Oh, do you know Uncle Charlie?
"Oh, do you know Uncle Charlie?"
I attracted Collins' attention, and told him to send the girl away on some pretext. We then went up to the house the girl had pointed out. I sent Collins around to the back door and I went to the front door and knocked. Mrs. Chalfont opened the door, and when I asked for Joe Chalfont she attempted to slam the door in my face. I pushed the door open and entered the house. Seeing no one in the front room I walked through it to the door of the back room. Here I saw Chalfont seated before a window with his head and neck all swathed in bandages. As I entered the room he said, without moving, "Well, Mr. Furlong, you have got me." I answered, "Yes, Joe, I am sorry to say I have." This showed conclusively that I had been pointed out to him while he was on the road without my knowledge. Here I will state that up to the time I entered that room I had never seen Joe Chalfont himself, nor a picture or photograph of him. He had seen me and had heard me speaking so that he knew my voice. I had suspected from the first that Chalfont might know me, so when I saw the little girl, whom I believed was his daughter, I did not stop in front of the houses in which I supposed the children lived, but kept on to the grocery store.
This is the only case of its kind on record in which an officer picked out a child from a group of children and recognized her from a description of her father, whom the officer had never seen.
I arrested Chalfont and took him to Katanning, as Mr. King had ordered. I then went to Pittsburg and reportedin detail to General Superintendent J. J. Lawrence. Meanwhile it dawned upon me that I had done a rather commendable thing in arresting this man Chalfont, and I was expecting a little praise from the General Superintendent. Imagine my surprise, upon being ushered into his office, at his beginning to reprimand me for arresting Chalfont. He said, "Furlong, you have gotten this company into a lot of trouble by arresting this man."
To this I replied, "Why sir, Mr. King ordered me to get him at all hazards, and I simply carried out his orders."
He then went on, in a most bitter tone, "Well, you should not have done it. I think I shall be forced to discharge you for so doing. From your reports from Buffalo I see that Chalfont was not an engineer, and, therefore, an incompetent employe. That makes this company liable to damages for the lives lost, and for all the property destroyed in that wreck. Don't you see what you have done?"
I was angered at his words, and said, "Col. Lawrence, if you did not want that man arrested Mr. King should not have ordered me to get him. I believe I am entitled to some little credit for the capture of this man, in view of the fact that the feat is so far unparalleled. So far as discharging me goes, that will be unnecessary, for I have already quit the service of a company which does not approve of my work."
To this Col. Lawrence replied, "Furlong, I beg your pardon, and want to compliment you on your good work on this and other cases, but when this case comes to trial all the facts of Chalfont's incompetency will be laid bare, and it will cost us a lot of money."
I then said, "Oh, I can fix that."
"What can you suggest?" he asked me.
"I will get some prominent lawyer," I said, "to sign his bond; he will be released, and as the quarterly session is nearly three months away it will be hard to find him in three months."
Col. Lawrence said, "See that that is done and I will greatly appreciate it."
A few days later a prominent lawyer of Katanning signed a bond for Chalfont's appearance in court. He was released and at once set out for parts unknown. Of course, he did not appear for trial and the bond was declared forfeited. Through professional courtesy the bond was never collected.
Chalfont was not heard from until the railroad strike at Pittsburg in 1877, when he again appeared in Pittsburg under an alias, and got a job on the Panhandle Ry., running a passenger engine on the MacDonald Accommodation. He got partly over the road on his first trip, and failing to get the proper amount of water in the boiler the crown-sheet blew out of the locomotive, scalding his fireman badly. He again took to the woods and disappeared, and to my knowledge has not been heard of since.
REVIEW OF A CRIME WHICH RANKS WITH THE LOS ANGELESDYNAMITING CASE FOR HEINOUSNESS—HOW CON-FESSION WERE OBTAINED.
What many of my friends, who are familiar with the case in all of its details, believe to have been my best piece of real detective work during my long career at the business, was done on what is known as "The Wyandotte Wrecking Case" in 1886. While much has been writtenabout this case, yet all the real facts have never appeared in print. The crime, which was the aftermath of the Knights of Labor strike on the Gould Southwest System that spring, occurred on the early morning of April 26th. Freight train No. 38 on the Missouri Pacific was pulling slowly into Wyandotte, now Kansas City, Kansas, and on reaching a point near the north depot on the banks of the Kaw River, the engine and several cars suddenly left the track, rolling down the embankment and some of them into the river. The fireman, Benjamin F. Horton, and the head brakeman, George Carlisle, who were on the engine, were pinioned beneath the wreckage and were dead when taken out. The engineer, J. H. Fowler, was severely injured, dying within a few months from his injuries. The conductor, A. Spaulding, who was in the cupola of the caboose, was thrown from his seat to the floor and painfully bruised and badly shaken up. The rear brakeman, whose name I do not now remember, was the only one of the crew to escape either death or injury.
The discovery immediately after the wreck of unmistakable evidence that it had been caused by wreckers, and because of the prominence of the men who had lost their lives thereby, caused a great sensation and much indignation. The dead fireman was a member of the Brotherhood of Railway Firemen and the brakeman a member of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen. All of the newspapers, not only of Kansas City, but of the entire country, denounced the wreckers in no uncertain terms, as did all decent and law-abiding citizens. I will add right here that the facts brought to light at the trial of the men charged with this crime, more than to any other one thing, caused the disintegration or dissolution of the Knights of Labor. In other words, it was the beginning of the end of that oncepowerful organization. For the benefit of those readers who are not familiar with the history of this order, I will state that it had in 1886 something over a million members. It had a veritable mushroom growth. No class of people were ineligible to membership; all trades and professions, as well as races and tongues, provided they were males over 18 years of age, and had the price of the initiation fee, usually one dollar, could join. The color line was not even drawn, as it is in most secret societies. Of course, some good honest men were on its roster rolls, but it was dominated by a brazen gang of mountebanks, agitators and crooked politicians and others seeking power and prominence. To gain a point the officers of the organization would stop at nothing. If coercion failed in its purpose, the boycott and more harsher methods were substituted. In short, a veritable reign of terror existed throughout the Middle West. To illustrate their methods better, I will state that if a merchant or other person in business, through a slip of the tongue or otherwise, made even the slightest remark reflecting on the order, or even one of its leaders, he was a marked man thereafter, his business ruined, and he, of course, driven from the country. Business men were often subjected to this treatment—and worse—for simply refusing to join the order. In many of the Western cities it was impossible for a man who did not "jine" the order to be elected to office, however deserving or competent he might be.
Scene at the Wyandotte wreck
Scene at the Wyandotte wreck, a crime only paralleled by the LosAngeles dynamiters.
