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#133 Patrick Martin

~ jpkntz

Patrick McCabe (Abt. 1858-????), aka Frank Hilton, Joseph Martin, Joseph Marsh, Michael McCabe — Pickpocket

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Twenty-nine years old in 1886. Born in Ireland. Single. Laborer. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 6 inches. Weight, 148 pounds. Light hair, blue eyes, sandy complexion.

RECORD. Paddy Martin, or English Paddy, is an English thief. He has been traveling through the country with a gang of Bowery (New York) pickpockets, and is considered a pretty clever man.

He was arrested in New York City on June 19, 1885, in company of another pickpocket, named Frank Mitchell, for an attempt to pick a man’s pocket on Bowling Green, near the Battery, New York. Both of them were sentenced to one month in the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island, by Justice Duffy, on June 20, 1885.

Paddy was arrested again in Jersey City, N.J., on December 12, 1885, in the act of robbing a Mrs. Margaret Peters, of Montgomery Street, Jersey City, on a Pennsylvania ferry-boat. He tried to make her believe that he mistook her for his wife, and offered her ten dollars to release him. She rejected his overtures, and held on to him until a policeman arrived. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to three years and six months in Trenton State prison on December 14, 1885, under the name of Frank Hilton. His picture is an excellent one, taken in June, 1885.

Byrnes lists two arrests for this criminal, but the names he offers are at variance with the names or aliases reported by newspapers in each of these cases. The June 1885 arrest in the company of Frank Mitchell was under the alias of Joseph Martin or Joseph Marsh, depending on whether you were reading the New York Herald or the New York Times.

After being caught in December 1885, the suspect offered the name Frank Hilton. Four newspapers indicated that the man was Patrick McCabe, a well-known pickpocket. One newspaper later changed that to Michael McCabe.

In neither arrest did the courts of newspapers use the name that Byrnes offered: Patrick Martin; or the nickname “English Paddy.”

Byrnes indicates the man was born in Ireland but was English. Several newspapers suggested that Patrick McCabe had come from Chicago, but had been in New York City and associating with Bowery pickpockets for a time.

Though not well-known in New York or elsewhere under any of these aliases, there is little doubt that McCabe was experienced. He knew what to do when arrested: 1) contact his girlfriend, and through her, 2) contact his partners; 3) gather legal defense funds from the New York City underworld; and 4) approach the victim with a bribe to drop charges. McCabe was arrested in Jersey City, New Jersey; from the jail there, he had to get word to his girlfriend by sending a letter out with a prisoner that was being released. However, that prison took the letter directly to the jail-keeper, so McCabe’s strategy was revealed. He told his girlfriend, Mamie Reed, to contact his partners: Joe Welling, Jerry Williams, and Joe Morton. All of these appeared to be obscure nicknames, lending credence to the idea that they had come from outside New York. He also instructed her to contact “all the mob on the Bowery” to have them each contribute $5 to his defense. Finally, he told her to approach the woman whose purse he had attempted to steal, and to tell her a sob-story about having children to feed with no income. If necessary, she was to bribe the woman with a seal fur stole, a gold watch, and $10.

The intercept of the letter spoiled McCabe’s plan, even though the pickpocket victim did indeed write a letter to the judge pleading mercy for McCabe. He was sent to State prison for three years.

In 1889, a pickpocket named Michael McCabe, 35, said to be from Chicago, was arrested in Philadelphia. Possibly, this was the same man.

#42 Edward A. Condit

~ jpkntz

Edward Augustus Condit (1848 – 1931), aka Robert S. Corning, Edward A. Cranston, W. S. Carson, J. D. Sterling, Cornell — Forger, Passer of Bad Checks

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-one years old in 1886. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 11 inches. Weight, 167 pounds. Dark brown hair, hazel eyes, long pointed nose, sallow complexion. Has a scar on right side of neck. Small dark mole on left cheek. Prominent eyebrows.

RECORD. Edward A. Condit, a swindler who had a peculiar method of dealing in worthless checks, was arrested in New York City on March 2, 1883. Condit’s manner of doing business was to inquire by letter the terms upon which a broker would deal in a stock, and then ordering him to buy or sell, giving as margin a check on the Orange (N.J.) Savings Bank. Condit had only a small amount on deposit in that bank, but owing to the time required for the passage of the check through the Clearing-house, and other delaying causes, several days elapsed before its worthless character was exposed, and he was enabled to reap the benefit of the fluctuations in the price of the stock within the time required to collect the check. If the stock moved to his advantage, he contrived to meet or intercept the check, and take the benefit. If the transaction went against him, he allowed the check to go to protest, so that the broker was the loser.

Condit has a pleasing address, and is apparently a man of some education. He gave a short history of his life after confessing his operations. He said that he inherited a small fortune in 1869, which in the course of the next two years he increased to $100,000. He began to speculate in Wall Street in 1872. At first he was successful, but after the “panic” he began to lose, and by 1876 he was a beggar.

Then it was that he attempted to retrieve his losses by the mode described above. When arrested on March 2, 1883, he was committed for trial by Judge Cowing, but was turned over to the Jersey City police authorities in October, 1884. On December 1, 1884, he made a nearly successful attempt to escape from the Hudson County Jail, on Jersey City Heights, where he was confined awaiting trial for swindling several storekeepers in Jersey City by worthless checks. He was convicted on December 24, 1884, and sentenced, January 23, 1885, to four years in State prison at Trenton, N.J., where he was taken on June 28, 1885. Condit’s picture is an excellent one, taken in 1884.

