PART II
Hunted out of honest employment, I found myself very much in the position of the pursued rabbit; therefore I was compelled to seek the first cover that presented itself. I had been robbed of every dollar of my hard-earned fortune. A fugitive from justice, there was a reward proclaimed abroad for my arrest, though I was an innocent man. All this was awful to realize, the bitterness of it eating still deeper into my soul. What would the end be?
Anxious to begin life afresh, I had sought a strange city and under a new name had attempted to do it, but fate was horribly, relentlessly cruel. What would I do? where could I turn? I had only five dollars in the world, and that wouldn’t carry me far. Alas, I was not unlike the hunted rabbit. I had been the victim of a cruel game of life. It was a most critical period at which I had arrived. The fatal line must soon be crossed. Good and evil would fight out their battle. In the jail at Keene I had been besieged by thoughts that mademe shudder, but the evil that battered my soul now was as the blackness of hell in comparison. Bitterness was rapidly eating into my worst nature; the tender words of a fond father and the sweet prayers of a loving mother were fast becoming far-off sounds in my dulled ears. Recollections of the sort that sear consciences came to the fore, uppermost being the words I had heard from the lips of an old conductor of the Fitchburg railway, not far from my home. I had often been with him on his trips and talked with him, for he was well known to me in my youthful days. How well I remembered the words. They burn in my brain even to-day, as well they should, for they played a strong part in the influence which sent me on to a life of reaching out for that which was not lawfully mine.
“See that fine property?” this conductor said to me one day, as he pointed out a big country residence; and when I nodded assent, he added, “Well, I’ve got a first mortgage on that.” Presently he said, with a meaning I could not misunderstand, “We conductors have the name of knocking down fares, so we may as well have the game.”
Twice on the trip he made that remark. For several years the meaning of the words “name” and “game” lay dormant in my mind, but how freshly it came back to me in the moment of my standing balanced between the narrow path of rectitude and the broad road of crime. Homeless, desolate, huntedlike a real criminal, a reward hanging over my head, made a good soil in which the seeds of evil deeds might take quick root. To whom in this extremity might I turn? I asked this question of myself many times, and the only reply was the echo of my own words. There was a Boston man in the city with whom I was well acquainted, and who knew my side of the case thoroughly, and whose sympathy I had. I must have some money, therefore I appealed to him, and he loaned me twenty dollars. This, with five I had, constituted my cash capital. The remainder of it was my brain, and it shall be seen to what purpose I put it, ere many days passed.
There was another man in New York I knew—Shinburn’s friend Matthews; Billy, he called him. I remembered that his address was 681 Broadway, so I determined to look him up. Knowing Shinburn, I ought not to have been surprised at anything in Matthews, but I was actually dumfounded when I learned that 681 Broadway was a notorious gambling house kept by one Harvey Young, and that Matthews was a faro dealer there. Young’s place was at that time an attractive resort for the younglings of New York’s rich men, thousands of whose dollars passed over the green cloth every night. I now knew why Mr. Wheeler, the assistant prosecutor, in summing up at the Keene trial, had pointed out Matthews and asked the court in scornful tones to look upon the sort of man “theybring from the reeking hells of New York to be a witness in a New Hampshire court of justice.” Undoubtedly the New York detectives had known that much of Matthews and had told it to Mr. Wheeler.
But I had reached and passed the fatal line now, and it seemed to me that I wasn’t sorry to learn what this man Matthews was,—an employee in a gambling den. Even if he were a criminal like Shinburn, I felt that I didn’t care. When I rang the bell, a man who looked like a servant answered it, and to my inquiry said Matthews wasn’t in, but would be that night. I said I would come again, and did several hours later. I had only met Matthews speaking with Shinburn in the jail at Keene, altogether perhaps a half-dozen times. He was a dapper, earnest little fellow, and seemed in all ways a better man than I imagined a gambler could be. I was greeted heartily by him, and he told me that my escape wasn’t news, an account of it having been in the newspapers. My face must have been a delineator of my determination to do something desperate, for he asked me if he could assist me in any way. I told him he might, and that there could be none too much haste to suit me.
“You see the fix I am in by accommodating your friend Shinburn, whom I believed to be a government official,” I said with great feeling. “I hada clerkship here, but have been forced to resign it, that I may keep clear of arrest. Here I am, practically on my knees; and, frankly, I don’t know what to do. Can you help me on my feet again?” I knew what was in my mind to do, for I was desperate, and I awaited his answer with anxiety.
“What can I do?” he asked; “you certainly are in a peculiar fix.”
“I’ve got to get out and hustle,” exclaimed I, while trembling in every joint.
“What do you mean?”
I meant to say steal, but my tongue couldn’t, seemingly, utter the word. Swallowing hard, I asked him to put me in with some of Shinburn’s friends; and thus was forged the first link in the chain that was to fasten me to a criminal career for many years. A few days later Matthews introduced me to George Wilson, a partner of Mark Shinburn. He took me to Wilson’s rooms at 303 Bleecker Street, where there was assembled the first gang of safe burglars I ever set eyes on.
Wilson was forming a prospecting party which was going West in search of banks whose vaults could be cleaned of cash and salable bonds and securities. With him were Big Bill, another of Shinburn’s partners hailing from Canada; Eddie Hughes,aliasMiles; and John Utley, a partner of the latter. The trio last named had just returned from a failure to crack a bank at Schuylerville,New York. Surprised in their work by a constable, they would have been arrested had this country official possessed the nerve to tackle them. Finding himself pitted against three big, husky fellows, he retired for reënforcements; but while he was thus engaged, the quarry reached Saratoga, boarded a train, alighted at Troy, and thus clouding the trail, managed to arrive safely in New York.
