Sneak thieves

#162 William Burke

~ jpkntz ~ 9 Comments

William James Burke (1858-1919), aka Billy Burke, Billy the Kid, Charles H. Page, John Petrie, William Brady, etc. — Sneak thief

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Twenty-eight years old in 1886. Born in United States. Married. Printer. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 6 inches. Weight, 140 pounds. Dark brown hair, dark gray eyes, straight nose, round face, florid complexion. Small ears. Upper lip turns up a little. Cross in India ink on his left hand, near thumb. Dot of ink on right hand, between thumb and forefinger.

RECORD. “Billy the Kid” is one of the most adroit bank sneaks in America. He is now about twenty-eight years old, of pleasing address, and claims Chicago, Ill., as his home. He is known in all the principal cities in America and in Canada. This young man is credited with being the nerviest bank sneak in the profession. He is an associate of Rufe Minor (1), Minnie Marks (187), Big Ed Rice (12), Georgie Carson (3), Johnny Jourdan (83), and several other clever men. He has been arrested one hundred times, at least, in as many different cities, and although young, has served terms in three prisons.

      At 12:30 p.m. on August 1, 1881, a carriage containing two men drove rapidly up to the Manufacturers’ Bank at Cohoes, N.Y. At the same moment a man walked briskly into the bank, and toward the directors’ room, in the rear. One of the men in the carriage jumped out, and entering the building, asked the cashier, N. J. Seymour, to change a $20 bill. While the change was being made the man at the rear of the bank forced the door of the directors’ room and obtained entrance to the space behind the desk. He rushed up to the safe, the door of which stood open, and snatched a large pile of bills, done up in packages of $100 and $500 each, and amounting in all to over $10,000.

      James I. Clute, the discount clerk, who sat at the desk at the time, not more than ten feet from the safe, sprang from his seat, grasped a revolver, and followed the thief. The burglar was so quickly pursued that he dropped the packages of money in the directors’ room. Clute kept after him, and tried to bar the way at the door, when the thief pushed him aside and ran quickly down two or three streets, crossed the canal, and fled toward the woods. The thief who remained in the carriage drove furiously down the street, and the man who asked for the change meanwhile had left the bank. He met the carriage a short distance from the scene, jumped in, and was driven out of the city. The thief who fled toward the woods succeeded in eluding his pursuers, and shortly after entered the house of a Mrs. Algiers and took off his clothes and crawled under the bed. A man who was at work in a mill opposite the house saw the man’s proceedings, and notified the police. The house was surrounded, and the intruder captured. A search of his clothing revealed a false mustache, a watch, $45 cash, two pocket-books, some strong cord, and other things. He was afterwards identified as Billy Burke.

      After remaining in jail some little time he was released on $10,000 bail. On September 9, 1881, an attempt was made to rob the vault of the Baltimore Savings Bank, in Baltimore, Md. Four men (no doubt Burke, Jourdan, Marks, and Big Rice) entered the treasurer’s room, where were several customers of the bank, and one of them engaged the attention of the treasurer by asking him about investments, holding in his hands several United States bonds. Another then walked back toward the vault, in a rear apartment, but his movements were observed by one of the clerks, who followed and arrested him in front of the vault. The other three retreated hastily and escaped. The party arrested gave the name of Thomas Smith, but was recognized by the police as Billy Burke, alias “Billy the Kid.” In this case, as at Cohoes, N.Y., he was bailed, went West, and was arrested in Cleveland on December 12, 1881, and delivered to the police authorities of Albany, N.Y., taken there, and placed in the Albany County jail, from where he escaped on January 7, 1882.

      A reward of $1,000 was offered at the time for his arrest. He was finally re-arrested at Minneapolis, Minn., on March 13, 1882, in an attempt to rob a bank there, but afterwards turned over to the Sheriff of Albany County, N.Y., taken there, tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in the Albany Penitentiary by Judge Van Alstyne (for the Cohoes bank robbery), on March 31, 1882. He was tried again the same day for breaking jail, convicted, and sentenced to one year more, making six years in all. Burke was sentenced in this case under the name of John Petrie. His sentence expired on June 2, 1886.

      Warrants were lodged against him at the penitentiary some time previous from Lockport, N.Y., Detroit, and Baltimore. He was re-arrested, as soon as discharged, on the Lockport warrant, which, it is said, was obtained by his brother-in-law, for an alleged assault. The scheme was to prevent him from being taken to either Detroit or Baltimore, where there are clear cases against him. His picture is an excellent one, taken in March, 1880.

      Nearly every background article on Billy Burke begins with his role in the robbery of the Manufacturers’ Bank in Cohoes, New York; but it is apparent that he was already well known as a thief and street tough by that time. He was involved in an equally famous bank robbery in July 1879, in Galesburg, Illinois, along with Jimmy Carroll, Paddy Guerin, and John Larney (aka Molly Matches).

      Burke was born and raised in Massachusetts–near Peabody–by James M. and Alice Burke, both of whom came from County Tipperary, Ireland. He left home as a teen. One account suggests he was a bell-hop in Buffalo; and most sources indicate he spent the last years of the 1870s and 1880 in Chicago. Articles from Chicago papers during those years note a Billy Burke involved in knife and gun fights in company with Paddy Guerin, one of his partners in the Galesburg robbery.

       Immediately after the Cohoes robbery, Burke started to be mentioned under the nickname “Billy the Kid.” This was no doubt a nod to his passing similarity to the western outlaw of the same name, Henry McCarty (aka William Bonney), who was the same age as Burke–and who was killed a month earlier than the Cohoes robbery. However, McCarty/Bonney was mainly a hired gun, whereas Billy Burke was a sneak thief.

      Following his release from prison in Albany in 1886, Burke teamed up with: Sophie Van Elkens, aka Sophie Levy/Sophie Lyons, a well-known consort of sneak thieves and a lifelong shoplifter and pickpocket; George Moore aka Miller/W. H. Burton; and (according to one report) Louisa Farley aka Jourdan/Bigelow. Burke, Moore, and Sophie were arrested in St. Louis in early 1887, but were released for lack of evidence and told to leave town. When they indicated they might move on to Louisville, Kentucky, the Louisville Courier Journal decided to run an article on them complete with engravings of their mugs. It was said that Burke and Moore specialized in shoplifting silk bolts. A St. Louis paper ran an image of the type of coat they wore with large inner pockets:

      Burke and Sophie decided to leave the Ohio Valley and go abroad. Later in 1887, Burke was caught with two other men robbing a Geneva bank messenger. He was placed in a Swiss jail for two years. Upon his release, he went to London, where he was caught attempting to remove a bag of cash from a bank. For this, he was jailed another year and a half.

      Burke and Sophie returned to the United States, where he was seen with his old friend Paddy Guerin. Burke, Guerin, and Sophie then decided to trail a traveling circus: a common trick of sneak thieves was to make a grab of cash or store goods while town people and businessmen were distracted by an arriving circus parade. Burke was captured in Mount Sterling, Kentucky. He was sent to prison to serve a three-year sentence, while Sophie was released. Freed early in 1894, Burke returned to New York and was soon caught trying to steal $450 from the offices of the New York Commercial Gazette. This misadventure cost Billy another two and a half years behind bars.