Edward A. Condit came from a privileged family, and was gifted with many head-starts in life: family wealth, goods looks, athletic ability, intelligence, and a fine education. His schooling ended with a degree from Princeton. While attending college, Condit was a fine first baseman for the Nassau Club of Princeton, one of the country’s best amateur teams (in the years 1862-1866, just before the first professional clubs). He graduated college prepared to make his own fortune–and he was ready to cut corners to do so.

Condit began his career was a Wall Street speculator after inheriting a substantial amount of money in 1869. One of his first ventures was the Enterprise Slate Company of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. In 1870, Condit and partner H. W. H Fitzgerald were sued by a third partner, Henry Kern, for breach of promise. Condit and Fitzgerald were in court a year later on charges of forging a check; it is unclear whether this was related to the slate company venture or a different incident. Condit defended the charge by arguing that there was no forgery, merely the issuance of a check from an account that temporarily had insufficient funds.

In 1876, Condit made a desperate attempt to manipulate stock prices by sending a fake telegram to Wall Street announcing the death of Cornelius Vanderbilt (who did pass away a year later). Condit’s deception was exposed, but he escaped punishment.

By 1883, Condit had refined his trick of purchasing margins from brokers with worthless checks, and then reaping the profits and quickly covering the checks; or, if the investment didn’t work out, allow the checks to be protested. This worked until he tried the same trick on storekeepers in New Jersey, who brought a civil suit against Condit. Confined to a Jersey City jail, Condit made a foolish attempt to escape. He was eventually sentence to four years in the New jersey State Prison.

In 1891, Condit traveled to Holyoke, Massachusetts and attempted to cash four checks under the name Robert S. Corning. He was arrested and released on bail, which he defaulted. He was captured again in Madison, Wisconsin in December 1892 under the name W. A. Carson. This time he was sentenced to three years of hard labor at the Wisconsin State Prison at Waupun. He was caught once more in Chicago in October 1898 under the name W. A. Cornell, but was released on his own recognizance.

Condit unwisely returned to Massachusetts and was soon identified as a forger and swindler, and was sentenced to ten-fifteen years in State Prison under the name Edward A. Cranston.

Condit’s last travail occurred in Tiffin, Ohio, in October 1919. His long-suffering wife Addie had passed away a few months earlier. Now an old man, Condit was worn down by the struggle:

After his release from Ohio, Condit returned to Newark, New Jersey to live with his daughter. He died there in 1931 at age 82.

#104 Charles Ward

~ jpkntz

Charles W. Hall (Abt. 1833-19??), aka Charles E. Stewart, Charles E. Ward, Charles Vallen, J. C. Massie, William Edwards, William Hall. E. C. Stewart, Charles D. Stewart, etc. — Swindler, Check forger, Hotel Thief, Sneak Thief

From Byrnes’s 1886 edition:

DESCRIPTION. Fifty-two years old in 1886. Born in United States. Book-keeper. Married. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 9 inches. Weight, 159 pounds. Brown hair, mixed with gray, wears it long; blue eyes, light complexion. Generally wears a full, heavy gray beard and mustache. Dresses well, and has an extraordinary gift of the gab.

RECORD. Charley Ward, whose right name is Charles Vallum, is one of the most noted confidence operators in America. He enjoys the distinction of being the only man in his line who can play the confidence game successfully on women. His principal forte, though, is collecting subscriptions for homes and asylums.

He was arrested in New York City on April 6, 1877, for collecting money for the Presbyterian Hospital of New York City without authority. For this he was sentenced to five years in State prison, on April 12, 1877, by Judge Sutherland. He was pardoned by Governor Cornell in 1880.

He was arrested again in New York City on August 4, 1881, for collecting considerable money, without authority, in aid of the “Society for the Relief of the Destitute Blind,” of New York City, and appropriating it to his own use. In this case, owing to the efforts of a loving wife, he escaped with eighteen months’ imprisonment in State prison, on September 7, 1881, being sentenced by Judge Cowing. Ward’s picture is an excellent one, taken in April, 1877.

From Byrnes’s 1895 edition:

Ward was arrested at Cincinnati, 0., in August, 1889, charged with having stabbed a woman that he was boarding with. For this offense he was sentenced to four years in the penitentiary at Columbus, 0. He was discharged from there on April 15, 1892.

Arrested again at Rochester, N. Y., on July 26, 1894, for the larceny of a satchel from the N.Y. Cen. & H.R.R. Depot. For this offense he was sentenced to three months imprisonment in the Munroe Co., N.Y., Penitentiary, by Judge Chas. B. Ernst, on July 27, 1894, under name of Wm. Edwards.

He was arrested again at Niagara Falls, N.Y., under the name of Wm. Hall, alias, E. C. Stewart, on November 28, 1894, charged with passing a worthless check on the proprietor of the Prospect House; he refused to prosecute him. He was, however, sentenced to twenty-five days imprisonment in the Niagara County Jail at Lockport, N.Y., for the larceny of a satchel from the New York Central Railroad Depot, by Judge Piper, on November 30, 1894.

Arrested again on January 31, 1895, at Dunkirk, N.Y., under the name of Wm. E. Miller, charged with defrauding the Hotel Gratiot out of a hotel bill. He sold his overcoat, settled his bill, and was discharged.

Ward was arrested again at Philadelphia, Pa., on October 28, 1895, for the larceny of an overcoat containing valuable papers from a guest of the Waldorf Hotel, New York City. He was brought back to New York, and was sentenced to three years and three months on this charge, on November I5, 1895, by Recorder Goff.

While detained by police in Cincinnati in May of 1889, the criminal popularly known as Charles Ward spoke with a reporter and offered a confession of his criminal career. He claimed to be sixty-three years old, though other records indicate he was only fifty-six. Still, by appearance he looked like a man living his final years. Neither Ward nor the reporter could have predicted that Ward’s confession was a bit premature, for many arrests and jailings were still to come.