At the time the wreck occurred, I was very busy in St. Louis looking after cases that had grown out of the great strike on the Gould System, of which I was Chief Special Agent. The strike, which had been over but about a month, was a long, bitter struggle, entailing much work on my department, and had resulted in a victory for thecompany. I could not get to Wyandotte to investigate the wreck until nearly a month had elapsed. In the meantime the railroad company had offered $2,500 reward for the arrest and conviction of the guilty parties, and $1,000 for any information which would lead up to such conviction. After looking the ground over, I became satisfied that this diabolical crime had been committed by some member, or members, of the Knights of Labor, either out of revenge or to harrass the company and divert traffic from the road. After satisfying myself on this point, I returned to St. Louis and requested Vice-President Hoxie to withdraw the offer of a reward for the conviction of the criminals, as I was then, and am now, opposed to offering rewards in such cases. Mr. Hoxie was in bed sick at the time, but he issued the order as requested, and I promised him that I would personally go to work on the case. A few days later, while I was engaged in laying plans for working out a solution of the case, a bold attempt was made to wreck another train near Tampoo, a short distance north of where the first wreck had occurred. A couple of guards were on this train and these men and some of the crew, who saw the wreckers, gave chase and succeeded in arresting one of them. This man proved to be O. J. Lloyd, a member of the Executive Board of the Knights of Labor, in charge of the late strike. Prior to the strike he had been employed by the Missouri Pacific Company as a switchman and had been a very active member of the committee.
About this time my department was badly in need of a thoroughly trained criminal lawyer to prosecute the cases growing out of the big strike, and at my earnest solicitation, Marshall F. McDonald, former Circuit Attorney of St. Louis, one of the best criminal lawyers of his time,was retained by the company for the purposes named, and given authority by Vice-President Hoxie to employ all other counsel needed. Mr. McDonald accordingly employed Ex-Judge Laughlin and Judge R. S. McDonald to assist him. A few days later, these three lawyers and myself met the Hon. Bailie P. Waggoner, General Attorney for the State of Kansas for the company, by appointment at Kansas City. We visited the scene of the crime. As we were on the bank overlooking the place where the engine and cars had left the rails, I told the lawyers that I was satisfied that Lloyd, the man in jail for the Tampoo affair, was also implicated in the Wyandotte crime, and that I proposed to get a confession from him.
"How are you going to go about it, Tom?" asked Judge McDonald.
"I am going to get it through a Knight of Labor," I replied, and gave the gentlemen a short outline of the plan I had evolved in my mind for getting the confession. After I had finished the lawyers all thought my scheme was a good one, but not one of them thought it could be carried out. I will admit that, because of the peculiar situation in Wyandotte County at that time, I knew I would have to be very careful or my scheme would not work. The mayor, sheriff, jailor and, in fact, all of the city and county officials, even policemen and constables, excepting Judge Hineman of the Circuit Court, were members of the Knights of Labor, and of the same local lodge as the prisoner, consequently were very friendly disposed towards him. As every one familiar with such organizations as the Knights of Labor knows, I would have had but little trouble to find a member among them who would betray the secrets of the order for a few paltry dollars and thus enable me to obtain the information I so much desiredfrom Lloyd, but I decided on another plan, as I never considered a man who would violate his obligation to be upright and honorable. In a word, in trusting such men one is liable to receive what is known in slang parlance as "the double cross."
Locked up in a safe in my office was a ritual and by-laws of the Knights of Labor, and a book of instructions showing how to initiate new members, together with the annual and semi-annual pass words, and the "hailing" and "distress" signs and various signals used by the members of the order, so I decided to set up a little Knight of Labor factory of my own and make a member that I could trust with the work in hand. I had an operative in my employ at that time named George Fowle. He had for a long time been in the train service of different railroads of the country, and I selected him as the man to be trusted with securing the confession from Lloyd. I took Fowle into my private office, and after instructing him carefully as to how to carry out my plans, he was initiated into the mysteries of the order. We took our time and went through the initiatory work carefully, so that when Fowle left for Wyandotte the next day to play the part of Brother Alfred in the drama that I had staged for that town, he was as well posted on the secret work of the order as though he had just passed through the Grand Assembly, as the governing body of the order was called.
On arriving at Wyandotte, Brother Alfred proceeded at once to the headquarters of the organization, where he made himself known as a special envoy and minister plenipotentiary of the head assembly of the order at Scranton, Pa. His mission was to investigate the conditions as he found them in Wyandotte, so that the head officers at Scranton would know exactly what was going on in thewest. He also hinted that the General Master Workman and Grand Treasurer Hayes had empowered him to use his own judgment about what was to be done in the case of Lloyd, who was in jail on the train wrecking charge.
Brother Alfred also called on the sheriff, who was a Knight of Labor, and after giving him the grip, asked to be allowed to consult with Lloyd. The sheriff readily granted the request and Brother Alfred was ushered into the jail, where he was closeted with Lloyd for more than an hour and a half. After introducing himself to Lloyd, Brother Alfred dispensed with all formalities and at once began a discussion of the charge against the prisoner. "Of course, Mr. Powderly, Mr. Hayes and the other head officers of the order and myself, know that you are all right, Lloyd, and that you will not make a confession, but in cases of this kind, where there are so many on the job, some one will squeal when they are arrested, as they all will be, for the Goulds have a lot of detectives on the case, headed by Tom Furlong, and it is only a question of time until they are all run down. Furlong, as you know, is not only a great detective, but he is also very unscrupulous and will not stop at anything to secure a conviction in these cases. Now, the order at this time cannot afford to have this crime laid at its door. If one of the men implicated in it would confess, which some of them would be sure to do, as I stated before, it would be a great blow to the order and cast an odium over it that would take years to eradicate. Another thing, the men charged with this crime could not get a fair trial here at this time, as the people here are very sore, as are the members of the Brotherhood of Firemen and Brotherhood of Trainmen, of which orders the two men killed in the wreck were members. I have, therefore, evolved a scheme to outwitthese capitalistic bloodhounds, and thus save the order. I have a lawyer over in the city from headquarters, Brother Thomas, who will get you out of here on bond, and I will take you east and get you a job on a railroad where Furlong cannot find you, and will do the same thing with the other men who were with you."
"That is true about some of the gang squealing," replied Lloyd. "We have been afraid of at least two of them giving the snap away, and I know they will do it if they ever fall into the clutches of Furlong and his hirelings."
Lloyd further expressed himself as being delighted with the scheme, and within a few hours he was released from jail and taken by Brother Alfred in a circuitous route through Kansas City to Independence, Mo., where the two boarded a train for St. Louis. I had been informed of their movements by wire, and had one of my operatives meet them at the Union Station and escort them to the room of another operative in my employ at 17th and Pine Streets. That evening Marshall F. McDonald and myself and a stenographer called at the room, and I was introduced to Lloyd as the "headquarters' attorney," Brother Thomas. I corroborated all that Brother Alfred had told Lloyd, and O. K.'d the scheme to get all of these men in the job out of the country, and promised to do all I could to further the scheme. Lloyd then gave us the names of his partners in the crime. They were George H. Hamilton, Mike Leary, Robert Geers, Fred Newport and William Vassen, all prominent and active members of the local executive board of the Knights of Labor.
