KNIGHTS OF THE ROAD
It is impossible to read of the conditions of life on the public highway
in England and not wonder at the safety and security with which all travel
was carried on in the American colonies. In Great Britain shop-robbing,
foot-padding, street assaults, and highway robberies were daily incidents.
Stage-coach passengers were specially plundered. From end to end of
England was heard the cry of "Stand and deliver." Day after day, for weeks
together, the Hampstead, Islington, Dover, and Hackney coaches were
stopped in broad daylight, and the passengers threatened and robbed. The
mail from Bristol to London was robbed every week for five weeks. Scores
of prisoners were taken, and scores more strung up on the gallows; many
were shipped off to the Plantations because on hanging day at Tyburn,
there was not room enough on the gallows for the convicted men. All
classes turned outlaws. Well-to-do farmers and yeomen organized as
highwaymen in the Western counties under the name of "the Blacks."
Justices and landed gentry leagued with "the Owlers" to rob, to smuggle,
and defraud the customs. Even Adam Smith confessed to a weakness for
smuggling.
Travellers journeyed with a prayer-book in one hand and a pistol in the
other. Nothing of this was known in America. Citizens of the colonies
travelled unhampered by either religion or fear. Men and women walked
through our little city streets by night and day in safety. The footpads
and highwaymen who were transported to this country either found new modes
of crimes or ceased their evil deeds.
Not only on convict ships came highwaymen to America. As redemptioners
many rogues came hither, sure thus of passage across-seas and trusting to
luck or craft to escape the succeeding years of bound labor. Among the
honest men seized in English ports, kidnapped, and shipped to America were
found some thieves and highwaymen, but all--whether "free-willers,"
convicts, or "kids"--seemed to drop highway robbery in the new world. We
were nigh to having one famous thief. Great Moll Cutpurse, had her
resources been of lesser sort, had been landed in Virginia, for she was
trapanned and put aboard ship, but escaped ere ship set sail. Perhaps
'twould have been of small avail, for in Virginia, with its dearth of
wives, even such a sturdy jade as Moll, "a very tomrig and rumpscuttle,"
sure had found a husband and consequent domestic sobriety.
There was one very good reason why there was little highway robbery in
America. Early in our history men began to use drafts and bills of
exchange, where the old world clung to cash. English travellers persisted
in carrying gold and bank-notes, while we carried cheques and letters of
credit. To this day the latter form of money-transfer is more common with
Americans than with the English. Express messengers in the far West
carrying gold did not have to wait long for a Jesse James. But our typical
American scamp has ever been the tramp, formerly the vagabond, not the
highwayman; though the horse thief kept him close companion.
[Illustration: Sign-board of Perkins Inn, Hopkinton, New Hampshire.]
By this absence of the highwaymen, our story of the road has lost much of
its picturesqueness and color. I have envied the English road-annalists
their possession of these gay and dashing creatures. Their reckless
buoyancy, their elegance, their gallantry, their humor, make me long to
adopt them and set them on our staid New England roads or on Pennsylvania
turnpikes. Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, Beau Brocade--how I should love to
have them hold up Benjamin Franklin or John Adams!
There was no lack of rogues in the colonies, but their roguery did not
take the outlet of highway robbery. One Henry Tufts, a famous vagabond,
has left an amusing and detailed history of his life and deeds. He stole
scores of horses by sneaking methods, but never by open seizure on the
road. He began his wrong-doing after the universal custom of all bad boys
(but why be invidious?--of all good boys, too), by robbing orchards. He
soon raised himself to be a leader in deviltry by the following manoeuvre.
A group of bad boys were to have a stolen feast of bread and cucumbers;
for the latter esteemed viand they raided a cucumber patch. As they seated
themselves to gorge upon their ill-gotten fare, Henry Tufts raised a cry
that the robbed cucumber farmer was upon them. All fled, but Tufts quickly
returned and ate all the feast himself. He survived the cucumbers, but
pretended to his confederates that he had been captured and had promised
to work out the value of the spoils in a week's hard labor. This work
sentence he persuaded them to share; he then farmed out the lot of young
workmen at a profit, while they thought themselves nobly sharing his
punishment. He lived to great old age, and, though at the last he "carried
his dish pretty uprightly," it was by taking a hand at forgery and
counterfeiting that he lived when burglary became arduous; his nature,
though irretrievably bad, was never bold enough to venture his life by
robbing on the highway.
A very interesting thread of Tuft's story is his connection with the War
of the Revolution; and it awakens deep compassion for Washington and his
fellow-generals when we think how many such scamps and adventurers must
have swarmed into the Federal army, to the disorder of the regiments and
to their discredit and to the harassment alike of patriot officers and
patriot soldiers. There were frequent aggressions at the hands of rogues
in the Middle states, and they became known by the name of Skinners.
Cooper's novel, _The Spy_, gives an account of these sneaking bands of
sham patriots. Among those who allied themselves on the side of the King
was a family of notorious scoundrels, five brothers named Doane.