“My life has a tinge of romance in it,” said Ward, as he chatted with the reporter last evening. “It’s no matter what my right name is. But one man knows, and he is my brother, a prosperous merchant in a South American country.

“Years ago I went wrong. What led me to a life of crookedness I can’t say, for I believe I was cut out for something better than a thief. Some dozen years ago I landed in St. Louis with a mob of crooks. We put up at the Lindell Hotel, but our headquarters we made at a well-known house of ill-fame. We were flush, and spent our money like princes for two weeks. Then a big trick was turned, and we scattered. My share was $4,000. At the house mentioned I became infatuated with a girl named Doris Meyer. She told me her story. When scarcely seventeen years old she had been brought to this country by her aunt, a Madame Schimmel, who then kept a den of infamy at 537 Race street in Cincinnati.

“This innocent, pretty girl’s honor was deliberately sold by her aunt to the highest bidder. Subsequently Doris married a captain in the army name Bookwood. The husband went wrong, and was dismissed from the army in disgrace. He was no better than the relative who had ruined the girl, for he forced his wife to return to a life of infamy, and lived on the proceeds of her shame.

“It was then I met her. I pitied Doris, and loved her as man ever loved woman. Well, I took her with me to Chicago. She did not know I was a crook, for I led her to think I was a gambler. Leaving her in Chicago, I went east; in Buffalo I ‘fell.’ I telegraphed Doris, and she came on. It was a bad case. Grover Cleveland was my lawyer, and although we made a vigorous fight, I went up for five years. Doris went to work, and, after I had spent half my term at Auburn, she secured my pardon.

“I found that Doris had become a city missionary in New York. The graduate of a St. Louis den had become an angel of mercy. Well, I married her in Brooklyn. Through her influence I secured work as a collector for a charitable institution. I received only $12 a week, but it was honest, and I felt better than when I had thousands I had stolen. Frequently  have turned over at then end of a week as much as $2000. That shows how easy it is to get money from the rich, and it was this fact that accomplished my final ruin.

“I was given a prominent position under the society, and my annual income was between $4000 and $7000. I seemed to have a peculiar faculty for the work. Through my own exertions the contributions had increased nearly $50,000. My besetting sin has been drink. I began to squander my money for wine, and, forgetful of my faithful Doris, I became infatuated with a shameless woman. In the mean time, my wife and I had made a trip to Europe. I had a comfortable bank account, and nobody was better thought of. But the climax came. I remained away from the office for an entire week. I was permitted to resign.

“My money went fast in dissipation, until I awoke one morning and realized that I hadn’t a dollar in the world. Then the idea seized me that I would work the collection racket. My success astonished me. Soon thousands of dollars were pouring in on me…and so it went on for weeks. I had returned to my old life and was again the associate of thieves and one of them.

“One day I called on wealthy Miss Catherine Wolf…I represented myself as from a prominent institution and left my book. Unfortunately for me Miss Wolf was on friendly terms with the president of the concern, and when he called the next day she broached the subject and showed the book. When I called three days after recovering from a spree a servant handed me the book with the ends of several bills sticking out. The next instant a detective laid his hand on my shoulder and I was a prisoner. This time I also got five years for forgery.

“My wife again went to work and finally, after I had served nearly three years at Sing Sing, she secured my pardon from Governor Robinson. New York was now closed to me; I was too well known. I went to Baltimore with several crooks. One night while playing billiards we were pinched. Some gilly had been robbed. He identified all of us, though on my word we were innocent. Again I went to the Penitentiary, and again my wife began to intercede for me. She was finally successful, but before the doors opened, I received a letter announcing the death of my devoted Doris. She had caught cold while at her missionary work, and death had quickly followed.

“I began to drink, and, within a week, was again pinched. I had attempted a little crooked business at a hotel wand was caught. Again I went up. Doris’s death made me desperate and despondent. I cared for nothing. A year ago last February I was released from the Maryland Penitentiary.”

It appears that Ward was being very honest in his account: he did marry Doris Meyer, who had been married to a Charles Bookwood. Ward was pardoned out of Auburn Prison in 1874, after entering it as Charles W. Hall in March 1872. He was also pardoned from Sing Sing in October 1879 after entering as William H. Hall in April, 1877. Doris Ward roomed for many years at the Bible House, the mission of the American Bible Society.

Ward went to Cincinnati in 1879 to seek out Madame Schimmel, who was running a sketchy boarding house under the name Helene Krolage. They got along together at first–and in fact helped her con another woman in town that was her enemy. However, by July, Ward confronted her about her ruination of 17-year-old Doris, and became enraged. He tried to stab her with a penknife; she survived, but Ward was arrested and convicted of assault, sending him to the Ohio State Penitentiary for five years.

Upon his release, Ward wandered through upstate New York, committing small robberies of coats, satchels, etc. from train depots and hotels.  In Niagara Falls, when an officer attempted to arrest him in his hotel room, he tried to put a gun to his own head and commit suicide. Later that same year, 1895, he was arrested in Philadelphia for a hotel robbery he had committed in New York and sent back there. This episode earned him another three year sentence in Sing Sing as Charles Vallen.

Again regaining his freedom, he joined a gang of forgers led by an interesting figure, former timber magnate, lawyer, and State Senator, Alonzo James Whiteman.

The last reference to Ward dates to 1906, when he was arrested by a Manhattan hotel detective for stealing into someone else’s room.

In his last decades, Ward was often confused by amateur sleuths for another criminal in Byrnes’s book, the horse-trainer and sometime-forger Lewis Martin. They were similar in appearance when both were wearing long, gray beards.