The next morning, Lloyd, in charge of Operatives Bonnell, McCabe and two guards, and myself, boarded a special car at Union Station, and it was attached to west-bound passenger train No. 1. Of course, Lloyd did not know hewas in charge of officers. At Independence the special car was placed on a siding and I went on to Kansas City. The next morning, which was Sunday, a conference was held at the St. James Hotel between the attorneys for the Pacific Company and myself. It was late in the evening when the conference ended, after which I decided to at once arrest the men named by Lloyd as his partners in the Wyandotte crime. I proceeded to Wyandotte and procured the warrants. As the arrests had to be made quickly, and all my experienced men in that vicinity were in Independence guarding the special car, I secured the services of Frank Tutt, who had been employed by me as a guard for the railroad during the strike, to go with the sheriff and myself to make the arrests.
The first man arrested was George Hamilton, chairman of the executive committee in charge of the strike. We found him in ViceRoy Park, Armourdale, where he was acting as a special policeman. When Hamilton was pointed out to me, I approached him saying:
"I want you, officer."
"What for?" asked Hamilton.
"Murder," I replied.
Had Hamilton been cracked on the head with his own club he would not have been more surprised. Before he could recover the club was taken from his hand and his pistol from his pocket, and his big star from over his palpitating heart. He made a feeble attempt to get indignant, but failed lamentably and broke down completely, and wanted to confess. He was taken to jail and locked up.
We then got in the hack and were driven to Armourdale, where we arrested Robert Geers, after breaking through several doors. While arresting Geers we came near getting our heads blown off by an irate roomer, whose door wehad broken open by mistake. After locking up Geers, we went across the river and stopped in front of a shack in the bottoms, and entering it arrested Fred Newport and took him to jail, leaving his wife and six children in tears.
We then visited Kansas City and arrested Mike Leary. He was locked up about 4:30 A. M. There was one man yet missing, William Vassen. We experienced considerable trouble in locating him. He had left his home to go to work for Wood Bros., the Kansas City ice dealers, where he was employed as a driver to deliver ice. We obtained a list of his customers, and finally overtook him near the Kansas City Union Depot, at about seven o'clock. He broke down at once and wanted to confess. After a good breakfast I took him to the St. James Hotel in Kansas City and into the presence of the attorneys for the company. The prisoner broke into tears, as soon as we entered the room, and made a piteous appeal to the gentlemen to see that the wants of his sick wife and children were attended to. "I have never been arrested before, and I was led into this. I went into it at the point of a pistol," he said, crying bitterly. "Damn the Knights of Labor," he continued, and expressed the intention of making a clean breast of the whole affair. He was told by both the lawyers and myself that he did not have to talk if he did not want to. "I have been weighted down too long; I want to tell all about it. I will suffer, I guess, but I deserve it." Then he made a full confession, giving the most minute details of the terrible crime.
It was the intention of the gang, according to the confession, to wreck a passenger train. The tools with which the spikes were pulled, and the fish plates removed, were stolen from a tool house of the company, located between the depot and the scene of the wreck.
Geers and Newport also made confessions, and all these men took the stand at the trial of the defendants when they were arraigned the following January. The testimony of these men was corroborated in every detail, but the jury failed to reach a verdict, standing 7 to 5 for acquittal. The Knights of Labor representatives, through the court officers, who were all, excepting Judge Hineman, members of the order, had succeeded in getting several of its members on the jury. The Knights of Labor employed the best attorneys in the west to defend the men. Among them were Ex-Governor Chas. P. Johnson, Ex-Senator William Warner, Thomas P. Fenlon and others; in fact, the officers of the order spent money very freely to bring about the desired end.
After the mistrial, the attorneys for the defense made application for a change of venue, and the cases were sent to Olathe. The officers of the Knights of Labor immediately sent a swarm of organizers into Olathe and Johnson County, and through coercion and other mysterious methods, succeeded in getting almost every male citizen of the county into the order. The second trial resulted in another farce, the jury again being packed with Knights of Labor.
About this time there was a change of management in the legal department of the road, and the cases were all nollied at the request of the company—even the three men who had made confessions were turned loose.
Peculiar conditions existed in the west at that time. The laboring men knew nothing about the real benefits of unionism. They had been herded into the Knights of Labor like sheep into a pen, and were educated by those who led them into believing that any kind of crime was all right when committed during a strike, or against a firmor company against which there was a grievance, and the latter were often, as in the case of the big strike on the Gould System, proved to be imaginary.
I and my men were only interested in this strike in so far as it was our duty to see that no acts of violence were committed; in short, to protect the company's property from vandals and thieves. The rank and file of the order were led to believe by their leaders, however, that we were a lot of crooks, who regarded a man's liberty and life lightly and would violate any of the laws on the statute books to secure a conviction in any case we were called into. And strange to say, there are some men who believe this to be true, even to this day.
I want to say right here, that this crime was one of the most diabolical and fiendish crimes of the century. Had it not been for a mere accident, a loaded passenger train would have been wrecked instead of the freight, but, luckily, the passenger was late, and the freight was given orders at Leavenworth to proceed into Wyandotte on the passenger train's time, with the disastrous results told in the preceding portions of this narrative. The officers of the Knights of Labor knew these men were guilty, for three of them had gone on the witness stand and testified to the facts, while Lloyd, one of the leaders, had furnished evidence to corroborate them.
The investigation, at the next grand assembly of the Knights of Labor, at the insistence of a few good men in the order as to how much money had been spent in defense of these men, revealed a big scandal within the order. While it was true that a great deal of money had been expended, yet it was learned that the sum was not more than one-fourth of the amount claimed by the officers in charge of this fund.
The amount of money expended by me for the company, in working up the case, was very small, as all of the men who did any work on the case were employed by the month on a regular salary and expenses. In fact, there were not cents expended in this case, when dollars were expended in running down the dynamiters who blew up the Los Angeles Times, the latter crime being the only one which has occurred within my time that could at all compare with the Wyandotte wrecking case for cold-blooded fiendishness. It is also the only case in which big rolls of money were expended by labor organizations, knowing that the men were guilty.
Because of my work in this case, I incurred the lasting enmity of all the heads of the Knights of Labor, from Terrance V. Powderly, the Grand Master, on down the line. This was evidenced several years later. In 1889, I was tendered the position as chief of the secret service bureau of the treasury department at Washington by President Harrison. I was not overly anxious to accept the job, as the pay at that time was only $3,600 per year, and I had a good business in St. Louis, as head of the agency which bears my name, but at the solicitation of friends, I agreed to accept the position. Somehow, the fact that I was to be the new chief of the secret service had leaked out in Washington, and immediately the Knights of Labor "tipped their hand," to use a slang phrase. The President had gone to Deer Park, Maryland, to recover from the fatigue caused by his inauguration, and his few first months of service. Telegrams poured in on him from all points of the United States. They came from the east and the west, and from the north and the south, and from towns I had not known were on the map. Some of these telegrams were long and others short, but all showed thevindictiveness of the members of the order towards me. After the President returned from Washington he sent for me, and on my arrival at the White House, told me of the protests. To offset these, I presented letters from Ex-Governor Johnson and Major William Warner, chief counsel for the men I had arrested for the Wyandotte crime, which stated in terms that could not be misconstrued, that I had done nothing but my duty in that case, and testifying further that I had been very respectful and magnanimous to the prisoners on trial—in short, that I had done nothing to secure a conviction that was not entirely honorable.
