
articles were subsequently identified as having been worn by the men
who robbed the train at Genoa. The hat bore the name of a firm in
Dublin, Texas, and the coats, which were new, bore the simple cost mark
“K. W. P.” Here was an important clew, proving that the robbers had at
least purchased the hat at Dublin. Thither the detectives went, with
the hat and coats, hoping to have the purchasers identified. Calling
upon the Dublin firm, diligent inquiry failed to disclose the purchaser
of the hat, the firm having sold hundreds of a similar style during the
season.
No trace of the purchasers of the coats could be found at Dublin, but
the detectives felt that they were on a hot trail and renewed their
exertions. To Corsicana, Waco, Stephensville and other points adjacent
they journeyed, exhibiting the coats, with the cabalistic letters,
until finally McGinn arrived at Alexander, Texas, as if carried there
by that intuition common to shrewd men of his profession, and plied
his inquires anew. Falling in with a salesman of the firm of Sherman
& Thalwell, to whom the coats were exhibited, the answer of the young
salesman, Hearn, was:
“That is the cost mark of Sherman & Thalwell. I put those letters,
‘K. W. P.,’ on myself.” He then seemed lost a moment in thought, and
resumed:
“We had a lot of that brand, and I sold a coat like that to one Bill
Brock, who lives, when at home, at his father-in-law’s, five miles from
Alexander, on the road to Dublin.” He further stated that Brock had
been away, he thought, up about Texarkana, and added:
“At the time Brock made the purchase there was a man with him to whom I
also sold a similar coat, and who afterwards went to Alabama, and who I
think is there now.”
Here was a ray of light upon the dark mystery of December 9th at Genoa.
The name, William Brock, had been copied from the hotel register at
Texarkana, where it was found under date of December 3d, six days
before the robbery, and was in the possession of the detectives who
were on the alert for the owner.
A few days prior to this occurrence another detective was shadowing a
man in Waco, Texas, who was spending money freely, and who answered
the description of one of the train robbers. Following him to Dublin,
Texas, the man was ascertained to be Brock, and here the detectives,
comparing notes, found themselves in possession of abundant evidence
upon which to arrest Brock. Before this was done, however, the
important disclosure was made that Brock had two companions, Rube and
Jim Burrow, and as these men answered the descriptions of the men who
committed the robbery at Genoa the detectives felt quite sure that
the names of all three of the robbers were at least known. Further
investigation, however, developed the fact that Rube and Jim Burrow
had recently gone to Alabama, and the immediate arrest of Brock was
determined upon.
At three o’clock on the morning of December 31, 1887, twenty-two days
after the robbery, Wm. Brock was arrested at his home near Dublin,
Texas. The detectives demanded admittance and Brock surrendered without
firing a shot, although he had a forty-five caliber Colt’s revolver
and fifty cartridges in a belt under his pillow, and also one of the
Winchester rifles used at Genoa. The prisoner was taken to Texarkana
and confronted with engineer Rue, who thoroughly identified him. He
was also identified by parties who saw him in the immediate vicinity
of Genoa. Brock could not stand the pressure brought to bear on him
by the wily detectives, and in the course of a few days made a clean
breast of his participation in the Genoa, Ark., robbery, confirming
the information already in possession of the detectives as to the
complicity of Rube and Jim Burrow in the daring adventure.
From Brock it was learned that Rube and Jim Burrow had, about November
15, 1887, gone to Lamar County, Ala. By agreement, Brock had joined
the Burrow brothers at Texarkana on December 3d, where all three
registered at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Brock in his own name, and Rube
and Jim as R. Houston and James Buchanan, respectively, each using
his middle name as a surname. They had robbed the train at Genoa on
the night of December 9th, and while walking toward Texarkana in the
early morning of the 10th had been fired upon by the sheriff’s posse.
Taken by surprise, he and Jim Burrow had dropped their coats, while
Rube had lost his hat. After going a few miles south of Texarkana they
separated, Brock going into Texas and Rube and Jim making their way
into Lamar County, Ala.
On the 29th of December Rube wrote the following letter to Brock, which
was received by Mrs. Brock, and turned over to the detectives after her
husband’s arrest:
Dec. 20-29-87.
_Mr. W. L. Brock_:
All is well and hope you the same Bill notis everything and let me
know Bill eye will sell you my place ef you want it at 7 hundred
let me here from ef you want it eye will have all fixt right and
send you the tittle in full let me here from you soon.
R. H. too W. L. B.
The figures 20-29-87 meant that Rube and Jim reached Lamar County on
the 20th and the letter was written on the 29th of December. William
Brock detailed to the detectives the history of the Bellevue and Gordon
robberies, as gathered from Rube, and of the Ben Brook robberies, in
which he himself participated. He seemed thoroughly penitent over his
crimes, and, after reaching Texarkana, disclosed the fact that he had
about four hundred dollars of the proceeds of the Genoa robbery, which
he proposed to and did restore.
Brock was a rough, uncouth-looking fellow, about five feet eleven
inches high; weighed about 180 pounds, and was a strong-chested,
broad-shouldered fellow, whose forbidding features made him a typical
train robber. He was about thirty-one years old, and although born in
Georgia, his parents moved to Texas when he was quite a child. He was
wholly illiterate, not being able to either read or write, and the
environments of corrupt companionship tended to fill his untutored
mind with evil only. Brock made an important witness in the trials
of the participants in the various train robberies in Texas, and was
afterwards given a comparatively light sentence as a punishment for his
offenses.