#27 Frank Buck

~ jpkntz

Charles Taylor (Abt. 1843–????), aka George Rush, Frank Bailey, Frank Buck, Buck/Bucky/Buckey Taylor — Sneak thief

From Byrnes’s 1886 edition:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-four years old in 1886. Born in Philadelphia, Pa. Married. Engineer. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 5 inches. Weight, 150 pounds. Light hair, gray eyes, light complexion. Three India ink dots on left hand, one on right hand. Bald on front of head. Generally wears a light-colored mustache.

RECORD. “Buck” is a very clever bank sneak. He has been working with Horace Hovan, alias Little Horace (25), since 1881. He has also worked with Langdon W. Moore, alias Charley Adams (22), Johnny Price and other notorious bank sneaks.

“Buck” was arrested in June, 1881, at Philadelphia, Pa., with Horace Hovan (25), for the larceny of $10,950 in securities from a broker’s office in that city. He was convicted of burglary and sentenced to three years in the Eastern Penitentiary at Philadelphia with Hovan, on July 2, 1881. His time dated back to June 6, 1881. Hovan was pardoned.

Buck served his time, and afterwards joined Hovan in Washington, D.C., in May, 1884. They both traveled around the country and were arrested coming out of a bank in Boston on June 18, 1884, and their pictures taken for the Rogues’ Gallery.

Buck and Hovan went to Europe in the spring of 1885, and Buck returned alone the same fall, Horace having been arrested there and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for the larceny of a package of money from a bank safe. Buck’s picture is an excellent one, taken in 1884.

From Byrnes’s 1895 edition:

Since 1885 he has spent a good deal of the time in Europe. Buck, Porter, Johnny Curtain and other fly American thieves have been engineered in Europe by Adam Worth (215), the American ex-thief, still under indictment in Boston for the famous Boylston bank robbery. Worth is a receiver of stolen goods in London, whose place is the rendezvous of all American thieves when they go to that city. He was formerly a bank burglar in this country, and has made a fortune out of his business.

Frank Buck, alias Bailey, alias Allen, etc., and Billy O’Brien, alias Porter, was arrested at London, Eng., on June 21, 1888, on an extradition warrant charging them with burglarizing a jewelry store on the Marionplatz, in Munchen, Germany, on April 29, 1888. It was alleged that property of the value of £50,000 was stolen.

Billy Porter was discharged from custody in London, on September 27, 1888. He proved that he was born on an English vessel, was an English subject, and therefore not extraditable. Buck was sentenced in this case to ten years imprisonment, and ten years loss of civil rights and police surveillance, by the Judge of the Circuit Court of Munchen, Bavaria, on September 22, 1889. He was delivered to the German authorities by England on October 10, 1888, and was in prison there until his trial in September, 1889.

Tracing Frank Buck’s origins takes one down a plausible, but by no means conclusive, path. On the other hand, tracing his fate from the point where he was imprisoned in Germany leads to an enormous red herring. That false trail can be blamed on certain law authorities and/or newspaper writers on the East Coast of America jumping to a conclusion based on one alias that was used by two different men, one of whom was Frank Buck: the alias was “Buck Taylor”.

In 1901, an employee of the Selby Smelter works in Contra Costa County, California, by the name of Jack Winters tunneled beneath the company’s office, removed a portion of brick floor, and drilled through the bottom of the office safe. Inside the safe were the latest finished products of the smelter: bars of gold bullion. Winters got away with $280,000 in gold–the largest gold robbery in California. Initially, authorities believed a whole gang of professional safe burglars was involved. Evidence led detectives to believe that it had been an inside job, and the trail led to Winters. When he was arrested, local authorities announced his capture, and sent out a bulletin listing Winters known aliases, one of which was “Buck Taylor.”

Newspapers in Boston were the first to print headlines claiming that Buck Taylor, aka Frank Buck, the famous burglar pal of Horace Hovan and Billy Porter, had almost pulled off a huge gold heist single-highhandedly. No one had heard of Frank Buck since he was thrown in a German prison in 1888, so it was possible that he had gone to California upon his release, gotten a job at the smelter, and then robbed it. Newspapers in New York and elsewhere in the northeast reprinted the story.

However, they overlooked the discrepancy in the men’s ages: Jack Winters was in his mid-thirties; Frank Buck, in 1901, would have been nearly sixty. The false story never would have been printed had they compared Frank Buck’s picture in Byrnes’s Professional Criminals of America (top, taken in 1884) with a picture of Jack Winters (bottom taken in 1901):

The truth is that no credible word about Frank Buck’s fate was ever published after he entered the German prison in 1889.

What of his origins? Byrnes states that Frank Buck came from Philadelphia; and the first arrest that Byrnes cites is from June, 1881, when he and Horace Hovan were nabbed for stealing bonds from a securities broker in Philadelphia. On this occasion, Buck gave the alias “George Rush,” but was recognized as an old Philadelphia burglar, “Bucky Taylor.” The Philadelphia Inquirer of June 4, 1881, recalled, “Taylor is the man who committed the $17,000 silk robbery at Benson’s and served a time for the offense.”

The robbery that the Inquirer was referring to took place in September, 1870 at the Besson & Son’s store in Philadelphia. Soon after the robbery, three men were arrested. One was the most notorious thief and gang leader in Philadelphia, Jimmy Logue. The other two men were named as Buck Taylor and Bill Price. Various newspaper accounts also offered Taylor’s name as Charles Taylor; and, indeed, that was the name he was imprisoned under at Eastern State Penitentiary for this crime.

This was not Charles Taylor’s first brush with crime. Philadelphia newspapers between 1865 and 1870 printed numerous items where Taylor was arrested for picking pockets and other forms of thievery.

However, there were several young men named Charles Taylor living in Philadelphia in the 1860s; so there the trail ends.