"You are all right, Furlong, and I am going to appoint you, as soon as this storm dies down a little," said the President. Of course, I was a little put out by the delay, and told the President that if I accepted the place my commission would have to be handed me not later than January 1st. After further assurance from the President that I would have my commission before the date mentioned, I returned home. A few days before January 1st I was again called to Washington by the President. I visited the White House in company with the Hon. Richard Kerens. After a short discussion of the matter, the President told me to go over to the treasury department and get my commission. On my arrival there, I did not find the Secretary, Mr. Windom, in, he being detained at home on account of sickness. My presence in Washington again revived the rumors that I was to be appointed, and these rumors also put the Knights of Labor to work again, with the result that the White House was again flooded with a lot of telegrams protesting against my appointment, and my commission was again held up. I then dropped the matter and returned to St. Louis.
In conclusion, I wish to state that I assumed at the time all the responsibility for the manner in which the evidencein this case had been secured. The plan for obtaining the confession from Lloyd, which, in reality, was the beginning of the case against the men, was worked out myself; Fowle, or Brother Alfred, as he was known, simply played, or acted the part assigned him. True, he played the part fairly well, and carried out my instructions to the letter. At the time of the arrests, and on several occasions thereafter, a certain strike guard employed by the company, succeeded in getting his name and picture into the papers of Kansas City as one of the chief unravelers of the mystery surrounding the crime, but he had absolutely nothing whatever to do with the capture of the criminals, beyond guarding them after the arrests had been made by Sheriff Ferguson and myself. The "dope" he handed the papers was mere rot. There was also considerable said in the papers about the part a wig would play in the case prior to the trial, but all who were present at the trial will remember that the wig was not introduced in evidence. This wig was a "pipe dream," to use a slang expression.
DESPERATE STRUGGLE ON A BRIDGE WITH A THIEF CARRYINGA CARBOY FILLED WITH NITROGLYCERINE—NARROWESCAPE FROM DEATH OF PRISONERAND CAPTOR.
Early in the 70's, while I was Chief of Police of Oil City, Pa., a long, wooden covered bridge spanned the Allegheny River at Oil City. This bridge was at least fifteen hundred feet in length, had a driveway through its center wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. This driveway was boarded up closely with siding, which separated it on either side fromthe footwalks, which were about six feet in width with a high railing on the outside. There were lights at intervals along the footwalks, about a hundred feet apart. The main structure of the bridge was about forty feet above the river.
The bridge connected Oil City and South Oil City, extending from the south end of Seneca Street in Oil City to South Oil City. South Oil City then, as it is now, was the principal residence portion of the city, while the north side of the river was, and is, the business portion. This bridge was a toll bridge, and there were night and day toll collectors stationed at the little house provided for their use at the north end of the bridge. Their duty was to collect the toll from all drivers of vehicles, and two cents from each pedestrian who passed their window at the toll house.
There lived in Oil City at that time a notorious character by the name of Tommy Griffith, whose face and form had become familiar to all the residents of the town, also of the adjacent country. Griffith was a Welchman by birth, middle aged, stout and heavily built in stature; had a wife and a large family, and resided in South Oil City, at that time owning his own home, and was apparently fairly prosperous. He was a man addicted to drink, and was known throughout the country as the "Prince of Moonshiners."
Moonshiners, in the oil region, were men who made a business of putting explosives, which were called torpedoes, into oil wells for the purpose of increasing the flow of oil. The oil-bearing rock, or crevices in the oil-bearing rock, which were usually found near the bottom of the oil wells, would get clogged with an accumulation of parafine. After the well had been producing for a while the inlet to the well would become clogged with this accumulation, when the owner of the well would resort to the torpedo. These torpedoes were composed of a tin can or case, which would hold from one to four quartsof nitro-glycerine, which is a liquid that resembles lard oil very much, and is one of the most powerful explosives known, if not the most powerful. The cases, or tin cans, were round and nearly the size of the wells in diameter. The oil wells in those days were usually four and one-half or five inches in diameter. The cases were long enough to hold the quantity required for the explosion, and were lowered from the top of the well by means of a copper wire, which was attached to the percussion cap at the proper depth in the well, then a heavy weight, the wire through its center, would be sent down from the top over the wire and would strike the cap on the torpedo. This would cause the explosion, and would shatter the oil-bearing rock and jar the parafine, thereby making the opening by which the oil found its way into the well, and increased the production wonderfully for a period, or until the opening became clogged again from the same causes. Then the same remedy would be applied, and for this reason the torpedo business was a very profitable business, as this nitro-glycerine was sold at the rate of about ten dollars per quart.
There was, at the time I am writing of, a company known as the Roberts Torpedo Co., who had a monopoly of all the explosives and torpedoes used in the oil wells for the purpose before mentioned. The Roberts Company owned and operated the factories at which nitro-glycerine was made. They employed only men who were experts in the torpedo business, as the handling of torpedoes was very hazardous and dangerous, the nitro-glycerine being treacherous and liable to explode at any time, either from concussion, friction or heat. In fact, nitro-glycerine is liable to explode spontaneously or without any apparent cause, so that the most expert handler of the stuff does not really know when he may consider himself safe when near a quantity of it. The Roberts Company also had anumber of what they call magazines, which were located in isolated spots all through the oil regions. These magazines were places for storing quantities of the nitro-glycerine, and usually close to a producing district, so that the operator in charge of said district could obtain a supply of it when he required it for use in his territory. The moonshiner made a practice of breaking into these magazines and stealing the explosives, which usually were placed in a square tin can which held from twenty to forty pounds. These heavy tin cans, or cases, were called carboys, and had a heavy wire handle attached to the top with a short spout at one corner of the top of the carboy from which the nitro-glycerine could be poured. As I said before, it was like lard oil, and of about the same consistency.
These moonshiners would steal three or four carboys at a time, concealing it in the mountains, and when they got an order from a producer for a torpedo they would fill the order and put in the torpedo in proper shape, as they were as expert in the handling of this dangerous explosive as the Roberts Company's men were, as many of them were ex-employes of that company. Prejudice existed among the smaller producers against the Roberts Torpedo Company, as they complained that the Roberts Company were charging them extortionate prices for torpedoes, therefore the moonshiners were protected to an extent in their nefarious business.