      Meanwhile, the love of Billy’s life, Sophie, had over the years established herself in Detroit and made a small (legitimate) fortune in real estate. Billy attempted to join her there in 1899, but was told to leave that city by the local police. He went abroad again, and was caught attempting a robbery in Budapest. This time, he earned a tour of an Austrian prison for two years. In 1904, he returned again to Sophie in Detroit, but the local police picked him up on suspicion almost immediately. By this time, Sophie had enough pull in Detroit to get Burke released, and he stayed with her in Detroit for the next couple of years.

      In 1907, he was again caught, this time in Philadelphia, trying to rob a bank messenger. He was installed inside the Eastern State Penitentiary for three years. With early release, Billy was back on the street in early 1909. He again traveled to Europe, this time to Sweden. He failed in an attempt to rob a bank in Stockholm, and was sent away for three years. Meanwhile, back in Detroit, Sophie–who had not been arrested since 1892–started writing newspaper columns and working on a book about her criminal reminiscences, as well as providing charity to Detroit hospitals, shelters for women, and aid to the families of convicts. However, the one person she could not help or reform was her own (now) husband, Billy Burke.

      Burke returned from Sweden in ill-health, spent his last years in Detroit with Sophie, and died in 1919 at age sixty.

#194 Charles Woodward

~ jpkntz

George Williams (Abt. 1836-19??), aka “The Diamond Swallower,” Charles Woodward, Charles Woodard, Charles B. Anderson, Robert Alfred Wright, Edward Morton, etc. — Jewel thief, Pennyweight (i.e. shoplifter working in tandem with a partner), hotel thief

From Chief Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-five years old in 1886. Jew, born in America. Married. No trade. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, about 150 pounds. Dark hair, turning gray ; dark eyes, dark complexion. Generally wears a black mustache.

RECORD. Woodward, alias Williams, is one of the most notorious sneak thieves and shoplifters there is in America. He is known all over the United States and Canada as the “Palmer House Robber.” This thief was arrested in New York some years ago for the larceny of a diamond from a jewelry store. When detected he had the stone in his mouth, and swallowed it.

      He has served terms in State prison in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Canada, and is considered a very smart thief. He was arrested in Chicago, Ill., and sentenced to one year in Joliet prison on January 31, 1879, for the larceny of a trunk containing $15,000 worth of jewelry samples from a salesman in the Palmer House. The jewelry was recovered. Another well known sneak thief was also arrested in this case, and sentenced to five years in Joliet prison on February i, 1879. Since then, it is claimed, he has reformed, and I therefore omit his name.

      Woodward, alias Williams, was arrested again in Philadelphia, on April 16, 1880, in company of William Hillburn, alias Marsh Market Jake (38), and Billy Morgan (72), for the larceny of $2,200 in bank bills from a man named Henry Ruddy. The trio were tried, convicted and sentenced to eighteen months in the Eastern Penitentiary on April 26, 1880. Woodward was arrested again at Rochester, N.Y., under the name of Charles B. Anderson, alias Charles B. Henderson, and sentenced on September 18, 1883, to two years in the Monroe County (N. Y.) Penitentiary, for grand larceny in the second degree; tried again the same day, convicted, and sentenced on another complaint of grand larceny in the second degree to two years more, making four years in all, by Judge Rouley, Judge of Monroe County, N.Y. His sentence will expire, allowing him full commutation, on September 18, 1886. His picture is a fair one, taken in April, 1880.

      Chief Byrnes’s profile of this criminal names him as “Charles Woodward, alias Williams,” but elsewhere in his 1886 text he refers to him as Charles Williams or George Williams, alias Woodward. Detectives for the American Bankers Association believed his real name was George W. Williams. At the very least, this is the name other criminals knew him by.

      “Woodward” was not even a true alias. When arrested in Chicago in 1878 for the Palmer House robbery, he offered the name “Charles Woodard.” It was under that name (without the second w) that he was registered at Joliet Prison in February, 1879. His partner in that episode, whom Byrnes was reluctant to name, was William “Billy” Henderson, aka “Snatchem,” a veteran sneak thief. Williams testified against Henderson, resulting in a one-year sentence–while Henderson was given five years. The Joliet register also indicates that Williams described himself as a Baptist, not a Jew.  If the mistake was Byrnes’s, it had an unfortunate result: Woodward was offered as an example of a degenerate race in the anti-Semitic screed The American Jew: An Exposé of His Career, 1888.

       Although Byrnes first lists Williams’ 1878 arrest for the Palmer House robbery, he was already a well-known member of the New York thieving community. Elsewhere in Byrnes’s book (but not in the main profile), George Williams is cited for his involvement in an 1876 crime that predates the Palmer House robbery: in 1876, Williams teamed with Charles Everhardt (Marsh Market Jake) and Philip Pearson to rob a safe in Montreal. Williams was arrested, but jumped bail.

       Byrnes never explains how Williams obtained his nickname, “The Diamond Swallower.” That dates back to an 1875 arrest:

      But, as Byrnes notes, it was the 1878 Palmer House robbery that made Williams infamous. Upon his release from Joliet, Williams immediately fell in with another gang led by Everhardt, aka Marsh Market Jake. Everhardt, Billy Morgan, Little Al Wilson, and Williams were arrested in Philadelphia in April, 1880, for the robbery of a liquor store safe. They all received a sentence of eighteen months at Eastern State Penitentiary.

      In September 1883, Williams was arrested after stealing two diamond rings in Syracuse, New York and other items from jewelry stores in Rochester, New York. Although it was suspected that others were involved, Williams (under the alias Charles B. Anderson) was the only one captured and punished. He spent the next three years in the Monroe County (NY) Penitentiary.

      In October 1887, Williams was caught with an accomplice shoplifting expensive silk from a St. Louis store. He was convicted and imprisoned in the Jefferson City penitentiary until October, 1889.

      By 1890, Williams was hitting jewelry stores in London, England, accompanied by two young women meant to serve as distractions to the clerks: Ella Roberts, aka Frances Irving, Birdie Renand; and Dollie Reynolds, aka Alice Coady. Roberts had a string of thieving boyfriends: Mickey Moriarty, Julius Heyman, and Billy Burke; while Dollie was the consort of “Dutch” Alonzo Henn. Williams spent the next four years in an English prison under the alias Robert Alfred Wright , returning to the United States in 1894.

      A year later, in 1895, he was caught in Bruges, Belgium attempting a sneak-thief robbery of a bank, along with partners Harry Russell and Hughie Burns. In April, 1896, he was sentenced to five years in a Belgian prison. Released early, Williams then teamed up with John Harkins, a thief from Pittsburgh, and attempted to rob stones from a jeweler in Leipzig, Germany.

      This appears to be his last imprisonment, though American detectives writing in 1910 described him as still being alive (presumably back in America), at which point he would have been nearly 75 years old. In 1913, reformed thief Sophie Lyons wrote of him as “Charles Woodward,” though in her criminal years she surely would have known him as George Williams.