#184 Rudolph Lewis

~ jpkntz

Rudolph Reuben (1864-19??), aka Rudolph Miller, Frank Bernard, Frank Parker, Charles Fink, Joseph Philips, etc. — Shoplifter

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Twenty-one years old in 1886. German, born in the United States. Single. No trade. Slim build. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, 130 pounds. Brown hair, hazel eyes, sallow complexion. Three dots of India ink on inside of left fore-arm. Large ears.

RECORD. Young Rudolph is, perhaps, one of the smartest young thieves in America. He has just started out, and from his career so far he is calculated to develop into a first-class man. He is pretty well known in all the Eastern cities, especially in New York and Boston, where his picture is in the Rogues’ Gallery. He is an associate of Frank Watson, alias Big Patsey, Little Eddie Kelly, Jack McCormack, alias Big Mack, and Charles Lewis, all notorious east side New York thieves.

Lewis was arrested in New York City on September 22, 1883, charged with stealing a piece of silk, valued at $100, from the store of Lewis Brothers, No. 86 Worth Street, New York. He forfeited his bail and went to Boston, Mass., where he was arrested for shoplifting, and sentenced to eighteen months in the House of Correction, on November 19, 1883, under the name of Rudolph Miller.

His time expired in Boston on April 25, 1885, when he was re-arrested on a requisition, and brought back to New York, to answer for the larceny of the piece of silk. Lewis pleaded guilty in the silk case, and was sentenced to two years in Sing Sing prison, on April 3, 1885, by Judge Cowing. His sentence will expire on December 30, 1886. Young Rudolph’s picture is a good one, taken in September, 1883.

Like many police detectives then and now, Inspector Byrnes relished catching talented habitual crooks; so he can be forgiven for predicting–perhaps even wishing–a great criminal career for “Young Rudolph” Reuben. As it turned out, Byrnes was correct: Rudolph victimized fine clothing and jewelry stores for over three decades–when he wasn’t serving prison sentences.

Rudolph was born in New York in 1864 to German immigrants Michael and Sarah Reuben. Rudolph grew up with three old sisters and four younger sisters; by the time that two brothers were added to the family, Rudolph was likely already spending most of his time on the streets of New York (and, for a few years, Detroit).

He was adopted as a trained shoplifter by Marm Mandelbaum, shortly before she was exiled to Ontario. From her he received the support to range out to steal in other cities. He was first captured in Boston in 1883; and upon serving eighteen months there as Rudolph Miller, was returned to New York to repose in his first visit to Sing Sing (for a crime committed prior to going to Boston.) He was imprisoned as Rudolph Lewis.

Undeterred, Rudolph resumed shoplifting as soon as he returned from Sing Sing. He was captured in February, 1887 purloining bolts of material at a silk merchant store. This time he returned to Sing Sing for another two years as Francis “Frank” Parker.

Reuben then apparently had a long string of luck eluding the police from 1889 until 1896. In 1896 and again in 1898 he was sent to Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary for short sentences as, respectively, Frank Roberts and Joseph Roberts.

In December, 1899, Rudolph returned to Sing Sing as Frank Bernard, this time for a three year term for larcenies committed at jewelry stores on Maiden Lane in Lower Manhattan. He just completed his sentence there before stealing again and being banished to Blackwell’s Island in March 1902 as Charles Bernstine.

August 1904 found Rudolph back in Sing Sing as Charles Fink, serving two and a half years.

In 1909, Rudolph walked into a Brooklyn jewelry store and asked to see some rings from a case. He grabbed one and ran out the door; however, he was now a forty-five year old man in bad shape, and couldn’t outrun his pursuers. However, before being caught he did swallow the ring. He returned to serve a fifth term at Sing Sing as Joseph Roberts.

In 1913 he bounced back to Blackwell’s Island for a year as George Davis.

In his last years, Reuben appears to have tired of shoplifting, and stayed out of trouble. His many captures had provided satisfaction to generations of New York police detectives.

#148 Thomas Burns

~ jpkntz

Thomas Burns (Abt. 1836-1895), aka Combo, Thomas Hamilton — Pickpocket, Stall

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION Forty-nine years of age in 1886. Born in United States. Married. No trade. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 10 1/2 inches. Weight, 165 pounds. Black hair, brown eyes, dark complexion. Has scar on forehead; mole on right cheek. Generally wears a black beard, turning gray.

RECORD. “Combo” is a well known New York pickpocket. He works with “Jersey Jimmie” (145), “Nigger” Baker (195), “Curly Charley,” Dick Morris (141), “Aleck the Milkman” (160), and the best people in the cities he visits. He was considered second to none in the business; but of late years he has fallen back, and does only “stalling,” on account of his love for liquor. He is pretty well known in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Chicago, and, in fact, in almost all the large cities in the States.

He was arrested in New York City, for the larceny of a watch from one Lawson Valentine, on a Sixth Avenue horse-car, on February 8, 1875. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to four years in State prison, on March 9, 1875, under the name of Thomas Hamilton, by Judge Sutherland.

Combo was again arrested, at the Grand Central Railroad depot in New York City, on November 24, 1885, in an attempt to ply his vocation. He was sentenced to one year in the penitentiary on December 1, 1885, in the Court of Special Sessions, New York. Burns’s picture is an excellent one, taken in November, 1885.

Sometimes members of the underground fraternity of thieves would meet unexpectedly, as happened in the fall of 1872, in the Hudson County, New Jersey jailhouse in Jersey City, New Jersey.  Two veteran, hardened bank robbers, Ed. Johnson and Frank Dean, aka Dago Frank, were detained there so that they could testify on a sensational case of police corruption that implicated the city’s chief of police and senior detective. Johnson and Dean had been caught nearly a year earlier while attempting to break into the First National Bank of Jersey City. They had been working with two other seasoned pros, Dave Cummings and Moses Vogel.