The story of the Doanes is both tragic and romantic. They were sons of
respectable Quaker parents of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and during the
Revolutionary War became celebrated for their evil deeds. They were all
men of remarkable physical development, tall, strong, athletic, and all
fine horsemen. Before the war they were of good reputation, and it is said
proposed to remain neutral; but the Doanes were not permitted to take a
middle course, and soon enrolled themselves as Tories, which at once
engendered a bitter feeling between them and their Whig neighbors. They
began their career of infamy by robbing and plundering in the
neighborhood, gradually extending their field of operations into
neighboring counties. Sabine's _Loyalists_ gives the names of three other
Doanes--kinsmen who were allied with the five brothers in their evil
deeds. Their place in historical books and history comes to them through
their services to the British officers during the war. In a dingy
chap-book entitled _Annals of the Revolution, or a History of the Doanes_,
full credit is assigned to Moses Doane for giving information to General
Howe, and planning with him the stratagem which led to the victories of
the British on Long Island. The Edge Hill skirmish, laid out by Doane and
agreed to by Howe and Lord Cornwallis, was to be an important move of the
British. The move was lost by the prompt and brave action of Mrs. Lydia
Darrach, who overheard the plot and carried news of it to Washington. In
the terrible massacre at Wyoming the Doanes took prominent part. The close
of the war seemed but to increase their career of crime. Each brother had
a sled drawn by four horses. There was heavy snow and a long season of
sleighing in 1782, and they fairly raided the entire state, robbing again
and again on the highway. At last an act was passed by the General
Assembly of Pennsylvania "to encourage the speedy apprehending and
bringing to justice of divers Robbers, Burglars, and Felons," naming the
Doanes, and offering a large reward for their capture and a gift of L150
to any person injured in helping to arrest them, or L300 to the family of
such a helper should he be killed while aiding the cause of justice.
Joseph Doane was finally secured in prison. He broke jail, however, and
escaped to New Jersey, where, like many another thief and rogue of his
day, he found occupation as a school-teacher. He then fled to Canada, and
died peacefully at an advanced age. Two brothers, Abraham and Mahlon, were
hanged in Philadelphia. Moses, the leader of the outlaws, had the most
tragic end. He was the most cruel and powerful of them all; of famous
athletic powers, it was said he could run and jump over a Conestoga
wagon. In the latter part of the summer of 1783, the Doanes went to the
house of one Halsey who lived on Gallows Run, and asked for something to
eat, and Halsey sent his son to a neighboring mill to get flour for them.
The boy told that the Doanes were at his father's house, and the miller
sent the word to a vendue in the neighborhood. A party of fourteen armed
and mounted men promptly started to capture them. The house was
surrounded. On approaching the men saw through the clinks of the logs the
Doanes eating at table, with their guns standing near. William Hart opened
the door and commanded them to surrender, but they seized their arms and
fired. Hart seized Moses Doane, threw him down, and secured him. Then
Robert Gibson rushed into the cabin and shot Doane in the breast, killing
him instantly. Colonel Hart sent the body of the dead outlaw to his
unhappy father, who was also tried for sheltering the robbers, and burnt
in the hand and imprisoned.
[Illustration: Russel Tavern, Arlington, Massachusetts.]
The most noted scourge of the eighteenth century was Tom Bell. He was for
years the torment of the Middle colonies, alike in country and in town. He
was the despair of magistrates, the plague of sheriffs, the dread of
householders, and the special pest of horse-owners. Meagre advertisements
in the contemporary newspapers occasionally show his whereabouts and
doings. This is from the _New York Weekly Post Boy_ of November 5, 1744:--
"The noted Tom Bell was last week seen by several who knew him walking
about this city with a large Patch on his face and wrapt up in a Great
Coat, and is supposed to be still lurking."
Two years later, in April 14, 1746, we read:--
"Tuesday last the famous and Notorious Villain Tom Bell was
apprehended in this city and committed to Jail on Suspicion of selling
a Horse he had hired some time ago of an Inhabitant of Long Island.
His accuser 'tis said has sworn expressly to his Person,
notwithstanding which he asserts his Innocence with a most undaunted
Front and matchless Impudence. We hear his trial is to come off this
week."
His most famous piece of deviltry was his impersonation of a pious parson
in New Jersey. He preached with as much vigor as he stole, and his
accidental resemblance to the minister increased his welcome and his scope
for thieving. So convinced was the entire community that it was the real
parson who robbed their houses and stole their horses, that on his return
to his parish he was thrust into prison, and a clerical friend who
protested against this indignity was set in a pillory in Trenton for false
swearing. Still, Tom Bell was not a highwayman of the true English stamp;
he more closely resembled a sneak thief.
[Illustration: Sign-board of Gifford's Tavern.]
In the year 1741 the little child of Cornelius Cook, the blacksmith of
Westborough, Massachusetts, and of his wife Eunice, lay very close to
death. As was the custom of the day, the good old parson, Dr. Parkman, and
his deacons prayed earnestly over the boy, that the Lord's will be done;
but his mother in her distress pleaded thus: "Only spare his life, and I
care not what he becomes." Tom Cook recovered, and as years passed on it
became evident by his mischievous and evil deeds that he had entered into
a compact with the devil, perhaps by his mother's agonized words, perhaps
by his own pledge. The last year of this compact was at an end, and the
devil appeared to claim his own as Tom was dressing for another day's
mischief. Tom had all his wits about him, for he lived upon them. "Wait,
wait, can't you," he answered the imperative call of his visitor, "till I
get my galluses on?" The devil acquiesced to this last request, when Tom
promptly threw the suspenders in the fire, and therefore could never put
them on nor be required to answer the devil's demands.
[Illustration: Sign-board of Wells' Tavern.]