Upon the night of which I am writing it was after midnight when I left my office at the City Hall on the north side, and started for my home on the south side. I started on foot, and when I reached about the middle of the bridge before described, I heard footsteps coming towards me on the same foot-walk that I was on. I looked up and saw and recognized the familiar form of Tommy Griffith, as he was passing a light which was about a hundred and fifty feet from me. Hewas coming directly towards me, and was evidently intoxicated, as he staggered from side to side of the foot-walk. First he would stagger against the enclosed side, and then back to the outside railing. Every time he came in contact with the bridge I could hear a slight thud. He was carrying a gunnysack upon his shoulder, containing a carboy of nitro-glycerine, and I thought it would explode any moment, as he was continually striking it against the sides of the bridge as he staggered. Then again he was liable to stumble and let it fall, which would have been fatal both to himself, me and the bridge. I thought of all of these things in a great deal shorter time than it has taken me to write about it. It was in the winter, and I was wearing rubber overshoes, and for this reason I made no noise in walking. After recognizing Griffith and his condition, I instantly turned and started back for the north side of the bridge. I am satisfied that I made a record-breaking sprint until I got safely to the toll house at the end of the bridge, where I hastily told Samuel Ervin, who was on duty as night toll collector. I insisted on Ervin remaining at his position as usual until Griffith arrived at the window, where I felt sure he would stop long enough to pay his toll. Ervin was sitting in a bay window with a slide in front of him through which he could take the toll, and he could also see every person coming or going over the bridge. I hid myself around the angle of the bay window in such a manner that Griffith could not see me as he approached the toll window, and when he neared the window he presented his toll with his right hand while he was holding the end of the gunnysack with his left hand. This bag contained the carboy and was hanging over his back. I noiselessly approached him from behind, and, seizing the gunnysack containing the carboy, jerked it away from him, while Ervin held on to his collar so firmly that he could not get away or interfere withme until I had deposited the case of nitro-glycerine on the ground, which, of course, did not take me very long. I then grabbed Mr. Griffith, and he being a husky, stout little fellow, and full of pluck and whiskey, made a struggle, but I quickly overpowered him and promptly conveyed him to the lock-up.
Recognizing Griffith
"Recognizing Griffith and seeing he was loaded down with nitro-glycerine, I hot-footed it to the end of the bridge."
I then returned to where I had deposited the nitro-glycerine. I found Mr. Ervin standing upon the railroad crossing, which was about seventy-five or a hundred feet from the tool house. I was then obliged to carry the carboy of nitro-glycerine on my shoulder to the nearest Roberts magazine, which was located in a ravine known as Sage Run, and about three miles from the north end of the bridge. The carboy weighed about forty pounds, and the walking was icy and slippery, and of course my progress was necessarily very slow. It was nearly daylight when I got home. It is needless to say that I was very tired.
We had been informed of the theft of more than a ton of nitro-glycerine from a Roberts magazine, which occurred a few days prior to the night in question, and after daylight the following morning I visited the home of Griffith, which was situated in a good residence portion, and surrounded by a number of good homes and families. I found in the basement of Griffith's house the remainder of the ton of nitro-glycerine, which was hidden under a stairway running from the kitchen of the house into the basement. At the time I entered the house I found Griffith's children playing and running up and down these steps under which the explosive was standing in the original packages. There was nitro-glycerine enough under those stairs to have blown up the entire city.
I was then compelled to procure a team and sleigh and do the driving myself, and to load the stuff into the sleigh and drive it to the magazine and there unload it. I could not induce any person to assist me, as I did not have time, beingcompelled to move the stuff immediately for the safety of not only Griffith's family, but the whole neighborhood, and, therefore, could not wait to send word to the Roberts Co. and have them send their own men, who were accustomed to handling it. It was one of the most trying situations I ever found myself placed in.
Griffith was tried in the court in due time, and was sentenced for seven years in the state penitentiary at Allegheny, on the charge of grand larceny.
Col. Roberts, who at that time lived at Titusville, Pa., and was president of the Roberts Torpedo Company, sent me a check for five hundred dollars, which I accepted.
Griffith served out his sentence, and returned to Oil City, where he was living at my last account of him, and was following his old vocation, that of moonshining, in a more moderate manner than of yore.
AFTER STANDING OFF A SHERIFF AND POSSE, THE NOTORIOUSBANDIT IS TAKEN SINGLE HANDED.
During the years of 1875-6 I was Chief Special Agent of the Allegheny Valley Railroad. One morning I was called to Brookville, Pennsylvania, to investigate the burglary of the company's office at that point during the preceding night. On arriving in the little town I found the office of the company almost a wreck, the safe having been blown to pieces with dynamite or some other explosive, and its contents, including quite a sum of money and a number of Centennial Exposition and railroad tickets were missing. After some hard work, I obtained a clue which led me to believe that the job had been done by the notorious Watts gang.
This outlaw band, which originally consisted of eight men, had long terrorized the good citizens of Jefferson, Clarion, Forest and Elk Counties—in much the same manner as had the James Boys and their gang of cut-throats the citizens of western Missouri.
Wess Watts
Wess Watts.
Noted Pennsylvania bandit leader run down and capturedby Detective Furlong.
There was no crime too big or too little for them to commit, but they made a specialty of arson, murder, robbery and safe-blowing. The organizer and leader was Wess Watts, who, before he had adopted outlawry as a profession, had been a gun and locksmith in Brookville, and had the reputation of being a skilled mechanic. He was about 28 years of age, 5 feet 11 inches in height, and weighed in the neighborhood of 190 pounds. There hadnever been any question of his gameness and he was known as the crack shot of that portion of Pennsylvania. He often gave exhibitions of his expertness in the handling of firearms. One of his favorite stunts was to shoot an apple from the head of his brother at a distance of twenty paces with either a gun or revolver.
In reporting to Mr. David McCargo, the General Superintendent of the road, a day or so later, that I was convinced that the Watts gang was responsible for the Brookville job, and venturing the opinion that this gang would continue to prey upon the railroad at intervals until they were exterminated; whereupon Mr. McCargo said, "You are hereby instructed to bend every effort toward the suppression of this gang, and you will be relieved from all other duties until this has been accomplished."