In the proposed party was another of the crooked fraternity, whom Wilson described as Tall Jim, he making the fifth one—and a mighty fine sort of a fellow he proved to be. Then I was mentioned as the sixth and last member. The introduction of my name precipitated a row, perhaps through the fact that I was a stranger, not only to the party, but to the art of bank “burgling.” However, George Wilson had proposed me for membership, which was sufficient to squelch all the objectors, with the exception of Jack Utley, who seemed to take a dislike to me from the start.
“What does this man know about robbing banks?” growled he. “You’d see his heels showing their color at the first bark of one of them Western dogs.”
I half believe that Wilson would have listened to Utley’s protests, which were many, had it not been for Matthews, who put up a strong argument on my behalf. However, Wilson soon settled the matter by announcing that I must be considered in, whereupon Utley ceased his objections. But he did a lotof grumbling on the side, and I could see that he would not, of his own volition, do me a favor in the future, should I need one even more than at the moment.
All being ready in a few days for the launching of the enterprise, we started out. It was in the middle of April, 1866, and spring had opened up in excellent style as if for our convenience. Big Bill, Eddie Hughes, Tall Jim, and I went to Pittsburg, where we were to begin prospecting for loot. When the first bank selected to fall under our attack had been settled upon, Wilson and Jack Utley were to be notified by telegraph, to follow on immediately with the necessary tools.
No man can tell what my feelings were, when at last I found myself pushing out into the world of crime, hitherto unknown to me, unless he were placed identically where I was. There were moments when I was at the point of abandoning the short road of contemplated crime, which would soon lead me into the absolutely broad road of crime committed. In such moments as these, retrospection would bring up before me the green hills of Vermont, the far-away old homestead I loved so well, the dear old folks at home; the happy days in Stoneham, with its prosperous years, when I could walk forth in God’s free air and be respected and honored by those who knew me, and no hand was raised against me.
All these bright remembrances would come up to me, with powerful influences for good; but when the real present crowded in, and crushed back those dreamlike days, I had to ask where I could go, if I cut away from the men with whom I had cast my lot. Nowhere among those I had known; for was I not a man with a price on my head? I could not return to the Vermont hills and the old place and dwell openly with my dear old folks, nor even in secret be near them; for not then would I be safe from the clutches of the law. Nor could I wend my way back to the later home of my prosperity; for there the same hand, the same hard injustice of the law, would close in on me. No! I was an outlaw, not daring to clasp hands with any one save those of the outlawed men with whom I was now associated. One by one the influences for good were counted and laid away. What could I do—I, an innocent man with the scales of justice weighing against me. And one by one I buried the thoughts of those things, which were no longer to be my stepping-stones along life’s journey, as far as I could tell, and passed on to what the unsolved future held in reserve for me. Come what might, I would accept the gauntlet thrown down to me by a cruel fate.
I put up at the Scott House in Pittsburg. When Big Bill, Eddie Hughes, and Tall Jim concluded to spread out and canvass the surrounding country, they assigned me to look over a small bank in AlleghenyCity, near by. We were to meet again in five days, at my hotel. I felt that a considerable responsibility had been placed on my shoulders for one so young in the business, therefore I determined to try my best and disprove, if the chance came my way, what Jack Utley had said of me. Somewhat to my disappointment, the bank I inspected proved to be an impracticable undertaking, so the experienced ones said on their return, and I had to wait for another opportunity to show what sort of an inspector of lootable banks I was. When all the reports were in, that of Tall Jim’s seemed to be the most alluring, so it was voted to make a strike at his bank, which was in Wellsburg, a small town in Brooks County, West Virginia, several miles below Steubenville, on the left bank of the Ohio River.
The next day Wilson and Utley, having been notified, joined us, fully prepared for business, whereupon we started by rail to Steubenville, leaving there on foot early in the evening. We followed the railroad track until we reached a point about opposite Wellsburg. Here a boat was borrowed without a consultation with its owner, and in this way we rowed across to the other shore, where we set it adrift. When within three-quarters of a mile of the village, we camped in a piece of woods, thick enough to make a good hiding-place. Being the greenhorn of the party, I was detailed the “chief cook and bottle-washer” of our feeding department,and immediately upon getting into camp I was sent hustling for provender. I made for the village in the fresh hours of the morning and foraged for food, and later prepared our first meal in camp. During the daylight hours Tall Jim and Eddie Hughes took a turn in town to investigate, and when they returned, which was near evening, all hands excepting the cook went away again. They were absent several hours, and when they came back I had prepared a breakfast for them, consisting of cold ham, sardines, bread, and hot coffee.
There was nothing the matter with the appetites of the lads, unless they could be called devouring. Though I had provided a goodly quantity, one meal made a sad inroad on my larder. When the inner man of my associates had been somewhat satisfied, all but the cook stretched themselves out for a sleep. I, not unwilling to do my part, stood at picket duty until they awoke, late in the afternoon, when I managed to get another meal together. I cannot refrain from saying that furnishing food to my comrades was much like shovelling coal into the mouth of a mine, as far as satisfying them was concerned. Never in my hotel days had I come across such hungry two-legged animals. But enough of this, and to the other and more important subject.