Ed. Johnson was arrested under the alias Charles J. Proctor; Dean was jailed as Frank Denning. They were placed in separate cells in the first tier of the jailhouse, with an empty cell between them. Dave Cummings had escaped capture because he had been busy playing billiards while his partners did the hard work, but Cummings had vowed to spare no expense in getting Johnson and Dean out of jail.

One day, a new prisoner was escorted into the empty cell between Johnson and Dean. He was Thomas “Combo” Burns, age 36, a noted Bowery pickpocket. Burns may have recognized the two bank robbers, or, at the least, had heard of them. Burns frequented the same Lower Manhattan saloons as bank robbers and sneak thieves; he was even rumored to have played a role in one famous Philadelphia bank robbery of February 1871, the Kensington Savings Bank.

Burns could hear all the conversation that passed between Johnson and Dean, and in a way became their confidant.

Burns was visited in jail each week by his mother, who took the ferry over from New York. She brought him his favorite delicacies to make up for the drab jail meals. Johnson and Dean eyed Burns’s treats with envy, and asked Burns if they could arrange for his mother to bring them their favorite treats that their relatives in New York would bring to her. So soon all three men got an inspected parcel of goodies whenever Burn’s mother visited. Invariably, Johnson and Dean always received at least one can of peaches, their favorite.

On September 25th, Johnson and Dean had a visitor come. Combo Burns heard them whispering that something big was to happen on the next Saturday evening. That same day, Burn’s mother visited and once again brought food with her, including several cans of peaches. She gave cans to Johnson and Dean, but also gave one to Burns. Burns noticed that Johnson shook his can after receiving it. He shook his can, and heard a metallic click as he did so. He cut out one end of the can, but found only peaches. He then took off the other end and discovered a small flask filled with black powder.

It was then that Burns realized that Johnson and Dean had been collecting a store of gunpowder to use to bring down the rear wall of their cell and make a dash for freedom. Burns himself had no great motive to involve himself in a jailbreak; he was in on a charge of picking pockets, and might get acquitted–or, at worst, a light sentence. However, he likely did not even consider his own fate; what stirred his indignation was that Johnson and Dean used his mother as an unwilling accomplice. She was the go-between that had no idea what was in the cans of peaches.

Combo burns poured the gunpowder into his toilet pipe and started yelling at Johnson and Dean. They told him to pipe down, and then tried to bribe him to remain silent. Burns was having none of it. He called the guards and had them inspect the cells of Johnson and Dean, where matches, a fuse, and a rubber bag with five pounds of gunpowder were discovered. Their escape plan (doubtless coordinated by Dave Cummings) was foiled.

Do not come between an Irishman and his mother.

#60 John O’Neil

~ jpkntz

W. J. McNeill (Abt. 1841-????), aka John Hughes, William H. Thompson, John O’Neil, David W. Engle, Jason Smith, Thomas O’Donnell, etc. — Pawn Ticket Swindler

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-five years old in 1886. Born in Ireland. Slim build. Painter by trade. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, about 140 pounds. Dark hair, turning gray; light eyes, dark complexion, cast in one eye. His hand is drawn up from a gunshot wound, and he is paralyzed on one side of his body, drawing one leg somewhat after him.

RECORD. John O’Neil, alias Hughes, alias Jason Smith, has a method of working which is entirely his own. Whenever a robbery or burglary has been committed, the victim receives a poorly spelled and written note from O’Neil, stating that “although he is a thief, so help his God he had nothing to do with the burglary” of your residence, or whatever it may be — he has, however, pawn tickets representing the property stolen, which he will sell you. An interview is arranged, and during the conversation he remembers a few descriptions that you give of your property, and says that he has pawn tickets representing so-and-so. “Why did you not bring them with you?” is the question naturally asked. “Oh, no; I did not know whether I could trust you or not.” Being assured that he can, another meeting is arranged for the purpose of going and redeeming the property, which is done in the following manner: a cab is hired, “as he is a thief, and it would not be safe for you to be seen walking with him,” and both are driven to the pawnbroker’s shop, which always has two entrances. Before the cab arrives at the place, he will say, “It will cost so much to redeem the goods,” showing you the tickets and counting the amounts up, “give me the money, you remain in the cab at the door, and I will go in and redeem them, and bring them to you, when you can pay me for my tickets.” He enters the pawnshop and passes out the other door, and you, after waiting some time in the cab, realize that you have been swindled, enter the place, but fail to find your man.

O’Neil was arrested at Staten Island, N.Y., by the police and brought to New York City on April 4, 1879, under the name of John Hughes, charged with swindling one Zophar D. Mills out of $172, as above described. O’Neil represented that he had pawn tickets, for seven pieces of silk stolen from Mr. Mills on November 30, 1878. O’Neil, alias Hughes, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in State prison in this case on April 23, 1879, by Judge Cowing, in the Court of General Sessions, New York City.

He was arrested again in New York City, under the name of John O’Neil, on September 12, 1885, for swindling several people in the same way. This time he also pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to one year in State prison on September 17, 1885, by Judge Cowing, in the same court. Several of O’Neil’s victims refused to prosecute him on account of his infirmities, and the fact that he had served twelve years of the last fifteen of his life in prison. O’Neil’s picture is an excellent one, taken in 1870.

One might think that if a name was tattooed on a man’s body, it would be a clue to his identity. The only problem is that in 1874, Sing Sing examiners saw that tattoo as “W. J. McNeill”; and a different Sing Sing recorder saw the tattoo in 1879 as “W. J. O’Neille.” Byrnes stated his name as John O’Neil only because that was the alias employed by this swindler in 1885, the last arrest known.