#8 Walter Sheridan

~ jpkntz

Walter Sheridan (Abt. 1833-1890), aka William A. Stoneford, Charles H. Ralston, Walter A. Stewart, William Holcomb, Doc Dash, Charles H. Keene, etc. — Horse thief, con man, bank sneak thief, counterfeiter, forger

From Byrnes’ text:

DESCRIPTION. Fifty-five years old in 1886. Born in New Orleans, La. Married. No trade. Height, 5 feet 7 inches. Weight, about 165 pounds. Light brown hair, dark eyes, Roman nose, square chin. Generally wears blonde whiskers. He is a good-looking man, and assumes a dignified appearance.

RECORD. Walter Sheridan is an accomplished thief, a daring forger, bank sneak, hotel thief, pennyweight-worker and counterfeiter. He is also one of the most notorious criminals in America. Among his aliases are Stewart, John Holcom, Chas. Ralston, Walter Stanton, Charles H. Keene, etc. When a boy, Sheridan drifted into crime and made his appearance in Western Missouri as a horse thief. He finally became an accomplished general thief and confidence man, but made a specialty of sneaking banks. In 1858 he was arrested with Joe Moran, a noted Western sneak thief and burglar, for robbing a bank in Chicago, Ill., and was sentenced to five years in the Alton, Ill., penitentiary, which time he served. He was afterwards concerned in the robbery of the First National Bank of Springfield, Ill., with Charley Hicks and Philly Phearson (5). Sheridan engaged the teller. Hicks staid outside, and Phearson crawled through a window and obtained $35,000 from the bank vault. Hicks was arrested and sentenced to eight years in Joliet prison. Philly Phearson escaped and went to Europe. Sheridan was arrested in Toledo, O., shortly afterwards with $22,000 in money on him. He was tried for this offense but acquitted.

      He next appeared in a “sneak job” in Baltimore, Md., in June, 1870, where he and confederates secured $50,000 in securities from the Maryland Fire Insurance Company. After this he secured $37,000 in bonds from the Mechanics’ Bank of Scranton, Pa. He was also implicated and obtained his share of $20,000 stolen from the Savings and Loan Bank of Cleveland, O., in 1870. He was arrested in this case, but secured his release by the legal technicalities of the law. Sheridan’s most important work was in the hypothecation of $100,000 in forged bonds of the Buffalo, New York and Erie Railroad Company to the New York Indemnity and Warehouse Company, in 1873, for which he obtained $84,000 in good hard cash. It took months to effect this loan. He took desk room in a broker’s office on the lower part of Broadway, New York, representing himself as a returned Californian of ample means. He speculated in grain, became a member of the Produce Exchange, under the name of Charles Ralston, and secured advances on cargoes of grain. He gained the confidence of the President of the Indemnity and Warehouse.

      Walter Sheridan is among the handful of the most infamous criminals profiled by Chief Byrnes.  He was often successful, and tried his hand at many different types of crimes. The accounts of Walter Sheridan’s origins are fairly consistent: he came from a respectable family in Kentucky; was sent to New Orleans for his education; went astray, and, in the late 1850s, was known as a horse thief in central Missouri. Unfortunately, none of this can be verified–not even his supposed full name: Walter (Cartman or Eastman) Sheridan.

      Several more complete accounts of Sheridan’s criminal career have been written, most recently by Jay Robert Nash in his Great Pictorial History of World Crime. However, the most succinct summary appeared in the St. Louis Post Dispatch of January 22, 1890, on the occasion of Sheridan’s death:

      The identity of Sheridan’s wife and son Walter (who claimed his body from the coroners in Montreal) have defied solving. The body was said to have been taken back to Baltimore, but no burial records have been found.

#69 Joseph Otterburg

~ jpkntz

Joseph Ottenburg (Abt. 1858-19??), aka Joseph Newman, Joseph Clark, Joseph Stearn, etc. — House burglar

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Twenty-eight years old in 1886. Born in New York City. Single. No trade. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 5 inches. Weight, 125 pounds. Brown hair, blue eyes, light complexion. Generally wears a light-brown mustache.

RECORD. Joe Otterburg is a very clever house sneak, that being his principal business. He will stand watching when you go to arrest him, as he generally uses a pistol. He is an associate of Hoggie Real (67), and is well known in several Eastern States. He was arrested in New York City and sentenced to four years in State prison on October 6, 1870, under the name of James Oats, by Recorder Hackett, for a sneak robbery. Otterburg was convicted for having burglars’ tools in his possession at White Plains, N. Y., on September 19, 1875, and was discharged from the penitentiary at Albany on July 15, 1877, after serving two years there, under the name of Joseph Osborne.

      He was arraigned for trial in the Kings County Court of Brooklyn, N. Y., on May 11, 1878, for robbing the residence of Mrs. Adolphus Nathan, of No. 117 Adelphi Street, that city, on January 25, 1875, of $450 worth of property. In this case he was tried and acquitted on May 31, 1878. Christopher Spencer, who was in this robbery with Otterburg, was afterwards sentenced to the Albany (N. Y.) Penitentiary for five years for breaking jail and assaulting his keeper at White Plains jail, Westchester County, N. Y. Otterburg was arrested again in New York City, and sentenced to four years in State prison by Judge Gildersleeve, on April 24, 1883, for robbing a house in Harlem in company of Joseph Real (67). His time expired on April 23, 1886. His picture is a good one, notwithstanding his eyes are closed, taken in April, 1883.

      Chief Byrnes begins his profile of Joseph Ottenburg by misspelling his name (although it was variously spelled Ottenburgh, Ottenberg…but never “Otter–“) and by mistakenly confusing him with a different prisoner, James Oates, arrested in 1870. In 1870, Joseph Ottenburg was still a boy of 11 or so, living in the Boys Reformatory in New York City. His parentage is unknown, but he did have a sister and an aunt living in New York City.

      Byrnes is correct about Ottenburg’s 1875 conviction, and his May 1878 acquittal. However, a few months later in October 1878, Ottenburg was caught burgling and was sentenced to two years in Sing Sing–an episode missing in Byrnes’s account. After a couple of years of freedom, he was arrested again in 1883 and returned to Sing Sing under the name Joseph Stern.

      Upon release from Sing Sing in 1886, Ottenburg changed scenery and moved to Chicago, where he met and wed an Irish girl, Bridget Higgins Fitzgerald. Their first child, a daughter, Mabel Ottenburg, was born in Chicago in 1887. However, the next year, 1888, Joseph Ottenberg was caught in Chicago with burglar’s tools and swag in his rooms, along with crucibles for melting down silver and gold (the safer way to dispose of metal wares if they are not to be sent to a fence far away). This evidence sent Ottenburg to Joliet prison for several years.

      He returned to Chicago after his release from Joliet and sired a son, Herbert, in 1894; and a daughter, Ruth, in August of 1897. He had no known brushes with the law after Joliet; but can not be said to have gained much righteousness: he abandoned his family and moved back to New York City, enlisting in a volunteer militia during the Spanish-American War. He was 42 years old at that point, and was assigned duties as a nurse in Army hospitals. He became sick himself and was invalided out after the War ceased.

      Joe’s daughter Mabel, 13 when he abandoned the family, likely was old enough to become a servant; but his wife Bridget was forced to place the younger children, Herbert and Ruth, in an orphanage: the Chicago Home for the Friendless.