Tom Cook became well known throughout Massachusetts, and indeed throughout
New England, as a most extraordinary thief. His name appears in the
records of scores of New England towns; he was called "the honest thief";
and his own name for himself was "the leveller." He stole from the rich
and well-to-do with the greatest boldness and dexterity, equalled by the
kindness and delicacy of feeling shown in the bestowal of his booty upon
the poor and needy. He stole the dinner from the wealthy farmer's kitchen
and dropped it into the kettle or on the spit in a poor man's house. He
stole meal and grain from passing wagons and gave it away before the
drivers' eyes. A poor neighbor was ill, and her bed was poor. He went to a
thrifty farm-house, selected the best feather bed in the house, tied it in
a sheet, carried it downstairs and to the front door, and asked if he
could leave his bundle there for a few days. The woman recognized him and
forbade him to bring it within doors, and he went off with an easy
conscience.
In Dr. Parkman's diary, now in the library of the American Antiquarian
Society at Worcester, under the date of August 27, 1779, is this entry:
"The notorious Thom. Cook came in (he says) on Purpose to see me. I gave
him w{t} admonition, Instruction, and Caution I could--I beseech God to
give it force! He leaves me with fair Words--thankful and promising."
There came a time when his crime of arson or burglary led to his trial,
conviction, and sentence to death. He heard the awful words of the judge,
"I therefore sentence you to be hanged by the neck till you are dead,
dead, dead," and he called out cheerfully, "I shall not be there on that
day, day, day." And when that day came, surely enough, his cell was empty.
Tom Cook was most attractive in personal appearance; agile, well formed,
well featured, with eyes of deepest blue, most piercing yet most kindly in
expression. He was adored by children, and his pockets were ever filled
with toys which he had stolen for their amusement. By older persons he was
feared and disliked. He extorted from many wealthy farmers an annual toll,
which exempted them from his depredations. One day a fire was seen rising
from the chimney of a disused schoolhouse in Brookline, and Tom was caught
within roasting a stolen goose, which he had taken from the wagon of a
farmer on his way to market. The squire took him to the tavern, which was
filled with farmers and carters, many of whom had been his victims. He
was given his choice of trial and jail, or to run a gantlet of the men
assembled. He chose the latter, and the long whips of the teamsters paid
out many an old score of years' standing.
A very amusing story of highway robbery is told of John Buckman of
Buckman's Tavern, of Lexington, Massachusetts (which is shown on page 23).
An old toper bought a bottle of rum, and the by-standers jokingly asked
him what he would do if he were attacked on the road. He answered solemnly
that he would rather give up his life than his rum. John Buckman slipped
out of the room, took a brass candlestick that had a slide that could be
snapped with a noise like the trigger of a pistol. He waylaid the
rum-lover not far from the tavern, and terrified him so that he quickly
gave up his beloved bottle. This was a famous joke when John told it in
the tavern taproom, but John did not laugh the next day when he was
arrested for highway robbery and fined fifty dollars.
In the year 1818 there took place the nearest approach to a highway
robbery on the English methods that had ever happened in America. It was
the robbery of the mail-coach which ran between Baltimore and
Philadelphia. The story is thus told by one of the victims:--
"HAVRE DE GRACE,
"Thursday morning, 4 o'clock.
"JOHN H. BARNEY, Esq.,
"_Sir_: I take the earliest opportunity to send you by an express an
account of what happened to the mail last evening. About 2 miles from
this place the driver of your mail wagon and myself were attacked by
three highwaymen, each armed with a double barrelled pistol and a
dirk. They had, previous to our arrival, built a rail fence across the
road, and immediately on our driving up they leaped from behind the
same, where they lay concealed, and presented their pistols,
threatening to blow our brains out if we made any resistance. We were
then carried some distance from the road into the woods; there they
tied the driver and myself to a tree and commenced searching the mail.
Every letter was opened and all the bank notes taken out; they showed
me a large bundle of bills, and I much fear the loss will be found
very great. They were from 11 until 3 o'clock busily employed in
opening the letters. After they had done this they tied us to the back
of the wagon, mounted three of the horses and galloped off towards
Baltimore. They were all white men--had their faces blackened, and
neither of them appeared more than 20. I have just arrived at this
place and have stated the facts to the deputy postmaster, who will use
every exertion to recover the letters that remain in the woods. They
did not take anything belonging to me, & appeared not to wish anything
but bank notes. They were all dressed in sailor's trowsers and round
jackets, & were about the middle size; two wearing hats & the other
having a silk handkerchief tied around his head.
"I am your obt. servt.
"THOS. W. LUDLOW.
"P. S. They called each other by their several names--Johnson, Gibson,
and Smith, but I expect they were fictitious."
At that date and season of the year the "Eastern mail," on account of the
heavy roads, was carried in a light carriage called a dearborn, with four
horses. This Lieutenant Ludlow of the United States Navy obtained
permission to accompany the driver in this mail-carriage. They left
Baltimore at three o'clock and were held up at eleven. One robber desired
to shoot Lieutenant Ludlow and the driver, but the others objected, and,
on leaving, offered the driver ten dollars. They took no money from
Ludlow, and though they looked at his handsome gold repeater to learn the
time, they carefully returned it to his pocket. The very next day two men
named Hare, known to be journeymen tailors of Baltimore, entered a
clothing shop in that city, and made such a lavish display of money that
they were promptly arrested, and over twenty thousand dollars in money and
drafts was found upon them. They were puny fellows, Levi Hare being but
twenty years old, and contemporary accounts say "one person of average
strength could easily manage them both."