I at once took up the work, by visiting the Western Penitentiary at Allegheny City, where I found a former member of the Watts gang, who had been convicted of horse stealing and was at that time serving a ten-year sentence for the same. This man's name was Lafayette Edwards, and he had been connected with the Watts gang for a number of years and was a member at the time of his arrest. He was about thirty-five years of age. He had a younger brother by the name of Horace Edwards, who had been connected with the gang until about a year previous to the arrest of Lafayette, when he grew tired of the life he had been leading, and, as the gang was daily growing bolder in their depredations, he was afraid they would all be brought to justice sooner or later, so he disappeared, no one knowing his whereabouts in Brookville. On approaching Lafayette, at the penitentiary, I told him who I was, that I had learned of both his and his brother's connection with the Watts gang and that I desired to findHorace, so that I might get the facts from him as to his knowledge of the crimes perpetrated by the gang while he was a member of it. Lafayette Edwards said he believed that his brother would tell all he knew, providing he would not be punished for the part he had taken while working with the gang. I explained to him that so long as Horace had severed his connection with the gang, that I had no doubt but that the prosecuting officers would use his testimony against the other members of the gang and nolle prosequi all charges against him, which is a custom, as the prosecuting attorney in criminal cases has the right, with the permission of the court, to annul proceedings against a criminal, where he has been used as a State's witness. I also told him if he would assist me in locating Horace, that I would do all that I could, consistently, with the proper officers to have the charges annulled against his brother. Finally he told me that Horace was engaged as a farm hand at a point near Vermillion, Illinois. He said that Horace had joined the church and was living an honest and conscientious life. I went to Vermillion and located Horace Edwards, who was working as a farm hand under an alias, and found that he had established a good reputation, joined the church, and was respected by all who knew him. In other words, he had made friends with everybody with whom he came in contact during his few months' stay in that neighborhood. This information I verified before approaching Horace. I finally called on him and told him who I was, that I was from Pennsylvania, and that I had seen his brother Lafayette, who was in the penitentiary in Allegheny City, who had given me his address, and, in fact, I told him the line of facts that I knew he would recognize as facts. I then proposed to him that he go back to Pennsylvania with me, at my expense, promising that Iwould keep him quietly in a small town near Brookville, where he would not be known until I had apprehended the balance of the Watts gang, and that I would pay his expenses back to Illinois, where he had so many friends, and was favorably known, and that the people would not become aware of his identity after his return among them. In this connection, I wish to say that Horace had adopted his mother's maiden name. To this Horace replied promptly that, as he had become a church member, he would render all the assistance in his power towards bringing his former companions to justice, and thereby preventing them from committing further depredations. I told the parties by whom he was employed that his presence was required as a witness in an important case in court in Pennsylvania, and that I had come after him and had no doubt but that he would return again in a few weeks. I took him back to Pennsylvania, and rounded up the balance of the gang, with the exception of the leader, Wess Watts. I learned that he had last been heard from at Paducah, Kentucky. This I learned through the assistance of a sister of Mrs. Watts, who was in correspondence with her. I went to Paducah and found Mrs. Watts. From my investigations I had become so familiar with the depredations of the gang, the dates and places where they had been committed that I decided to approach Mrs. Watts by representing myself as a friend of her husband and other members of the gang. At this she became angry and excited, and told me that if she had a kettle of boiling water convenient she would scald me, as she had no further use for her husband or any of his friends. He had deserted her and their child, and had run away with another man's wife. It was then my turn to sympathize with her, which I did to the best of my ability, and of course, denounced Wess Watts inplain words for having deserted his wife and child in such a manner. Mrs. Watts, who, by the way, was really a good natured woman and rather good looking, of the blonde type, about 25 years of age, finally told me that her husband had taken this other woman, and that she had heard, a few days prior to my visit, that he and Oliver Brooks had opened a gun and locksmith repair shop at Shawneetown, Illinois. She said Watts and this woman and Oliver Brooks and the Brooks woman were living together, and that they had their shingle out for gun and lock repairing, but in reality were committing burglaries and thefts almost nightly in the vicinity of Shawneetown. I took a boat at Paducah for Shawneetown, which is on the Ohio river some 50 miles from Paducah. I arrived at Shawneetown, which was then a very small place, about 3 o'clock in the morning. The town is very low, the Ohio river being held out of the town by a high levee along its banks. After leaving the boat I went over the levee to the only street in the town parallel to the river and had no trouble in locating the gun shop, by reason of the sign over the door. Directly opposite this shop was a general merchandise store with a large pile of empty dry goods boxes standing in front of it. I seated myself upon one of these boxes, as it was not quite daylight when I found the place and, as I had had some sleep coming up on the boat, I was not sleepy. I could not go to a hotel at that time without arousing some comment, and, therefore, concluded I would wait in the vicinity of the gun shop and watch for developments. I had been sitting on the box for perhaps three-quarters of an hour, and day was just beginning to break, when I noticed a little cloud of smoke coming out of the stovepipe (which served as a chimney) in the shanty in which the gun shop was located. A few minutes laterthe door of the gun shop was opened and I could see, from my perch on the box across the street, that some one was sweeping. I could see the broom, but could not see who was operating it. I watched the broom for a few minutes and then concluded I would go over to the shop and look in and see who was doing the sweeping.
This shop was a one-story frame shanty, about 16 feet wide, by perhaps, 24 feet long. It was divided in the middle by a partition, making two rooms. The front room, being the gun shop, contained a vise bench to the right of the front door, upon which were a lot of tools, such as files, wrenches, one or two old guns and a couple of pistols.
Diagonally across the shop and to the left was a door opening into the rear room, which was used as a living room. When I peered into the front room or gun shop there was no one in the room, but the door leading into the rear room was open and I rapped on the shop door. My knock was answered by a man, who came from the rear room and had a broom in his hand. He was clad in blue overalls, a knit undershirt and wore a pair of rubbers, but no socks. I saw at a glance that it was Wess Watts, himself. I had a very good description of him and had seen his brother, sister and mother, and he resembled them very strongly. I noticed that he had nothing in the shape of arms on him except the broom. I decided then and there to arrest him. When he came from the rear room I saluted him, saying, "Good-morning," and he replied in the same way. I then said, "Are you the gunsmith?" He said he was. I said, "I have a job for you. I have an old gun here, but I don't know whether you can do anything with it or not."
In this connection I wish to state that before I left my perch on the boxes across the street, I placed my revolver,which was a 41-Colts, short barrel, double action, in my right-hand coat pocket. I also had a pair of automatic hand-cuffs, which I placed in my left-hand pocket. I was wearing a sack coat, and when Watts replied that he was the gunsmith, I took the revolver out of my right-hand pocket in an awkward manner, holding it about in the middle. He turned around, in a leisurely manner, and set the broom in the corner near the door, and while he was doing this, I placed my gun in working position, and as he turned extending his hand, evidently for the purpose of taking and examining my pistol, I leveled it at his head and told him to "throw up his hands." He hesitated for an instant, but I commanded him a second time, telling him to throw them up at once, or I would blow his head off. He threw up his hands, and, just at the time I commanded him the second time to throw up his hands, a man with a bushy head of red hair peered through the door leading into the rear room, but when he saw what was going on, he ducked back his head, as he was in direct range with my gun. I then commanded Watts to about face, and step forward to the door, which he did, keeping his hands up. I was right behind him with my gun at the back of his head, and told him to step down and out of the door. He obeyed. I then took my hand-cuffs out of my left-hand coat pocket, and snapped them on his wrists, while his hands were still above his head. I then told him he could drop his hands, and marched him up the street to the hotel, which was but a few hundred feet from the shop. In the meantime Watts did not utter a word, but merely complied with my commands. On our arrival at the hotel I found the night clerk or porter in charge, but asleep in a chair in the office, and as we marched in he awoke and appeared to be frightened at our intrusion. I told him that I was an officerand that Watts was my prisoner. I told him we were hungry and asked him how soon we could get something to eat. He awakened the help and in about half an hour breakfast was announced.
All this time Watts and I were sitting in the office gazing at each other, not a word having been spoken by either, and when we went into the dining room and sat down to the table, Watts looked at me and then at the hand-cuffs as much as to say, "Aren't you going to remove these hand-cuffs?" He did not speak, however. I shook my head, looked at the table and food and then at Watts, as much as to say, "There it is, you can eat it or leave it alone." I sat opposite him at the table and he helped himself to some ham and managed to eat a pretty good breakfast with the hand-cuffs on.