      Ottenburg’s three children all survived their traumatic childhood, and grew into adulthood. Mabel and Ruth both married, and Herbert lived with his sister Mabel and her family. However, all trace of their father is lost after 1899.

#7 Edward Dinkelman

~ jpkntz

Edward Dinkelman (1843-19??), aka Eddie Miller, William Hunter, William B. Bowman — Shoplifter, Store Thief, Pickpocket

From Byrnes’ text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-one years old in 1886. Born in Germany. Height, 5 feet 4 inches. Stout build. Dark hair, dark eyes, round face, dark complexion. Dresses well, and is very quick in his movements. Weight, about 150 pounds.

RECORD. Eddie Miller, the name by which he is best known, is a celebrated New York shoplifter. He generally works with his wife, Anna B. Miller. He is also a clever sneak, and occasionally turns his hand to hotel work. He was in prison in Chicago, Syracuse, and Canada, and is known in all the principal cities of America. Miller was arrested in New York City on March 23, 1880, for the larceny of three gold chains, valued at $100, from a jewelry store at 25 Maiden Lane. For this offense he pleaded guilty in the Court of General Sessions, New York, and was sentenced to two years in State prison on April 16, 1880, under the name of William Hunter. After his conviction and sentence he asked to be allowed to visit his home, on Sixth Avenue, for the purpose of getting some clothes and giving his wife some instructions in relation to his affairs. An officer of the court was sent with him, and while the officer was speaking to Miller’s wife, Miller sprang through an open doorway, cleared a flight of stairs in a few jumps, reached the street, and escaped. He was afterwards arrested in Chicago, Ill., and returned to New York to serve his sentence. Miller was arrested again in New York City for grand larceny, and sentenced to ten years in State prison, on May 16, 1884, under the name of William Bowman. His time will expire on September 16, 1890. Miller’s picture is a very good one.

      Like many professional pickpockets and shoplifters, Edward Dinkelman lived a transient existence, making it difficult to trace his origins and connections. In all of his Sing Sing records, he indicated a birth year of 1843 and birthplace as Germany. He also identified his religion as Protestant, in contrast to one Kansas City Chief of Police, who judged his looks and accent to be Jewish.

      No confirmed incidents involving Dinkelman in the U.S. predate 1880, but Byrnes indicates he had previously been jailed in Canada, and a Sing Sing entry notes that this occurred in 1874-1875. He was also said to have made a foreign tour as a thief, hitting London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna–but which year or years that trip took place is not known. As Byrnes notes, he was first arrested in New York in 1880 for stealing gold chains from a Maiden Lane jeweler; but was wanted in Boston for stealing silk from a store there several months earlier. He was sent to Sing Sing for two years, and was released in 1882, whereupon he was immediately rearrested and taken to Boston to face charges there, but the result was without serious consequences.

      During the early 1880s, Dinkelman was abetted by a wife, Anna B. Miller; but sometime in the mid-1880s they stopped working together, and Dinkelman teamed up with other noted female pickpockets, such as Mag Williams and Jane “Jenny” Wildey. Dinkelman and Williams operated in Kansas City in the early part of 1883, prompting the Chief of Police to send out a warning to Nashville, Tennessee, that the pair might be headed there.

      Typically, they would shoplift items by secreting them into special pockets inside their coats or skirts. They would then collect all their gleanings, put them in a trunk, and send them to their fence in a different city. Inevitably, if their lodgings were found and searched, loot would be found–which explains their frequent change of lodgings and use of a dizzying number of aliases.

      By 1884, Dinkelman was back in New York, and in April was caught shoplifting goods from a cloakmaker. This earned him a second stay in Sing Sing, this time with a sentence of ten years. With time reduced, he was set free in 1890. Two years later, he was picked by New York detective. No stolen goods were found on him, but he was wearing his specially-tailored shoplifting overcoat. This was a crime in itself, similar to possessing burglar’s tools. For this, Dinkelman was sent away for five months.

      In his 1895 edition, Chief Byrnes noted that Dinkelman was said to be living with and working with an infamous old female pickpocket, Mary Busby (who had separated from her pickpocket husband, Henry Busby, many years earlier). Just months after Byrnes mentioned that, Dinkelman and Mary Busby were arrested for stealing a coat; the police later found a trunkful of stolen goods in their residence. Eddie was sentenced to another four years and six months at Sing Sing.

      Eddie was picked up by Philadelphia police in November, 1899, for trying to sell a stolen woman’s fur cloak on the street. His career from that point forward is not known.

#6 Thomas Leary

~ jpkntz

Thomas Lewis (Abt. 1855-19??), aka Thomas Leary, Kid Leary, George R. Briggs, Leonard Graham, Walter H. Kimball — Sneak thief, Bank robber

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty years old in 1886. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 6 inches. Dark red hair. Eyes, bluish gray. Complexion, light. Born in New Orleans. Weight, 120 pounds. Married.

RECORD. “Kid” Leary, alias George R. Briggs, was arrested in New York City on October 24, 1877, in company of Langdon W. Moore, alias Charley Adams, charged with being implicated in the robbery of the Cambridge National Bank of Cambridge, Mass., September 26, 1877, when bonds and securities amounting to $50,000 were stolen. He was not returned to Massachusetts in this case, for lack of identification, but was held in New York for the larceny of a trunk containing gold and silver jewelry. The facts were that on May 12, 1877, the firm of Ailing Brothers & Co., of Worcester, Mass., shipped a trunk containing $9,000 worth of jewelry from Worcester to Hartford, Conn., to their agent, who discovered that the checks had been changed and the trunk stolen. It was traced from Hartford to a New York hotel, and from there to Baltimore, Md., where it was found empty. Leary was identified as the party who received the trunk at the hotel and shipped it to Baltimore. A portion of the contents was found in the house where Leary was arrested, in New York City. His case was set down for trial on November 8, 1877, but was adjourned until November 20, 1877, when he was convicted and sentenced to five years in State prison for the offense. See record of No. 26.

      Leary was again arrested in Baltimore, Md., on October 3, 1881, charged with robbing the South Baltimore Permanent Mutual Loan and Savings Association. He was found guilty and sentenced to five years in State prison on October 21, 1881, under the name of Walter H. Kimball. Allowing him his full commutation time, he was discharged on December 21, 1885. His picture is a good one, taken some eight years ago. He has filled out more now.

      Thomas Lewis was not an especially daring or successful thief. As is the case with several other profiles of Inspector Byrnes, newspaper clippings and the Sing Sing intake records reveal more about Lewis’s beginnings than the chief detective. Lewis was first arrested under a name that Byrnes only mentioned in his 1895 edition –Thomas Lewis–despite the fact that Sing Sing records indicate this was his intake name two times, in 1874 and again in 1893. Moreover, his 1874 arrest for Grand Larceny also indicated that he was from Boston (not New Orleans, at Byrnes indicates) and that his parents were Thomas and Mary Lewis of 11 Newton Street in Boston. His crime in 1874 was in stealing $1200 from a ticket agent of the LIRR.

      About a year after his release from Sing Sing, in October of 1877, Lewis was arrested as “George Briggs” by New York detectives for the robbery of the Cambridge National Bank of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Lewis was rounded up at his residence along with his girlfriend and notorious bank thief Langdon Moore and his wife Rebecca. However, no evidence was found, and the quartet was released.