The total amount of bills and drafts recovered amounted to ninety thousand
dollars, and made the robbery the largest ever attempted. A few days later
a third brother Hare was arrested, and thirteen hundred dollars was found
in his house. The third robber proved to be John Alexander.
A Baltimore newspaper dated May 18, gives an account of the sentence of
the three men after their interesting trial:--
"On Thursday last John Alexander, Joseph T. Hare, and Lewis Hare were
brought before Court to receive sentence. Judge Duval presided--first
addressed Lewis Hare and sentenced him to ten years' imprisonment--J.
T. Hare and Alexander sentenced to death. As Jos. T. Hare was
proceeding from the Court House to prison accompanied by the
constable, they had to cross Jones' Falls, over which the trunk of a
tree was laid for foot passengers to walk on; when they arrived in the
middle of the creek Hare made an attempt to release his hands from his
irons, and to knock the constable into the creek; it proved fruitless,
but in the scuffle Hare tore off the lappelle of the constable's coat.
After he reached prison he made an attack on the turnkey and nearly
bit off his finger."
I have seen an amusing old chap-book entitled _The Life of the Celebrated
Mail Robber and Daring Highwayman Joseph Thompson Hare_, and it has a
comical illustration of "The Scuffle between Hare and the Constable," in
which the constable, much dressed up in tight trousers, tailed coat, and
high silk hat, struggles feebly with the outlaw as they balance like
acrobats on the narrow tree-trunk.
The whole account of this mail robbery has a decidedly tame flavoring. The
pale tailors, so easily overcoming a presumably brave naval officer and a
government mail-carrier; the leisurely ransacking of the mail-bags; the
speedy and easy arrest of the tailors and recovery of their booty, and the
astonishing simplicity of transporting the scantily guarded felon across a
creek on a fallen tree as though on a pleasant country ramble, all combine
to render it far from being a tale of terror or wild excitement.
The account of the death of the highwayman is thus told in the _Federal
Republican and Baltimore Telegraph_ of September 11, 1818.
"THE EXECUTION.
"Agreeably to public notice, the awful sentence of death was yesterday
inflicted on J. Thompson Hare and John Alexander, in the presence of a
vast concourse assembled to witness the ignominious ceremony. Their
lives have expiated the crime for which they suffered. Justice has no
demands on them in the grave.
"The gallows was sufficiently elevated above the walls of the prison
to afford a distinct view of the unfortunate men to spectators at the
distance of several hundred yards.
"Hare has made a confession which is now hawking about town for sale.
In it he observes that, 'for the last fourteen years of my life I have
been a robber, and have robbed on a large scale, and been more
successful than any robber either in Europe or in this country that I
ever heard of.'"
This lying dying boast of Hare fitly closes his evident failure as a
highwayman.
An account of a negro highwayman is given in the _Federal Republican and
Baltimore Telegraph_ of September 11, 1818.
[Illustration: Relay House, Mattapan Tavern.]
In the early years of this century there existed in eastern Massachusetts
an organized band of thieves. It is said they were but one link in a chain
of evil night-workers which, with a home or shelter in every community,
reached from Cape Hatteras to Canada. This band was well organized, well
trained, and well housed; it had skilful means of concealing stolen goods
in innocent-faced cottages, in barns of honest thrift, and in wells and
haystacks in simple dooryards. One mild-manered and humble house had a
deep cellar which could be entered by an ingeniously hidden broad-side
door in a woodshed; into this cave a stolen horse and wagon or a pursued
load of cribbed goods might be driven, be shut in, and leave no outward
sign. Other houses had secret cellars, a deep and wide one beneath a
shallow, innocuous storage place for domestic potato and apple bins, and
honest cider barrels. In a house sheltering one of these subterranean
mysteries, a hard-working young woman was laboriously and discreetly
washing clothes when surprised by the sheriff and his aids, who wisely
invaded but fruitlessly searched the house. Nothing save the simplest
household belongings was found in that abode of domesticity; but in later
years, after the gang was scattered, a trap-door and ladder were found
leading to the sub-cellar, and with chagrin and mortification the sheriff
remembered that the woman's washing tubs stood unharmed upon the trap-door
during the fruitless search.
An amusing battering ram was used by another woman of this gang on the
sheriff who came to her house to arrest one of those thieves. The outlaw
fled upstairs at the approach of the officer, but his retreat was noted,
and the man of law attempted to follow and seize him. The wife of the
thief--his congenial mate--opposed the passage of the sheriff, and when he
attempted to push her one side and to crowd past her, she suddenly seized
the crosspiece over the staircase, swung back by her hands and arms,
planted both feet against the officer's chest, and knocked him down with
such a sudden blow and consequent loss of wind, that the thief was far
away ere the sheriff could move or breathe.
The leader of this band of thieves was an ingenious and delightful
scamp--one George White. He was hard to catch, and harder to keep than to
catch. Handcuffs were to him but pleasing toys. His wrists were large, his
hands small; and when the right moment came, the steel bracelets were
quickly empty. Locks and bolts were as easily thrust aside and left far,
far behind him as were the handcuffs. At last he was branded on his
forehead H. T., which stands for horse thief; a mean trick of a stupid
constable who had scant self-confidence or inventiveness. Curling
lovelocks quickly grow, however, and are ill in no one's sight; indeed,
they were in high fashion in similar circles in England at that time, when
various letters of the alphabet might be seen on the cheeks and brow of
many a gay traveller on the highway when the wind blew among the long
locks.