McNeill/O’Neil was first caught employing a variation of the robbery-victim swindle on several New Yorkers in May 1874. As Byrnes indicates, he found his targets by perusing the classified notices that recent robbery victims posted seeking the return of their valuables. In this instance, he used the alias William H. Thompson–but unlike later, there was no mention of pawn tickets. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years in Sing Sing for conspiracy to commit grand larceny.

In April 1879, police captured him again, this time for attempting to break into hotel rooms. His alias this time was John Hughes. He was returned to Sing Sing for three years.

In March of 1885, he was arrested for once again suggesting that he could arrange the return of stolen goods, and as the go-between he would exchange pawn tickets for cash. This time he employed the alias Thomas O’Donnell. However, for some reason, the prosecution failed to find him guilty (perhaps, as Byrnes suggests, out of pity for his physical disabilities?)

Six months later, in September 1885, he was caught playing the more elaborate pawn ticket swindle described by Byrnes. Although many victims came forth, and McNeill/O’Neil was recognized as a repeat felon, his punishment only amounted to three months at Blackwell’s Island Penitentiary (not one year in State Prison, as Byrnes wrote).

The pattern of McNeill/O’Neill’s peculiar swindle disappeared after this 1885 arrest.

#170 James McMahon

~ jpkntz ~ 1 Comment

Alias James McMann (Abt. 1855-????), aka James McMahon — River Pirate

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-six years old in 1886. Born in New York. Single. No trade. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 6 inches. Weight, 163 pounds. Light hair, blue eyes, light complexion, big nose, thick lips.

RECORD. McMahon is a well known New York burglar and river thief. He has served a term on Blackwell’s Island, and is a desperate man. He is also well known in Philadelphia and other cities. He was arrested in New York City on May 16, 1880, charged with robbing the schooner Victor, of Prince Edward’s Island, while lying at one of the wharves. McMahon was detected in the act of robbing the vessel by the mate, John Williams, who, while in an attempt to arrest McMahon, was terribly beaten by him. McMahon was committed for trial in default of $3,000 bail, by Justice Morgan, on May 15, 1880, indicted on May 18, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to ten years in State prison on May 18, by Recorder Smyth, in the Court of General Sessions, New York City. His sentence expires on September 18, 1886. His picture is a good one, taken in May, 1880.

In terms of identifying James McMahon, Inspector Byrnes offers more obscurity than clarity. Of the five river pirates that boarded the schooner Victor, each of the four others used an alias, and most newspaper accounts assumed that McMahon/McMann was an alias [some newspapers used the spelling McMahon, but the Sing Sing register and the most detailed newspaper account (by the New York Times) used the spelling McMann]. In the Sing Sing register, McMann offered the name of a contact, a cousin: William Meehan.

The Sing Sing register also gave this prisoner’s age as 25, not 36 as Byrnes asserts. The other four men involved were under twenty-five.

While identifying McMahon/McMann is futile, the crime for which he was arrested is fairly interesting: river piracy.

New York City was one of America’s major ports, with docks sprouting from the shores of Hudson County, New Jersey; Manhattan; the Bronx, and Brooklyn. The surrounding waterways, then and now, present a fractal landscape of bays, coves, islands, rivers, harbors, points, inlets, channels, etc.–in other words, a pirate’s paradise of areas where a vessel could quickly be hidden.

River pirates operated from small vessels: a yawl, sloop, or ketch; and consisted of gangs of 4-12 men. Their main targets were anchored shipping vessels that were lightly-manned, with most of the crew ashore or not yet hired. The booty they sought was anything portable: nautical instruments, small chests, items in containers, etc. They boarded these larger vessels silently, under cover of night, and with guns drawn. The expectation was that they would catch whatever skeleton crew was onboard asleep, and overpower them. Alternatively, sometimes these gangs targeted dockside warehouses.

In 1879–the year before McMann/McMahon’s arrest–a large gang of river pirates led by Big Mike Shanahan had been broken up by the authorities, with nearly all the major members caught and imprisoned. This one gang was said to be responsible for losses totaling a half-million dollars.

McMann/McMahon’s gang of young men attempted to fill in the vacuum left by the downfall of Shanahan’s gang. There were eyewitness accounts of their attack on the Victor:

The second man that tried to cling to the swamped yawl was Thomas Holland, alias James Rourke/O’Rourke. His body was found about ten days later floating in Long Island Sound. Each of the four surviving pirates was sentenced to Sing Sing for ten years.

There was absolutely no sympathy on the part of the public for the river pirates. The Brooklyn Eagle wrote:

“That they meant murder is obvious, and that they should be punished to the full extent of the law is manifest. The New York docks teem with such rats. The surface of the East River and the Sound is fretted with them. They know that boats must anchor at certain places for tide or towage, and presuming on their ability and inclination to murder if interfered with, they are in readiness for any opportunity to plunder. They need an example. The authorities have four of them in their hands. There should be no delay in the trial, and, if they are found guilty, Bedloe’s Island should again be decorated as one Mr. Johnson decorated it years ago.”

The last reference is to Albert Hicks, alias William Johnson, who was arrested for murder in 1860. He claimed that he had been shanghaied to help crew a small ship as it left port, and when he found a chance he murdered the entire crew and left the ship adrift while he escaped in a yawl. He was captured and publicly hanged from gallows erected on the shore of Bedloe’s Island–the last man hanged for piracy in New York. Thousands of people watched the hanging from hundreds of ships and boats hugging the island’s shore–it was a blood-lust spectacle worthy of Rome’s Colosseum.

Bedloe’s Island is now Liberty Island, home to the Statue of Liberty.