      A month later, in November, 1877, Lewis was arrested again for stealing a trunk with $10,000 worth of jewelry from a salesman by arranging for the trunk to be diverted at a railroad depot. Lewis, using the alias George R. Briggs, was identified as the man who requested the trunk to be sent to an address in Baltimore. Later, one of the bracelets in the trunk was found in possession of Lewis’s girlfriend, Elizabeth Hill. Lewis was convicted of this crime and sent to Sing Sing for a term of five years.

      With time reduced,  Lewis was free by 1881. Lacking experienced companions, Lewis rashly decided to commit an armed robbery of a Baltimore bank in October, 1881. Lewis pointed a revolver at a cashier while another man went behind the counter, beat the cashier, and swept $252 into a denim bag. Lewis was nabbed coming out of the bank by a patrolman. He was sent to a Maryland prison for five years under the name Walter H. Kimball. With time reduced, he was free again in December, 1885.

      In early 1890, the Pinkertons believed that Leary was roaming the country with George Bell and Rufe Minor.

      Over the next years, Lewis was either a very good thief or simply inactive. He was not heard from again until 1893, when he was arrested for concealing a kit of burglar’s tools–possession of which was a felony. He was sentenced to another five years at Sing Sing under his name, Thomas Lewis. Back on the streets of New York in 1899, Lewis was arrested on suspicion on June 29, 1899–but there was no evidence that could be found against him, so he was cut loose.

      A year later he was captured as “Leonard Graham,” for attempting to crack a safe belonging to H. Reinhardt, Son, and Co., New York dry goods dealers. During his trial, Lewis behaved with the fatalistic noblesse oblige of a veteran criminal. He refused to name his accomplice: “The other fellow simply helped me. I got him into it. It wouldn’t be fair to tell on him. You’ve got me dead and I’ll take the consequences.” Lewis also apologized and shook hands with his accusers from the Reinhardt office, and helpfully informed them that one of the dynamite charges in the safe had not gone off, and was likely still lodged inside. For his gentility, Lewis was allowed to enter prison under the name Thomas J. Leary as a first-time offender, which assured his release before 1903.

      Perhaps seeking different luck, Lewis went west. He was arrested in Waukesha, Wisconsin in February, 1903, for his involvement in the robbery of the Eagle Bank. He gave his name as Thomas McKay; it was weeks before photographs came from New York that confirmed to authorities that they had Thomas Lewis, aka the notorious bank robber Kid Leary. However, all they could convict him on was a charge of horse-stealing, so Lewis only did a year in at the Wisconsin State Prison in Waupun. Upon walking out, Lewis migrated to Chicago, where detectives jumped him while he was sleeping in his boarding house room. He was later released with no charges.

      Perhaps Lewis’s better instincts finally prevailed; he was never heard from again.

#5 Phillip Phearson

~ jpkntz

Philip Pearson (1832-Aft. 1907), aka “Philly” Phearson, Dr. White, Charles Bushnell–Bank sneak thief, Abortionist

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Fifty-four years old in 1886. Height, 5 feet 5 1/2 inches. Weight, 135 pounds. Hair mixed gray. Eyes, blue. Complexion, sallow. Ink marks: Eagle wreath, American flag, square and compass, an Odd Fellow’s link, also “J. Peck,” with face of woman underneath the name, all the above on left fore-arm; star and bracelet on left wrist; star between thumb and forefinger of left hand; figure of woman on right fore-arm; above the elbow is a heart, with “J. P.” in it; shield and bracelet with letters “W. D.” on same arm.

RECORD. Phearson, or Peck (which is his right name), is one of the oldest and smartest sneak thieves in this country. He has obtained a good deal of money in his time, for which he has done considerable service in State prisons. He comes from a respectable Quaker family of Philadelphia.

      Phearson, Chas. Everhardt, alias Marsh Market Jake (38), and George Williams, alias Woodward (194,) were arrested in Montreal, Canada, in 1876, for sneaking a package containing $800 in money from a safe in that city. Williams gave bail and jumped it, and Phearson and Everhardt stood trial, and were sentenced to three years and six months in prison.

      On June 16, 1879, shortly after his release in Canada, he was arrested in New York City for the larceny of a $1,000 4-per-cent bond from a clerk of Kountze Brothers, bankers, in the general Post-office building. To this offense he pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to three years and six months in State prison, on June 26, 1879, under the name of George W. Clark.

      Phearson was again arrested in New York City in October, 1885, for the larceny of $85, on the till-tapping game. He claimed to be a health officer, and while he had the proprietor of the store in the yard, his accomplice carried away the drawer. For this offense he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years in State prison by Judge Cowing on November 5, 1885, under the name of Daniel Kennedy. Phearson’s picture is an excellent one, taken in 1885.

      Thomas Byrnes lists several facts about the bank sneak thief known as Philly Phearson, many of which seem to be untrue (or at least suspicious). Byrnes cites his birth year as 1832, which matches an exact date of March 12, 1832 that appeared in one of his arrest records. However, Byrnes also says that Phearson came from a good Quaker family, and that his real name was Peck. Phearson (who was usually named in newspapers and prison records as Pearson/Pierson/Peerson, without the “h”) had many tattoos on his body, one of which was a heart with the the letters “J. Peck” and a figure of a woman with the initials J.P. He had other tattoos that bore symbols of the Odd Fellows fraternal organization. Tattoos and Odd Fellows membership do not jive with a Quaker background; and having a woman named “J. Peck” in his past does not mean that was his given name–but perhaps Byrnes had other sources for his assertions.

      The major crimes that Pearson was known to have been involved in include:

  • In early 1873, with associates Horace Hovan and Johnny Price, Pearson hit banks in Berks County and Dauphin County, Pennsylvania using their bank sneak techniques.
  • According to Byrnes, Pearson was with Charles Everhardt (aka Marsh Market Jake) and George Williams in 1876 when a safe containing $800 was robbed in Montreal, Quebec. Byrnes states that Pearson was sentenced to a term of three years and six months, but he obviously was released early, since he definitely resurfaced in New York in 1878.
  • In June, 1878, Pearson was caught stealing in New York. He did not give up the names of his partners, but did inform police where their next planned robberies were to occur. For this cooperation, his sentence was commuted by the New York State Senate to one year, and further reduced by good behavior and a promise to stay out of New York.
  • A year later, in June 1879, Pearson was caught robbing a $1000 bond from Kountze Bankers. He was sent back to Sing Sing under the name Geo. W. Clarke to serve 3 years and six months.

      Nothing more is heard of him until 1884, when there are conflicting reports: Byrnes states that he was in a gang with Old Bill Vosburgh and Kid Carroll, touring the western states to do bank sneak thieving. However, another source says that he was in prison in Toronto.

      An even more stark example of conflicting reports occurs in late 1885. Byrnes says that Pearson was arrested in October, 1885 and sent to Sing Sing for five years under the name Daniel Kennedy. However, a Philadelphia paper says that he was arrested in that city in December, 1885, in the company of Marsh Market Jake.