[Illustration: Wilde Tavern, 1770. Milton, Massachusetts.]
Term after term in jail and prison were decreed to George White when luck
turned against him. Yet still was he pardoned, as he deserved to be, for
his decorous deportment when behind bars; and he had a habit of being
taken out on a writ of _habeas corpus_ or to be transferred; but he never
seemed to reach his journey's end, and soon he would appear on the road,
stealing and roistering. The last word which came from him to New England
was a letter from the Ohio Penitentiary, saying he was dying, and asking
some of his kin to visit him. They did not go, he had fooled them too
often. Perhaps they feared they might put new life into him. But the one
time they were sure he lied he told the truth--and his varied career thus
ended.
Flying once along a Massachusetts highway on a stolen horse, George White
was hotly pursued. At the first sharp turn in the road he dismounted in a
flash, cut the horse a lash with his whip, altered the look of his garment
with a turn of his hand, tore off his hat brim and thus had a jaunty cap,
and started boldly back on foot. Meeting the sheriff and his men all in a
heat, he fairly got under their horses' feet, and as they pulled up they
bawled out to know whether he had seen a man riding fast on horseback.
"Why, yes," he answered ingenuously, "I met a man riding as though the
devil were after him." They found the horse in half an hour, but they
never found George White.
He once stole a tavern-keeper's horse, trimmed the mane, thinned out the
tail, and dyed the horse's white feet. He led the renovated animal in to
the bereft landlord, saying innocently that he had heard his horse was
stolen, and thought he might want to buy another. He actually sold this
horse back to his owner, but in a short time the horse's too evident
familiarity with his wonted stable and yard and the fast-fading dye
revealed the rascal's work. To another tavern-keeper he owed a bill for
board and lodging, which, with the incongruity of ideals and morals which
is often characteristic of great minds, he really wished to pay. The
landlord had a fine black horse which he had displayed to his boarder
with pride. This horse was kept temporarily in a distant pasture. White
stole the horse one night, rode off a few miles, and sold it and was paid
for it. He stole it again that night from the purchaser, sold it, and was
paid. He stole it a third time and returned it to the pasture from whence
it never had been missed. He then paid his board-bill as an honest man
should.
[Illustration: Ashburnham Thief Detecting Society.]
These gangs of horse thieves became such pests, such scourges in the
Northern states, that harassed citizens in many towns gathered into bands
and associations for mutual protection and systematic detection of the
miscreants. A handbill of the "Ashburnham Thief Detecting Society" had an
engraved heading which is reproduced on this page, which showed a mounted
thief riding across country with honest citizens in hot pursuit. The Thief
Detecting Society of Hingham had, in 1847, eighty-seven members. It used a
similar print for a heading for handbills, also one of a boy stealing
apples--as a severe lesson to youth.
In the year 1805 an abrupt and short but fierce attempt was made at
highway robbery and burglary in Albany. The story as told in a chap-book
is so simple, so antique, so soberly comic, that it might be three
centuries old instead of scarce one. The illustrations, though of the date
1836, are of the standard of art of the seventeenth century.
It seems a piece of modern Philistinism to spoil the story--as I must--by
condensation. The title of the book is _The Robber, or Pye and The
Highwayman_, and the irony of giving Pye place before the highwayman or
any place at all will be apparent by the story. In this tale two sturdy
Albany dames shine as models of courage and fearlessness by the side of
the terror-stricken burghers of the entire town, whose reputation to a man
was only saved from the branding of utter and universal cowardice by the
appearance and manly carriage and triumph at the end of the night's fray
of old Winne the pennypost.
There put up that year in December at an Albany tavern a young man who
gave his name as Johnson; he was aristocratic in bearing and dress, dark
of complexion, sombre of aspect, but courteous and pleasant, "with a
daring but cultivated eye." When questioned of himself and his business,
however, Johnson was silent and taciturn. His magnificent horse and pair
of splendid pistols were noted by the solid Dutch burghers and sharp
Yankee traders who smoked and drank beer within the tavern walls; and one
wintry afternoon the stranger was seen carefully cleaning the pair of
pistols.
On that bitter night, a man--none other than our black-browed
highwayman--rode clattering up to the toll-gate two miles below the town,
and called out to open the gate; when the wife of the toll-keeper appeared
to do that duty he jumped from his horse, rushed in toward the house,
demanding in a terrible voice all the money in the toll till and chest.
The woman was terrified at this demand, yet not so scared but she could at
his first approach throw the fat bag with all the accumulation of toll
money under the porch, and do it unseen by the highwayman; and she at once
asserted tearfully, with the alacritous mendacity born of sharp terror
(the account says with great earnestness and womanish simplicity), that
her husband had gone to the agent in town with all the month's
collections, leaving her but a few shillings for change, which she
displayed in the gate-drawer for proof. Disgusted but credulous, the
villain rode off with loud oaths, baffled in the simplest fashion by Dame
Trusty No. 1.
[Illustration: Sign-board of Williams Tavern.]