On arising from the table it occurred to me for the first time that my prisoner was not very well dressed to make a long journey. I espied a large-sized, old-fashioned linen duster, and a big-brimmed straw hat hanging on the wall of the hotel sitting room. After some dickering with the porter I purchased them for 75c and put them on my prisoner. The addition of these garments made Watts look more like the leader of a rube band, than the bold, bad man that he really was.
At that time there was a branch of the Wabash Railroad running into Shawneetown, and I had ascertained there was a train leaving there shortly for McLeansboro and East St. Louis. We boarded the train at 6:00 a. m. and started for East St. Louis. After we had been on the train for half an hour or more, Watts, who was sitting in the seat with me, and to the left, next to the window, turned around facing me and said, "Who are you, and where are you taking me, and what have you arrested me for?"
I replied that I was a deputy sheriff from Vermillion and that I had arrested him on suspicion of committing a burglary there a week before.
He said, "Why, I was never in Vermillion in my life. You have made a big mistake."
"I guess I am not very much mistaken," I replied, "some of our citizens saw the burglars when they left the bank, and have described you accurately. Of course, if they fail to identify you on your arrival at Vermillion, I will apologize to you, and then be obliged to pay your expenses back to Shawneetown."
He then said, "You say you are a deputy sheriff? Well, don't deputy sheriffs have to give bond for the careful performance of their duties?" I replied, "Yes, they have to give bond."
"Well," he continued, "these people won't identify me and I will make your bondsmen pay dearly for this outrage."
"We'll see about this," I replied. "I can't be mistaken. I have been a deputy sheriff for the past two years, and I have arrested two house thieves and they were convicted, so I can not be mistaken."
"Well, you are very badly mistaken now," he answered, and with this he stopped talking and seemed to be at ease, as he knew he could not be identified at Vermillion, and felt sure that he would be released. In due time we arrived at East St. Louis, and I explained to him that I did not care to proceed to Vermillion that night, as I had some little business to attend to in St. Louis, and therefore, I proposed to come over to the city, remain over night and take the first train out in the morning to Vermillion. He seemed perfectly satisfied. I brought him across the river and took him to the Four Courts and turned him over to MajorMcDonough, who was then Chief of Police of St. Louis. I had known Chief McDonough for years. He locked Watts up, and I, of course, had his meals taken in to him and had him well cared for. The next morning we took an early train for Indianapolis over what is now a part of the Big Four system. We got along very nicely until we reached the Wabash river, which separates Illinois from Indiana, when Watts suddenly turned to me and in a loud and excited manner said, "Where in h—l are you taking me? You haven't told me the truth."
"No," I replied, "I did not tell you the truth about where I am taking you, but I will do so now. I am taking you to Brookville, Pennsylvania."
"Why didn't you tell me this in the first place?" he asked.
I replied, "My reason for not telling you this in the first place was, that after I had located you, as I supposed, at Paducah, Kentucky, I reported the facts to Sheriff Steele of Jefferson County and asked him to apply for the proper papers so that you might be taken back to Pennsylvania. Sheriff Steele obtained the papers and insisted on bringing a posse of men to assist in your capture, to which I objected and I told him that I did not think it necessary for anybody to come after you, but he and myself. He reluctantly consented to accompany me. He had the papers and came as far as St. Louis. The weather was very warm and when we arrived in St. Louis, Steele was very feverish and complained of being sick, and was afraid that he was taking typhoid fever, and insisted on returning to Pennsylvania immediately, which he did. He insisted on me going back with him, but I told him that I was going to get hell before I returned. He left me and returned home."
"Why, he wasn't sick at all, he was just afraid of me,"said Watts. "He was afraid to meet me, for he knew if I saw him I would kill him. I stood off Steele and seventeen of his men, all armed, in Brookville once. Those fellows are all afraid of me. So you came down here to get me yourself? Well, you haven't any papers for my arrest, have you?"
"No," I said, "I haven't any papers. I have nothing but you."
"Suppose I object to going any farther with you," he remarked.
"In that case," I replied, "I would simply have to have you locked up and wait until the papers arrive. They are all made out, therefore you can raise all the objections you like. I am a deputy sheriff, and I could have locked you up in Illinois, but I did not know what that red-headed fellow and your other associates in Shawneetown would do, and not wanting to be bothered with them, I decided to just bring you right along."
Watts then said, "You saw that fellow with the red hair, did you?"
"Yes," I answered.
"Where did you see him?"
"At the time I pointed my gun at your head he peered in at the door leading into the back room, but when he saw the condition of things, he ducked back into the rear room," I told him.
"Oh!" Watts said, "he is a coward. If I ever get my eyes on him I'll kill him on sight." Continuing, Watts said, "Did you notice when you told me to throw up my hands, that I hesitated for a second?"
I said, "Yes, I did."
"Do you know what I thought of when I hesitated?" he asked.
"No, I don't," I answered.
"Why, I thought of just jumping forward and taking that gun away from you."
I said, "Why didn't you do it?" looking him straight in the eye.
He replied, with an oath, "I thought you'd shoot."
"I guess you were right about that," I answered.
He stopped talking for a few minutes and then began to cry. He became almost hysterical. We were riding in the smoking car when this conversation occurred and his sobbing and crying attracted the attention of the passengers in the car, and it was really pitiful to see a strong, athletic looking young man like Watts sob and cry like a child. He finally ceased and said, "Well, I am glad you got me. I have never had an hour's peace or rest since that night at Catholicsburg, Kentucky."
"Why," I said, "What happened at Catholicsburg?"
He answered, "Oliver Beach shot my father, James Watts, in our boat at Catholicsburg, and he and Brooks put the body into the Ohio River. He killed him with my gun. I knew they were going to do it, but I did not take any part in the killing. Now, I am going to tell you all about myself and my companions since I left Brookville."
I told him that while I would be interested in hearing what he had to say, it would be used against him at his trial at Brookville, and that I would, therefore, prefer that he would not tell me anything about his crimes until we got back to Brookville, and then if he felt like talking and making a confession, he could do so to the prosecuting attorney, and the authorities there; that my part in the matter would end upon my delivering him to the officers, and I would rather that he defer talking until we arrivedin that city. However, he insisted on telling me about the numerous crimes that he and his associates had committed while going down the Ohio River, about his capture at Paducah, Kentucky; his conviction, his pardon and the conviction and pardon of two members of his gang from the penitentiary.
He was especially proud of one piece of work done by the gang while making their home in a house-boat anchored on the Illinois side of the river opposite Paducah. Watts, Beach and Alston rowed across the river to the Kentucky side in a four-oared skiff. It was cold and freezing. They were looking for plunder and spied a large egg-shaped coal stove in the office of a coal company on the levee. This stove had been filled with coal and was red hot, and the fire had been banked for the night with ashes, and the "gentlemen" before named, broke open the door of the coal office, procured a wide, strong plank, run it under the red-hot stove and took it to their house-boat, where they installed it without permitting the fire to go out. So that they thus succeeded in stealing and getting away with a red-hot stove, which was a verification of the old saying that "there was nothing too hot or too heavy for them."