      In his 1895 revision, Byrnes states that Pearson was arrested again in February 1888 for stalling a shop owner while the cash till was robbed. However, the newspaper accounts and prison records say that the man arrested was 73-year-old William Pearson, a long-time felon known as “Funeral” Pearson. Philly Pearson, in contrast, was 56 in 1888–he appeared old, but not 73. So Byrnes, it seems, had the wrong information.

      Byrnes, writing in 1895, concluded, “He is a pretty old man now, and has outlived his usefulness as a thief.” In these words, Byrnes was correct–Pearson stopped thieving…and became something much worse.

      Using his scholarly appearance and assuring banter, Pearson set himself up in Philadelphia as an abortionist–deemed a “malpractitioner” in the parlance of the times. There is no evidence that he had any medical training. In 1904, one woman he operated on (as “Dr. Clarke”) was later hospitalized near death; and another–Ada Greenover–died from peritonitis after Pearson worked on her. He should have been prosecuted for murder, but was instead lightly slapped with the charge of practicing without a license.

      The legal cases against him were no deterrent. A few months later, his butchery caused the death of a black child and the near-death of the mother. The Philadelphia Coroner believed that Pearson was running an abortion syndicate responsible for the disappearance and presumed death of three other women.

      With attention on him, Pearson curtailed surgical operations and instead began selling abortion nostrums through the mail. Whether the mixtures he sold were harmless placebos or toxic poisons is not known, but his use of the mails under the name “Charles Bushnell” finally provided the leverage to shut him down.

      The “sympathies of the jury” might have been better spent on the women he maimed and killed.

#25 Horace Hovan

~ jpkntz

Horace Hovan (1852-192?), aka “Little Horace” — bank sneak thief

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-seven years old in 1886. Medium build. Born in Richmond, Va. Very genteel appearance. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, 150 pounds. Dresses well. Married to Charlotte Dougherty. Fair complexion. A fine, elegant-looking man. Generally wears a full brown beard.

RECORD. Horace Hovan, alias Little Horace, has associated with all the best bank sneaks in the country.

      In 1870 Horace, in company of a man that has reformed and is living honestly, and Big Ed. Rice (12), stole $20,000 from a vault in a Halifax (N.S.) bank. Hovan and this party were arrested, but Rice escaped with the money. The prisoners were afterwards released, as the money was returned to the bank.

      Horace was convicted under the name of W. W. Fisher, alias Morgan, for a bank sneak job in Pittsburg, Pa., and sentenced to two years and eleven months in the Western Penitentiary, at Alleghany City, on November 22, 1878. He was arrested on March 23, 1878, at Petersburgh, Va., with Rufe Minor, George Carson, and Charlotte Dougherty (Hovan’s wife). See remarks of picture No. 1.

      Arrested again March 31, 1879, at Charleston, S.C., for the larceny of $20,000 in bonds from a safe in the First National Bank in that city. He dropped them on the floor of the bank when detected and feigned sickness, and was sent to the hospital, from which place he made his escape.

      Arrested again October 16, 1880, in New York City, for the Middletown (Conn.) Bank robbery. See records of pictures Nos. 1 and 3. In this case he was discharged, as the property stolen was returned. Arrested again in June, 1881, at Philadelphia, Pa., with Frank Buck, alias Bucky Taylor (27), for the larceny of $10,950 in securities from a broker’s safe in that city. He was convicted of burglary, and sentenced to three years in the Eastern Penitentiary, at Philadelphia, Pa., on July 2, 1881, his time to date back to June 6, 1881. He was pardoned out October 30, 1883, on condition that he would go to Washington, D. C, and testify against some officials who were on trial. He agreed to do so if the Washington authorities would have the case against him in Charleston, S.C., settled, which they did. He then gave his testimony, which was not credited by the jury. He remained in jail in Washington until May 10, 1884, when he was discharged.

      Hovan and Buck Taylor were arrested again on June 18, 1884, in Boston, Mass., their pictures taken, and then escorted to a train and shipped out of town. Hovan is a very clever and tricky sneak thief. One of his tricks was to prove an alibi when arrested.

      He has a brother, Robert Hovan (see picture No. 179), now (1886) serving a five years’ sentence in Sing Sing prison, who is a good counterpart. The voices and the manners of the two men are so nearly alike, that when they are dressed in the same manner it is hard to distinguish one from the other. Horace has often relied on this. He would register with his wife at a prominent hotel, and make the acquaintance of the guests. About an hour before visiting a bank or an office Horace would have his brother show up at the hotel, order a carriage, drive out with his (Horace’s) wife in the park, and return several hours later. Horace, in the interval, would slip off and do his work. If he was arrested any time afterwards, he would show that he was out riding at the time of the robbery.

      Horace Hovan is without doubt one of the smartest bank sneaks in the world. Latest accounts, the fall of 1885, say that he was arrested in Europe and sentenced to three years in prison for the larceny of a package of bank notes from a safe. His partner, Frank Buck, made his escape and returned to America. His picture is an excellent one, taken in 1884.

      While there may be no “born criminals,” Horace Hovan did take up thieving at an early age. He was raised in Richmond, Virginia to Irish parents: John F. Hovan and Harriet B. Rowe. 1864 was a momentous year for the Hovans; John F. Hovan disappeared, perhaps into the maws of the Civil War; Harriet gave birth to her fifth child, a daughter, Gennet; and Horace Hovan, aged 12, was arrested for pick-pocketing.

      Hovan was the scourge of Richmond for the next seven years, being arrested for: stealing soap; beating a black man; pick-pocketing; and robbing store tills. In 1868, at age 16, he jumped bail and fled the city. He and his two brothers stayed in Philadelphia for a while, but migrated back to Richmond in 1870. There, he married a local girl, Martha Abrams. By 1871, Horace had graduated to breaking and entering houses. Just days after his mother passed away, he was caught and held on $2500 bail–and likely jailed. Horace and Martha’s son, Horace Jr., was born in 1872, but died less than a year later. A daughter, Cellela, was born in 1873. Horace, by this time, was on the road working with other thieves, and sent back money to his wife who was living in Baltimore.

      In early 1873, Hovan and three partners (two of whom were John Price and Philly Pearson) stole from banks in Berks County, Pennsylvania and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Their method was “sneak thieving”–today known as “snatching,” i.e. a quick motion to grab objects and run away with them. In banks, this was done as bank customers placed bills on a counter; or as cashiers counted out money; or as distracted bank workers left papers unattended. Horace (unlike his brother Preston) never carried weapons, and never struggled when caught.

      The gang moved westward, and in late March broke into the Pittsburgh Safe Deposit and Trust Company, where they hit the mother lode. Hovan walked out with $50,000 in railroad bonds. The gang immediately went to New York City, where Hovan–posing as a “curbstone broker” (a broker who makes trades on the street)–tried to negotiate the bonds for cash. He was arrested and taken to stand trial at Pittsburgh under the name Charles G. Hampton. Hovan was jailed from late April to late October awaiting his trial. Johnny Jourdan appeared to testify on Hovan’s behalf, offering an alibi that Hovan had been in New York–but the jury discounted that. Hovan was sentenced to two years and eleven months in Western (Pa.) Penitentiary.