He then went to the tavern of John Pye, the wealthy landlord, on the West
Troy road. He found the house locked peacefully for the night, but forced
a window and entered. In the barroom and kitchen, the fire was carefully
covered to keep till morning. Lighting his dark lantern with the coals, he
then poured water on both fires and extinguished them, and I have puzzled
long in my mind wondering why he dallied, risking detection by doing this.
He then went to the room where Pye and his wife were peacefully reposing,
and rudely awakened them. Mrs. Pye, promptly assuming the role she
carried throughout, jumped from her bed and asked him what he wished. He
answered, the chap-book says, "silently," "I deal with your husband,
Madam, not with you"--and a more fatuous mistake never issued from lips of
highwayman. To Pye he then said, "Your money or your life." Pye, heavy
with sleep--and natural stupidity--seemed to fancy some trick was being
played on him in mischief, and to the highwayman's demand for money
answered, half alarmed, half peevish, "It's damned little money you'll get
out of me, my lad, as the thing is but indifferently plenty with me." But
he was roused at last by the fierceness of threats and gestures, and
whimpered that his money was below; and the two proceeded downstairs to
the taproom by the light of the robber's lantern. The moment they left the
room, Mrs. Pye ran softly to a bedroom where slept two sojourners at the
inn, wakened them with hurried words of the robber's visit and her beloved
Pye's danger, and made appeals for help; and as an emphatic wakener
pulled them out of bed upon the floor. Then she ran swiftly back to bed.
In the meantime the terrified Pye recalled that his wife had the keys of
the taproom till which held his money, and he and the highwayman returned
to her bedroom and demanded them from her. "I'll give the keys to thee nor
no man else," she stoutly answered. "Thee must, I tell thee," whined Pye,
"or worse may happen." "Pye, I'll not give up my keys," still she cried,
and seized a loaded gun by the bedside; for fierce answer the highwayman
fired his pistol at Pye. With lamentable outcries Pye called out he was a
dead man, and his arm fell to his side. His wife thrust the gun in his
hands, shouting, "Fire, Pye, fire! he's feeling for another pistol." "I
cannot," he quavered out, "I cannot hold the gun." She pushed it into his
hands, held up his arm, aimed for him, and between them they pulled the
trigger. In a second all was utter darkness and stillness: they had hit
the highwayman. He pitched forward, fell on his lantern, put it out, and
lay as one dead. Here was a situation for a good, thrifty, staid Albany
vrouw, a dying husband on one side, a dead highwayman on the other, all in
utter darkness. She ran for coals to the barroom and kitchen fires. Both
were wet and black. She had no tinder box, coals must be brought from a
neighbor's. She suddenly bethought of an unusual fire that had been
lighted in the parlor the previous evening for customers, where still
might be a live coal. This was her good fortune, and with lighted candle
she proceeded to the scene of attack. Pye lay in a swoon on the bed, but
by this time the highwayman had vanished; and safe and untouched under the
bed were five hundred dollars in gold and five hundred more in bills,
which, it is plain, Pye himself had wholly forgotten in his fright.
In the meantime where were the two "knights of the bedchamber," as the
chap-book calls them? Far more silently than the robber they feared had
they slid downstairs, and away from the tavern into hiding, until the
highwayman rode past them.
They then tracked him by trails of blood, and soon saw him dismounted and
rolling in the snow as if to quench the flow of blood. Though they knew he
was terribly wounded and they were two to one, they stole past him at a
safe distance in silence to the protection of the town, where they raised
the cry of "A robber! Watch! Murder! Help! A band of highwaymen! Pye is
dead!" Oh, how bravely they bawled and shouted! and soon a hue and cry was
started from end to end of Albany town.
With an extraordinary lack of shrewdness which seemed to characterize the
whole of this episode of violence, and which proved Johnson no trained
"swift-nick," as Charles II. called highwaymen, instead of making off to
some of the smaller towns or into the country, he rode back to Albany; and
soon the night-capped heads thrust from the little Dutch windows, and
terrified men leaning out over the Dutch doors, and the few amazed groups
in the streets saw a fleet horseman, hatless, with bloody handkerchief
bound around his head, come galloping and thundering through Albany, down
one street, then back again to the river. When he reached the quay, the
horse fearlessly sprang without a moment's trembling a terrible leap,
eight feet perpendicular, twenty feet lateral, out on the ice. All
screamed out that horse and rider would go through the ice and perish. But
the ice was strong, and soon horse and rider were out of sight; but
mounted men were now following the distant sound of hoofs, and when the
outlaw reached what he thought was the opposite shore, but what was really
a marshy island, one bold pursuer rode up after him. The robber turned,
fired at him at random, and the Albany brave fled in dismay back to his
discreet neighbors.
But honor and courage was now appearing across the ice in the figure of
Captain Winne, the pennypost, who was heard to mutter excitedly in his
semi-Dutch dialect: "Mine Cott! vat leeps das horse has mate! vull dwenty
feet! Dunder and bliksem! he's der tuyfel for rooning!" Winne was an old
Indian fighter, and soon he boldly grappled the highwayman, who drew a
dagger on him. Winne knocked it from his hand. The highwayman grappled
with him, wrenched away his club, and hit the pennypost a blow on his
mouth which loosened all his front teeth (which, the chap-book says,
"Winne afterwards took out at his leisure"). Winne then dallied no longer;
he pulled down the handkerchief from the robber's forehead, twisted it
around his neck, and choked him. In the morning twilight the great band of
cautious Albanians gravely advanced, bound the highwayman securely, and
carried him in triumph back to jail. He was placed in heavy irons, when he
said, "Iron me as you will, you can hold me but a short time." All thought
he meant to attempt an escape, but he spoke with fuller meaning; he felt
himself mortally wounded. They put an iron belt around his waist and
fastened it by a heavy chain to a staple in the floor. They placed great
rings around his ankles, chained them to the floor, and then chained
ankle-bands and belt together. They would have put an iron collar and
chain on him also, but he said, "Gentlemen! have some mercy!" and a
horrible wound at the base of the brain made them desist.