#171 Theodore Wildey

~ jpkntz

Theodore Wiley (Abt. 1843-????), aka “The.” Wildey, George Van Dugan, George Davis, George Marsh — Sneak Thief, Till Tapper

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-four years old in 1886. Born in United States. Married. Printer. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 11 inches. Weight, 166 pounds. Brown hair, brown eyes, dark complexion, dark brown mustache, high forehead. Two joints off fingers of right hand. “Josephine,” and numbers “1858,” in India ink on left fore-arm.

RECORD. “The.” Wiley is a clever sneak thief, burglar and pickpocket. He is what might be called a good general thief, as he can turn his hand to almost anything. He is well known in New York and nearly all the principal cities in the United States. He is an old criminal, and has served terms in Sing Sing and other prisons.

He was arrested in New York City on August 14, 1875, and delivered to the Brooklyn (N.Y.) police authorities, for robbing a safe in Calvin Cline’s jewelry store on Fourth Street, that city, of $5,000 worth of diamonds, on August 12, 1875. He was tried in the Kings County Court of Sessions in Brooklyn, on October 6, 1875, convicted, and sentenced to ten years in the penitentiary by Judge Moore, for burglary in the second degree, under the name of George Marsh. He cut off the fingers of his right hand, while confined in the Kings County Penitentiary, so he would not have to work. His sentence expired on April 5, 1882.

He was arrested again in Syracuse, N.Y., on January 4, 1883, in company of Timothy Oats (136) and William A. Brown, alias “The Student,” charged with stealing a tin box containing $250 in money from a saloon there. (See record of No. 136.) Wiley gave the name of George Davis, alias George Marsh, and was tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years in Auburn (N.Y.) State prison, on March 1, 1883. His sentence expires October 1, 1886. Oats pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years on the same day in this case. Russell also pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to five years in Auburn prison at the same time. Wiley’s picture is an excellent one, taken in September, 1882.

Inspector Byrnes briefly mentions a gruesome anecdote about the thief Theodore Wiley: that Wiley cut off his own fingers in order to avoid prison labor. This event occurred in October 1876, when Wiley was a convict at the Kings County Penitentiary. A firm called the Bay State Shoe and Leather Company had a contract with the county to use convicts to make shoes in the prison workshop. Wiley had three fingers of his right hand cut off by a hide-cutting machine. Authorities thought he did this on purpose to avoid work, but Wiley later tried to sue the company for personal injury.

However, there’s more to the story…

Earlier that same month–October 1876–The.’s older brother, Peter Wiley, died from consumption (likely tuberculosis) while an inmate of Philadelphia’s Moyamensing Prison. Peter Wiley and a partner had arrived in Philadelphia in September on a train from New York, and within a few hours found themselves under arrest for attempting to snatch a handful of gold lockets at a jewelry store. Peter was sentenced to two years.

He was likely already ill when arrested, and in the weeks he was incarcerated taken to the prison hospital several times. According to the prison officials there, despite his sickness, he remained “bold, defiant and hardened,” refusing to see a priest or to receive visits from family and friends. One of his last requests was: “Gimme some chloroform. Let me die game,” i.e. give him a fatal overdose, he was ready to die.

Peter Wiley had come to Philadelphia only a short time after being released from New York’s Sing Sing prison. At Sing Sing, Peter distinguished himself as being a difficult and troublesome convict. When told that he was slacking at his workshop job and had to comply or face punishment (torture), Peter Wiley snatched a hatchet and chopped off four of his fingers.

And so, just days after Peter Wiley died in Philadelphia, his brother Theodore paid tribute to him. People grieve in different ways.

#188 Charles Bennet

~ jpkntz

Alias William T. Angell (Abt. 1849-????) — Burglar

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-seven years old in 1886. Height, 5 feet 7 inches. Weight, 145 pounds. Dark complexion. Had cast in one eye, which was operated upon, and is hardly noticeable now. Very genteel-looking. Good talker and writer. Dark brown hair. Generally wears a full dark beard, or mustache and whiskers, as in picture.

RECORD. Bennett is a very daring thief. He was an old partner of Fairy McGuire (78) and Sleepy Gus, and traveled through the country with them smashing in windows and robbing them. He is an expert burglar, and is well known in all the large cities, especially Philadelphia and New York.

Bennett was arrested in Middletown, Conn., on December 5, 1878, with a lot of burglars’ tools in his possession. He was tried and sentenced to two years in State prison, by Judge Morton, on the same day of his arrest. He has served terms in Sing Sing and the Eastern Penitentiary in Philadelphia since. This man, of late years, is not relied upon much by the fraternity, on account of his fondness for liquor. Bennett’s picture is an excellent one, taken in December, 1878.

Inspector Byrnes reached his cryptic worst in his entry for this professional criminal. The one arrest and conviction he cites from December 1878 was made under the name William T. Agnell–an alias not used before or after this one incident.

There were many records for a “Charles Bennett” being sent to New York prisons prior to 1886, but none were sent to Sing Sing–the only New York prison with accessible registers that give ages, birthplaces, descriptions, and (sometimes) family contacts. Therefore there is no way to determine if any of these is the man that Byrnes was talking about.

All the major newspaper databases combined have only a small handful of arrests of a Charles/Charley/Charlie Bennet/Bennett; again, from those brief entries, it is impossible to tell if any match Byrnes #188.

Tantalizingly, there was a William Bentley (one of the alias surnames Byrnes mentions) who was sent to Sing Sing in 1874. Bentley was the same age and physical description as Byrnes’s Bennett–and even had the same scarred eye; but William Bentley was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate a month into his stint at Sing Sing.

For now, Bennett’s claim to fame will have to be limited to the fact that he was partner to two of the quaintest-named old crooks: Fairy McGuire and Sleepy Gus (Augustus Tristram).