      Upon his release in 1876, Hovan partnered with “Big Ed” Rice and Bill “Snatchem” Henderson to rob the Bank of Nova Scotia in Halifax. Cleverly, they took advantage of an existing diversion–a circus parade:

      The three were stopped and detained, but were later released. Chief Byrnes incorrectly dates this robbery to the year 1870 (when Hovan was still in Richmond); many other sources repeated this error. The 1876 crime was the first bank robbery in the history of Halifax.

      Hovan may have spent 1877 at home with his wife–she passed away in April, 1877. His remaining daughter, Cellela, died a year later, in 1878, at age 5. Hovan returned to New York and began relations with a new woman, Charlotte Newman Dougherty. She was the wife of Daniel F. “Big Doc” Dougherty, a bank robber who was sent to prison in 1868 for a fifteen year term.

      Charlotte Dougherty, Hovan, Rufus Minor and George Carson teamed up to steal over $250,000 in bonds from James Young, a Wall Street broker. They fled south, but were caught two months later in Petersburg, Virginia; some bonds in a tin box were found in Rufe Minor’s room. The quartet was brought back to New York, but all were released for lack of evidence.

      Hovan returned south to Charleston, South Carolina, and was apprehended while taking $20,000 from a bank; he feigned illness, was taken to a hospital, and escaped.

      He teamed up again with Minor, Carson, and Johnny Jourdan to steal a tin box containing over $60,000 from a Middletown, Connecticut bank on July 27, 1880. All were arrested by November, but tellers could only identify Jourdan.

      Byrnes summarizes Hovan’s next years succinctly:

      “Arrested again in June, 1881, at Philadelphia, Pa., with Frank Buck, alias Bucky Taylor (27), for the larceny of $10,950 in securities from a broker’s safe in that city. He was convicted of burglary, and sentenced to three years in the Eastern Penitentiary, at Philadelphia, Pa., on July 2, 1881, his time to date back to June 6, 1881. He was pardoned out October 30, 1883, on condition that he would go to Washington, D. C, and testify against some officials who were on trial. He agreed to do so if the Washington authorities would have the case against him in Charleston, S. C, settled, which they did. He then gave his testimony, which was not credited by the jury. He remained in jail in Washington until May 10, 1884, when he was discharged.”

      Regaining his freedom, Hovan returned to New York and formally married Charlotte Newman Dougherty (though her husband Big Doc was still alive). In 1885 he traveled to England with Charlotte and Frank Buck. He was caught stealing bank notes there and was thrown into an English prison for three years. After serving his term, he returned to North America via Canada. He was caught stealing from a bank in Montreal, but was released on bail, and fled to the United States. A month later, in December 1888, he and Walter Sheridan attempted to rob the People’s Savings Bank in Denver, Colorado. They were caught, made bail, and fled.

      Horace returned to Europe with his brother Preston in 1889. He and Preston had very similar looks, so one of their tricks was to have Preston publicly escort Charlotte around in hotels, at the same time that Horace was stealing from banks. Later, Horace could claim that he had been with his wife, a fact verified by many impeccable witnesses. In 1890, Horace and another American thief, Billy Porter, were arrested in Toulouse, France for burglary, but both only served a few months in jail.

      Horace and Charlotte lived quietly in England for the next few years, but in 1895 he was arrested in Frankfort, Germany. Charlotte died in England sometime during this period. From Germany, Hovan’s activities are unknown–it may be he was imprisoned there for several years. He returned to the United States in bad health sometime after 1900. Upon meeting detective Robert Pinkerton, he begged for help in finding an honest job. Pinkerton helped set him up as an elevator operator–a job he held for at least six or seven years. He was exposed by William Pinkerton in a newspaper article, bragging about his brother’s role in Hovan’s reform; this may have brought Hovan unwanted scrutiny.

      In 1913, newspaper reports claimed Hovan and his old partner Big Ed Rice were caught stealing from a bank cashier in Munich, Germany. Horace would have been 63, and Rice was older, 72. However, in 1923 an article appeared saying that Hovan was still in the elevator business, and was now a manager–and had been reformed for twenty years.

      After that 1923 mention, Hovan’s name in public records disappears. He would have been about 70 years old in 1923.

#83 John Jourdan

~ jpkntz

Johnny Jourdan (1850-1893), aka Jonathan Jamison, Henry Osgood, Jonathan E. Brown — Sneak thief

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-six years old in 1886. Born in United States. Married. No trade. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, 150 pounds. Light brown hair, dark eyes, dark complexion, long slim nose, pock-marked. Cross in India ink on left fore-arm; number “6” on back of one arm; wreath, with the word “Love” in it, on left arm.

RECORD Johnny Jourdan is a professional safe-blower and sneak thief, and has worked with the best safemen and sneaks in America, and has quite a reputation for getting out of toils when arrested. He was arrested in Philadelphia, Pa., and sentenced to four years in the Eastern Penitentiary in August, 1874, under the name of Jonathan Jamison. He was again arrested in New York City in November, 1880, and confined in the Tombs prison, charged with robbing the Middletown Bank, of Connecticut, in July, 1880, where the gang, Rufe Minor, George Carson and Horace Hovan, obtained some $48,000 in money and bonds. Jourdan played sick, and was transferred from the prison to Bellevue Hospital, from which place he escaped on Thursday, April 14, 1881.

      In the fall of 1884 Jourdan made up a party consisting of Philly Phearson (5), Johnny Carroll, “The Kid” (192), and Old Bill Vosburg (4). They traveled around the country, and did considerable bank sneaking. They tried to rob a man in a bank at Rochester, N.Y., but failed. They followed him from the bank to a hotel, and while he was in the water-closet they took a pocket-book from him, but not the one with the money in it. Phearson and Carroll escaped. Jourdan and Vosburg were arrested and sentenced to two years and six months for assault in the second degree, by Judge John S. Morgan, on June 15, 1885. Jourdan gave the name of Henry Osgood. He is well known in all the principal cities in America, and is considered one of the cleverest men in America in his line. His picture is a very good one, taken in 1877.

      Although Johnny Jourdan and his sisters Margaret (Maggie) and Josephine were said to have come from a good family, all three were well immersed in the New York City criminal underground. As yet, the parents have not been identified. One sister, Josephine Jourdan, married Francis “Frank” J. Houghtaling, a clerk for the Jefferson Market Police Court (where Johnny once said he worked as a janitor). This was a Tammany Hall patronage position, used to collect bribes. Houghtaling was exposed, and forced out of his position.

      The other sister, “Maggie” Jourdan, became an infamous figure in New York City after aiding in the escape of William J. Sharkey, a burglar, gambler, and minor Tammany Hall politician. Sharkey killed a man over a gambling debt and was held in the Tombs, the city detention center, during his trial. Maggie and another woman sneaked in some women’s clothing to him, which he donned and exited the jail using one of the women’s passes. At the time, it was called the most daring jailbreak in America. Sharkey fled to Cuba where Maggie joined him; but after he mistreated her, she returned to New York.

      Maggie later married a famous Irish-American music hall singer, William J. “Billy” Scanlan. After his death in 1898, she married Scanlan’s agent, the wealthy New York City impresario, Augustus Pitou. Maggie Pitou lived out her life as a member of New York City’s elite, dying in 1938.