[Illustration: Sign-board of Williams Tavern.]
Poor Mrs. Pye visited him, with much distress of spirit, and sympathized
with him and grieved over him as he lay face downward on the stone floor.
And it arouses a sense of amused indignation to know that he asked
earnestly for Pye and expressed deep regret at having injured him--he
wasn't badly hurt, anyway. Our heroine, Dame Pye, certainly deserved a
better and braver husband, and it is pleasant to know that she outlived
Pye and found, if not a more courageous mate, certainly a very fine young
one--her bar-keeper, forty years younger than herself.
The highwayman escaped the tree, for he died in jail. There is reason to
believe he was a Southerner of good birth. The horse was so widely
described and exploited that his story reached a Virginia gentleman, his
real owner, from whom he had been stolen. The sagacious animal had been
trained to follow a peculiar whistle, and to jump at anything. The
gentleman proved his ownership and took the splendid animal-hero home.
In the year 1821 a highwayman was executed in Massachusetts, Mike Martin,
or Captain Lightfoot, who really was a very satisfactory outlaw, a real
hightoby-crack, though he was only an imported one, not a native
production. His life, as given by himself, is most entertaining. He had to
his father a Kilkenny Irishman, who apprenticed the boy early in life to
his uncle, a brewer. The brewer promptly beat him, he ran home, and got a
bigger beating. In truth, he was a most beatable brat. When sixteen years
old he joined the Ribbonmen, a political organization that committed many
petty crimes and misdemeanors, besides regulating landlords. When his
father found out the kind of company kept by the young rascal, he beat him
again. Mike promptly took as a salve five guineas from his father's trunk,
opening it with a master-key which had been kindly made for him by a
Ribbonman, and which he was enjoined to keep constantly with him as a
conveniency. He says, "I had always stolen in a small way." With his five
guineas he ran away to Dublin, and pretended reformation and remorse so
successfully to a cousin that the latter employed him in a distillery. In
return he stole petty amounts continually from his cousin's money chest,
by help of his master-key. Soon he was a settled outcast, and at this
juncture met at an inn a fine, handsome clergyman, about forty years of
age, over six feet tall, dark-eyed, of great muscle and strength; his name
was John Doherty. In spite of his black clerical dress he seemed somewhat
mysterious in character, and after pumping Martin he disclosed in turn
that he was the famous highwayman, Captain Thunderbolt.
He at once claimed Martin as one of the real sort, and they were talking
over a union of forces and schemes when a party of dragoons came to the
inn in pursuit of Thunderbolt. He escaped through a window, but in a
week's time came back dressed as a Quaker and joined his companion, who at
the age of twenty-one thus blossomed out as a real knight of the road, as
Captain Lightfoot, with a pair of fine pistols and a splendid horse, "Down
the Banks," to keep company with Thunderbolt's "Beefsteak." Thus equipped,
these two gentlemen rode as gentlemen should, to the hunt. There, alone,
to prove what he could do, Mike Martin robbed four huntsmen, and to his
pride was mistaken by them for Thunderbolt himself. But the huntsmen soon
had their turn; sheriffs and soldiers drove the two knights to the woods;
and after weeks of uncomfortable hiding Mike Martin was properly penitent
and longed for an honest man's seat in a tavern taproom. There is no
retreat, however, in this career; the pair of robbers next entered a
house, called all the people together, and robbed the entire trembling
lot. Through Scotland and Ireland they rode till the highways got too hot
for them, advertisements were everywhere, a hue and cry was out, and
Thunderbolt fled to America.
Mike Martin, terrified at the multiplying advertisements and rewards,
disguised himself, and sailed for New York. Quarrels and mutiny on
shipboard brought him ashore at Salem, where he worked for a time for Mr.
Derby. He soon received a sum of money from his father's estate and set up
as a brewer. But Salem Yankees were too sharp for the honest highwayman,
and he lost it all and had to take again to the road. From Portsmouth to
Canada,--from pedlers, from gentlemen,--on horseback, in chaises,--he ran
his rig; finally, in spite of advertisements in newspapers and printed
reports and handbills at every country inn, he worked his way back to New
Hampshire; and on a moonlight night he found himself horseless in the
bushes. Two men rode up, and one held back as Mike Martin stepped forth.
"Who's that?" said the foremost man. "I'm the bold Doherty from Scotland,"
said he, taking Thunderbolt's name and not in vain. "And what are you
after?" said the shaking traveller. "Stop and I'll show you." Mike then
presented his pistol and demanded of the gentleman his money or his life.