In due time we arrived at Brookville, where he insisted on making a full confession, which he did, in the presence of Prosecuting Attorney Reed, Sheriff W. P. Steele and myself. This confession, which was voluntarily made and sworn to before the clerk of the court, witnessed and attested by Mr. Reed, Steele and myself, is as follows:
CONFESSION OF J. W. WATTS.
Left Brookville, June 20, 1874, for Parkers Landing. Got a boat there and went down the river. My father, James Watts, traded a gun for the boat. We built a shantyon the boat as we proceeded down the river. The names of the parties on that boat were: Charles Beach, Oliver Brooks, James Watts, J. W. Watts, Sarah M. Watts and Myrta Watts. There was no difficulty on the boat until we arrived at a point near Ironton, Ohio. We got a woman by the name of Fanny Rose on board the boat, and from there down to Maysville there seemed to be some trouble between Oliver Brooks and James Watts, my father, about Fanny Rose, the girl above named. My father had been talking of turning state's evidence, and on Sunday, the 6th of September, 1874, he took an axe and cut a hole in the bottom of the boat. I remonstrated with him and he was going to strike me with the axe. The water began filling the boat, which necessitated our landing. On the night of the 6th of September, 1874, Oliver Brooks shot James Watts, killing him almost instantly, for threatening to turn state's evidence, concerning what had been stolen during our trip down the river, by the male portion of the gang on the boat. James Watts stole nothing himself. He only lived a few minutes after Brooks shot him. I was on another boat about sixty yards above the one James Watts was on. I knew that Oliver Brooks was going to shoot my father, and it made me very nervous. It made me sick and I laid down. I got up and started down to tell my father, when I heard a gun shot, but having an idea of what had occurred I was very much frightened, and was very weak through fear, and did not go into the shanty on the boat, where James Watts and Oliver Brooks were. During this Sunday afternoon Oliver Brooks and James Watts had some difficulty, and Brooks told us all, except James Watts, that he would shoot James Watts. Alston told Brooks that he would get my father to play a game of cards by a window, in order that Brooks could slip aroundand shoot him from the bank of the river through the window, and he did shoot him.
I am here to tell the whole truth, and want to keep nothing back. My father stole nothing, but he did help conceal what the rest of us stole.
After he was shot, and when I came up, either Brooks and Beach, or Brooks and Alston, were gathering up stones on the bank and carrying them into the shanty on the boat where my father was lying, and I suppose they were taking them in to tie around his neck to sink him in the river, from what they said before the deed was committed. After they got everything fixed up, I heard them putting my father into a skiff and rowing out into the river and I heard them throwing him overboard. They used sixty or eighty feet of half-inch rope to tie the stones to him, judging from the amount that was gone from the boat. Alston told me he had just dealt the cards and turned trump. The old man passed, and he (Alston) turned it down. My father said he would make it hearts, but turned and looked towards the window from where the shot came and then fell. Alston caught him to keep him from falling so hard. This is what Alston told me. After they took my father out into the river and threw him in, Oliver Brooks said he felt just as well as he did before he committed the deed and better, too. After this there was no more conversation about it in my presence as I would not listen to them, nor permit them to talk to me about it. I did not go into the room where he was killed, for five or six weeks. It was my rifle that he shot him with and it was the best rifle I ever saw or used, but after Brooks used it to shoot my father, I never shot out of it, or looked into the muzzle of it, but what I saw blood, or thought I saw blood in it. Other persons saw blood in the muzzle of the gun aftershooting it. I showed it to them without giving them any other information. There was an understanding and mutual agreement between us that we were never to say anything about the killing of James Watts. We pushed the boat off that evening, after my father had been killed and thrown into the river and went on down stream following our usual avocation of stealing, etc., and we did not stop permanently until we got to Paducah, Kentucky. At Paducah, all the males in our party were arrested on the Illinois side by Marshal Geary of Paducah, Frank Farland, Wood Morrow and Bill Green, on a charge of grand larceny, committed at Buddsville, Ky. We were tried, convicted and sent to the penitentiary at Frankfort, Ky. I got three years, Oliver Brooks got two years and nine months, Pete Alston got one year and six months and Charlie Beach got three years. Brooks got pardoned through his wife on the 14th of May, or June, 1875, and I got pardoned on the 7th of July, 1875, and M. P. Alston on the 10th of August, 1875.
Brooks and his wife got Beach pardoned. Brooks' wife, as I understood it, had illicit relations with the son of the Governor of Kentucky, and through the influence of the son on his father, Beach was pardoned. My wife got Governor King to write to Governor Leslis, then acting Governor of Kentucky, and through his intercession I was pardoned. After Brooks was pardoned out he stayed until Beach and I got out. As soon as I got out I started for or back to Paducah, Ky., and left Brooks and Beach in Frankfort. I left there on the 7th day of July, 1875, and have never seen any of them since. Alston, a short time after he got out of the penitentiary, went down the Kentucky river, broke into a store, and got shot in the back.He was sent back to the penitentiary for five years, and is there at the present time. Up to the time I left Brookville I was in the habit of going out with a gang composed of Dan Miller, Frank Watts, John Johnson, Frank Loader, Oliver Brooks, John Lyons, and his father, and Charlie Beach. Frank Watts and myself went through Eshelman's grocery store at Dowlingville, and at other places, I cannot now remember.
I make this confession of my own free will and without the expectation of any reward or through any fear. I make it because this thing has been lying on my mind like a lead weight, and I concluded I would tell the whole thing just as it occurred. My wife and I had a conversation at one time in regard to the affair and we thought of going to the officers and telling all about it, but for some reason we did not do it. This was when we were in Paducah.
Made, signed and sworn to in the presence of Thomas Furlong, detective for the Allegheny Valley Railroad Company, Wm. P. Steele, deputy sheriff of Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, and John W. Reed, Attorney-at-law, August 22, 1876.
Watts made the above statement with a view to shielding himself as much as possible. He, himself, killed his father, and Mrs. Brooks so testified. She said it was not only Wess Watts' gun that killed old man Watts, but the gun was in the hands of Wess Watts.
I, having been subpoenaed as a witness for the state against Wess Watts, arrived at Brookville on the morning set for his trial. The whole forenoon was consumed in selecting a jury. When the last juror had been selected it was about twelve o'clock, and the court took a recess until one p. m. At that time, his Honor, Judge Sterritt, stated that theprisoner, Wess Watts, should be brought into court, when the testimony for the prosecution would begin. I went to the hotel, ate my dinner and had returned to the sheriff's office in the courthouse a few minutes before one o'clock. While sitting there talking to Sheriff Steele an old man entered the office, whom the sheriff familiarly greeted, calling him Uncle John, in the following manner:
"Hello, Uncle John. I haven't seen you for a long time. How've you been?"
Uncle John replied, "Quite well, but I'm getting old. Mammy wanted to get some things in the store and we drove in this morning from Beechwoods. I've been reading in my paper about Wess Watts and it says that he is to be put on trial today. You know, Bill, I knew old Bill Watts, Wess' father, before Wess was born. I've been reading all about the boy and his gang and he surely must be a very bad and desperate man. While I'm here in town, I'd like to get a look at him."