      Her brother Johnny, alas, had a much worse and shorter life. As a teen, he was arrested as a New York pickpocket. In 1871, he stole $2000 in stamps from a Bridgeport, Connecticut post office; two years later he was tracked down and arrested for this crime, but escaped conviction. He migrated to Philadelphia and was quickly arrested for burglary, under the alias Jonathan Jamison. For that crime, in 1874 he was sentenced to five years in Eastern State Penitentiary. He was recommended for a pardon in 1876, but it was refused; it was granted a year later, in 1877 (per a note in his 1885 Sing Sing record).

      After his release, in 1880 he teamed up with Rufus Minor, George Carson, and Horace Hovan to rob a bank in Middletown, Connecticut. He was caught and convicted in 1881, but after being transferred from jail to Bellevue Hospital to have malaria treatment, he escaped from the guards and went on the run.

     Jourdan’s whereabouts between his escape in April 1881 and 1884 are unknown. Byrnes states that in 1884 Jourdan joined Bill Vosburgh, Philly Pearson, and Johnny “The Kid” Carroll to roam the eastern states as bank sneak thieves. Jourdan and Vosburgh were caught trying to steal from a man outside a Rochester, New York bank in April 1885. Johnny Jourdan was sent to Auburn prison and later transferred to Sing Sing to serve a two and a half year sentence.

     Once again, he disappeared after his release from Sing Sing. Writing in his 1895 revised edition, Byrnes says that Jourdan died in England in the fall of 1893, with $10,000-$12,000 on his body. A few years later, a different source said that he had died penniless in a Southhampton, England hotel, year unknown.

     [Note: A complication in researching the career of Johnny Jourdan, criminal, is the prominence of a New York police officer (Captain, later Superintendent) named John Jordan, who died in 1870; and that the spellings Jourdan/Jordan were often used interchangeably.]

#2 David Bliss

~ jpkntz

Thomas W. Lendrum (1847-1904), aka Dr. David C.  “Doc” Bliss — Thief

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-nine years old in 1886. Born in United States. Married. Doctor. Slim build. Height, 5 feet 8 1/2 inches. Weight, 135 pounds. Light colored hair, turning gray. Gray eyes, long face, light complexion. Has a hole on the right side of his forehead.

RECORD. The “Doctor” has a fine education, and is a graduate of a Cincinnati Medical College. He is a southerner by birth, and at one time held a prominent government position. He was caught stealing, however, and was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. Through the influence of his friends he was pardoned, but again drifted back to evil ways. He is pretty well known in most of the eastern cities, and is considered a very clever sneak thief.

      He was arrested in New York City on the arrival of the steamer Providence, of the Fall River Line, from Boston, on December 21, 1880, in company of one Matthew Lane, another thief. They had in their possession a trunk containing $2,500 worth of silverware, etc., the proceeds of several house burglaries in Boston, Mass. They were both taken to Boston by requisition on December 31, 1880, and sentenced to two years each in the House of Correction there.

       Bliss was arrested again in New York City on April 7, 1883, for the larceny of a package containing $35,000 in bonds and stocks from a safe in an office at No. 757 Broadway, New York City. After securing the package of bonds he started down stairs, and on his way dropped into another office, the door of which was standing open, and helped himself to $100 in money that was lying on one of the desks. All of the bonds and stocks were recovered, after which the “Doctor” pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to two years in Sing Sing prison on April 12, 1883. His time expired on January 11, 1885. Bliss’s picture is an excellent one.

   Thomas W.  Lendrum, Doc Bliss, by David Birkey. http://cargocollective.com/dbillustration

      Chief Thomas Byrnes did not devote more than four paragraphs to petty thief Doctor Bliss, but still managed to give Bliss more credit than he deserved for his fabricated background. Bliss may have attended a medical college, but there’s no evidence that he ever practiced medicine, as Byrnes claimed. Byrnes also states that Bliss “at one time held a prominent government position.” Byrnes also may not have been aware that “Bliss” was just an alias.

      According to Allan Pinkerton II, Bliss’s real name was Thomas W. Landrum (with an “a”), though Pinkerton also repeated the stories that Bliss had graduated Cincinnati’s College of Medicine, served in the Confederate army, and came from a prominent Southern family.

      In truth, Bliss’s real name was Thomas Warren Lendrum of Covington, Kentucky, son of John Buckner Lendrum. J. B. Lendrum held the office of city clerk of Covington for many years, and in 1869 pulled some strings to get his son Thomas a job as a night clerk in the Louisville post office. This was the “prominent government position” and the “prominent Southern family.”

      Thomas W. Lendrum never practiced medicine outside prison walls; it would be generous to concede that he may have attended medical school in Cincinnati, but no evidence of that has yet surfaced.

      His criminal career almost never happened. In 1868, at age 21, he was ice skating on the Licking River and fell through, nearly drowning. He sank several times before being pulled to safety by other skaters.

      His position as post office night clerk allowed him the opportunity to purloin letters and keep whatever he found inside the envelopes. It did not take long for authorities in the post office system to notice a problem in Louisville. Lendrum was watched, and was arrested in 1871 with eleven letters in his coat; he also had $1,100 in the bank; several gold watches; and a reported mistress. This was accomplished on an annual salary of $900. He was convicted for this larceny, but was pardoned early.

      Lendrum had adopted the name “David C. Bliss” by 1880. [It is interesting to note this date, because a year later, in 1881, everyone in the country knew of a “Dr. Bliss”–Dr. Willard Bliss, the Army doctor who kept President Garfield alive for three months following his assassination shooting. So Lendrum, to his credit, can not be accused of capitalizing on that unfortunate fame.]

      In 1880, Lendrum and an accomplice, Matthew Lane, were caught returning to New York from Boston with a satchel of stolen silverware. That earned him a two year prison sentence.

      Most of Lendrum’s crimes were too small to merit notice in newspapers, but in 1883, he went into a New York publisher’s office and extracted $35,000 in securities from a safe. Once again, he was sent to Sing Sing for two years. By one account, his medical school experience earned him the job of prison medical orderly.

      In late 1892, Lendrum was arrested with 16 others in a New York “fence” establishment, where thieves brought stolen goods to dispose of. While stuck in the city detention center, the Tombs, for the month of December, Lendrum magnanimously sent a letter and a donation to the New York World’s Christmas Tree fund for hungry poor children.

      Arrested with Lendrum, on that occasion, were two women, Sarah Elsie Byrne and Lillian Stevens. It was reported that Bliss (Lendrum) had been living with Byrne for some time. A year later, Lendrum and Lillian Stevens were arrested for shoplifting a sable fur from a store in Boston; and months later, for stealing hair tresses from a wig-maker in New York.

      In 1900, Lendrum was picked up in St. Louis for shoplifting an overcoat. He was found to be wearing a coat with many secret pockets, and a vest with reversible sides that could change color with a simple re-buttoning. A few months later, he was arrested again in Chicago.

      By 1903, Bliss was 57 years old. He was arrested in Baltimore for stealing a satchel belong to a messenger for a Baltimore Bank. Six months later, he passed away while in the Baltimore City jail. Just before his death, he made an offer the leave his meager fortune to the Volunteers of America, a charitable group. However, the will stating that wish was not witnessed properly, so Lendrum’s last attempt at goodness fell short. They did not want his money anyway.