Promptly money and papers were turned over. "Stand back by the fence,"
said the highwayman. "Here, Jack, look after this fellow," he swaggered to
make the traveller think he had an accomplice; and he mounted the fine
horse and rode off. He robbed some one in some way every few miles on the
road till he was back in Salem. There he promptly acquiesced to the
decorous customs of the New England town, and went to a lecture; on his
way home from his intellectual refreshment, he asked the time of a
well-dressed man. "Can't you hear the clock strike?" was the surly answer.
"I'll hear your watch strike or strike your head," was the surprising
reply. Out came watch and money with the cowardly alacrity ever displayed
at his demands. From thence to the Sun Tavern in Boston, where he learned
of a grand party at Governor Brooks's at Medford. He said in his
confession, "I thought there might be some fat ones there and decided to
be of the company." After an evening of astonishing bravado and
recklessness, displaying himself at taverns and on the road, he held up
Major Bray and his wife on the Medford turnpike, near the Ten Mile Farm
which once belonged to Governor Winthrop. The gentlefolk were in "a
genteel horse and chaise." Madam Bray began to try to conceal her
watch-chain, but Captain Lightfoot politely told her he never robbed
ladies. Major Bray turned over his watch and pocketbook, but begged to
keep his papers. Martin said later, "The circumstances as given by Major
Bray at the trial were correct, only he forgot to state that he was much
frightened and trembled like a leaf." After stopping other chaises, he
took the surprisingly foolhardy step of going to the tavern at Medford,
where he found already much excitement about the robbery of Major Bray,
and met many suspicious glances. He rode off, and soon a crowd was after
him crying, "Stop Thief."
[Illustration: Poore Tavern and Sign-board.]
In his mad flight his stirrup broke, he fell from his horse and dislocated
his shoulder; thence through fields and marshes on foot till he dropped
senseless from pain and fatigue. When he recovered, he tied his suspenders
to a tree at one end and the other end to his wrist and pulled the
shoulder into place. Then by day and night through farms and woods to
Holliston. In the taproom of the tavern he called for brandy, but he saw
such a good description of himself with a reward for his capture, while he
was drinking off his glass, it took away his appetite for the dinner he
had ordered.
He was then tired of foot travel, and stole a horse and rode to
Springfield. Here he put up at a tavern, where he slept so sound that he
was only awakened by landlord, sheriff, and a score of helpers who had
traced the horse to Springfield. Major Bray's robbery was unknown there,
but he was tried for it, however, when it was found out, on October 21,
and convicted and sentenced to death. He cheerfully announced that he
should escape if he could, but he was put in heavy irons. When in jail at
Lechmere Point he struck the turnkey, Mr. Coolidge, on the head with his
severed chain. He pushed past the stunned keeper, thrust open the door,
and ran for his life. He was captured in a cornfield and Coolidge was the
man who grabbed him. It was found that he had filed through the chain with
a case-knife, filled the cut with a paste of tallow and coal-dust, and
though the link had been frequently examined the cut had never been noted.
He declared he would have escaped, only the heavy chain and weight which
he had worn had made him lose the full use of his legs, and he had to run
with one end of the chain and a seventeen-pound weight in his hand.
[Illustration: Monroe Tavern, Lexington, Massachusetts.]
He was executed in December and behaved with great propriety and
sobriety. He showed neither cant, levity, nor bravado. He prayed silently
just before his death, professed penitence, and went to the gallows with
composure. He arranged his dress and hair carefully before a glass, showed
a kind disposition to all, and finally gave the signal himself for the
drop. A tall and handsome scamp, with piercing blue eyes and fine
complexion, his marked intelligence and sweetness of expression made him
most attractive. His frame was perfect in symmetry, and he was wonderful
in his strength and endurance--truly an ideal highwayman; it must have
been a pleasure to meet him.
Thus it is very evident that neither highway robbery nor highwaymen
thrived in America. They mended their ways very promptly--and apparently
they wanted to. A very striking example of this is in the American career
of Captain Thunderbolt, the friend and teacher of Mike Martin. When he set
foot on American soil, he tamely abandoned all his old picturesque wicked
ways. He settled first in Dummerston, Vermont, where he taught school and
passed his leisure hours in seclusion and study. He then set up as a
physician, in Newfane, Vermont, calling himself Dr. Wilson, and he moved
from thence to Brattleboro, where his house stood on the present site of
the railroad station. He married the daughter of a prominent Brattleboro
farmer, but was too stern and reserved to prove a good American husband.
He lived to be about sixty-five years old, and had a good and lucrative
professional practice.
I know two authentic cases of highway robbery of stage-coaches in New
England; one was from the driver, of a large sum of money which had been
entrusted to him. It was his wife who stole it. She was not prosecuted,
for she returned the money, and it was believed she would not have taken
it from any one else. The other theft was that of a bonnet. Just as a
stage was to start off from a tavern door, a woman jumped on the step,
seized the bonnet of a woman passenger, tore it from her head, and made
off with it before the outraged traveller's shrieks could reach the driver
and stop the coach; and--as the chronicler solemnly recounted to me--the
robber was never heard of more. These two highwaywomen have the honors of
the road.
It may be deemed somewhat grandiloquent to term to-day this theft of a
bonnet "highway robbery"; but I can assure you a fine bonnet was a most
respected belonging in olden times, and if of real Dunstable or fine
Leghorn straw and trimmed with real ostrich plumes it might be also a
costly belonging, and to steal it was no light matter--indeed it was a
hanging matter. For in Boston, when John Hancock was governor, a woman was
hanged for snatching a bonnet from another's head and running off with
it.