#11 John Larney

~ jpkntz ~ 1 Comment

John Larney (1836?-19??), aka Mollie or Molly Matches, et al. — Pickpocket, Bank Burglar

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-seven years old in 1886. Born in United States. Married. No trade. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 7 inches. Weight, 160 pounds. Brown hair, hazel eyes. Wears a No. 7 shoe, and generally wears a full dark beard. He has two upper teeth out on right side; also a small India-ink mark between thumb and forefinger of left hand. Straight nose. Part of an anchor on one arm.

RECORD. “Mollie Matches,” or John Larney, which is his right name, although a talented thief, was always an outspoken one. He makes his home in Cleveland, O.; wears fine clothes, which is his weakness; seldom indulges in liquor, never to excess; he has an aversion to tobacco. When he settled down in Cleveland, in 1875, he said he was going to live honestly if the police would let him. For some reason or another he failed to do so. The great fault with Mollie was the freedom with which he talked of his affairs, to which failing he ultimately owed his downfall.

      The act that made Larney notorious and gave him his alias was on the occasion of a large celebration in New York City, when he was a boy. He disguised himself as a match girl, and, basket in hand, mingled with the crowds in the streets. Being slight in form and having delicate features, the boy had no difficulty in carrying out the deception. His day’s work, it is said, netted him over $2,000, and the nickname of “Mollie Matches.” During the war Mollie attained great eminence as a bounty jumper. He says that he enlisted in ninety-three Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York regiments.

      Being of a frugal disposition, and having an eye to comfort in his old age, he invested in property in Toronto and Silver Creek, Canada, which he still holds under the name of John Dolan. Later he bought real estate in Cleveland, O. Mollie Matches has become pretty well known all over the United States. At the age of thirty-three years he had served eleven years in various reformatories and penal institutions, and was still indebted twelve years’ time to others from which he had escaped. He still owes six years to a Massachusetts State prison where he was sentenced to for seven years. He staid there just nine months; he had the freedom of the jail-yard on account of his eyesight failing him; he finally recovered his liberty and eyesight both.

      About seven years after his escape he was again sent to the same prison, which was in Salem, and served a sixteen months’ sentence without being recognized. The adventures through which this man passed are wonderful. He is believed to have realized by his tricks about $150,000, a large portion of which he has paid out lately to lawyers. Mollie was convicted at Galesburg, Ill., for robbing the Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank of that city, and was sentenced to ten years in State prison at Joliet, Ill., on July 17, 1882. At a trial in Cleveland, O., on January 14, 1885, the above bank obtained a judgment of $12,000 against Mollie. An associate of his, Eddie Guerin, testified on this trial as follows:

      “After I had concluded that the Galesburg Bank was an easy one to work, I sent for ‘Mollie Matches’ and two others. They agreed with me. One of them went to a neighboring town and hired a horse and wagon containing a large dry goods box. We hitched the team near the bank about noon. ‘Mollie’ watched the president and treasurer go out of the bank, and immediately entered it and went to the cashier and proceeded to buy a New York draft, with small silver, making much noise. Another man stood near by holding up a paper that screened the third man, who sneaked in and took $9,600 off the desk alongside the cashier, while Mollie was arguing with him about the draft. Mollie admitted to the cashier that he had made a mistake as to the amount of money he had with him, and gathering up what he had, said he would go for some more.”

      Once outside, the ‘look-out,’ the sneak and Mollie (the ‘stall’) jumped into the wagon, and were driven by the fourth man to the railroad depot, and all escaped.

      It was months afterwards that Mollie was arrested in Cincinnati, O., on December 21, 1881, and taken back to Galesburg for trial. His picture is a fair one, although a copy.

      John Larney, known better as “Molly Matches,” was perhaps the most well-known American pickpocket of the nineteenth century. Chief Byrnes’ account of his career is basically correct, but four years earlier, in 1882, the Cleveland Leader published its own biographical account of Larney’s origins that is richer in detail (and likely more accurate):

      Following the Civil War (in which he admirably enlisted–by his count–93 times in order to receive the bounties), Larney settled in Cleveland, Ohio, and bought some property under the name John Dolan. He married a Cleveland woman, Mary Sullivan, in August 1866. He opened a saloon, but most of his income came from long-distance pickpocket tours. He knew every technique of working crowds, train stations, seaside resorts, fairs, passenger steamers…anyplace people jostled together. Often, Larney directed a team that worked in conjunction with one another: one creating a distraction, one stalling the victim with a bump or misdirection, another dipping into pockets or purses, and another cruising quickly past to take the purloined property from the “dip.” But in a pinch, Larney could work alone.

      Chief Byrnes points out that Larney was a versatile criminal, as witnessed by his involvement in a robbery by sneak thieves of a bank in Galesburg, Illinois in July, 1879. The gang included Jimmy “Nosy Jones” Carroll (aka “Red-Headed Jimmy”), Patrick”Paddy” Guerin, and Billy Burke (a husband of Sophie Lyons). With the spoils, Larney bought property in Canada under the name “John Dolan,” and while there also decided to acquire a second wife, Catharine Flight.

      During the period around 1879-1880, there’s an anecdote about Larney that demonstrates one of his talents:

Examples of the different looks of Molly Matches can be found in Grannan’s pocket guide to criminals:

      Larney was tracked down for the Galesburg robbery in 1881–which precipitated his divorce from Mary Sullivan–and in 1882 was sent to Joliet on a ten-year sentence. With time reduced, he was freed in the fall of 1888.

      He returned briefly to Cleveland before embarking on a pickpocket tour of Ontario with his friend Joe Dubuque. He was arrested in Toronto, but turned loose for lack of evidence. He returned to Ohio, only to be nabbed for plying his skills in Ashtabula County in mid-1889. That slip sent Larney to the Ohio State Penitentiary from 1889 to 1892.

      After this release from prison, Larney returned to Ontario; in Toronto he was arrested for fleecing an English gentleman–not by picking his pockets–but by running a con game. Escaping a serious sentence, Larney invaded Vermont and was caught picking pockets in Burlington, Vermont, in 1894. This resulted in a prison term of four years.

      Upon his release in 1898, Larney went back to Canada and was arrested for picking pockets; but while detained, officials there realized that the old bigamy charge against Larney had never been resolved, so he was sent to St.-Vincent-de-Paul Penitentiary on a seven-year sentence, which with reduced time allowed him freedom by 1904.

      Molly Matches was now about sixty-eight years old; ten years earlier, authorities thought that he was too old to pick pockets. Nonetheless, Larney teamed up with an even older criminal, known by the aliases “W. H. Bankhard,” “Joseph Brown,” and “W. H. Brown,” and “William Phillips.” [None of these names match notorious criminals; could it have been the infamous Chicago pickpocket, Cabbage Ryan? Or Joe Dubuque?] They also recruited some younger accomplices, and set out on a pickpockets’ tour. They were arrested together in York, Pennsylvania; but were soon released.

      The old pickpockets then traveled across the country to Southern California, with the object of hitting fairs, funerals, and passengers trains going up the Pacific coast. Starting around Christmas, 1904, along with two young assistants they were responsible for a string of reported robberies on passengers on trains and at streetcar depots between San Diego and Los Angeles. They were briefly detained, but on release hit the crowds at the funeral of Jane Lathrop Stanford.

      The gang passed through San Francisco on their way to Portland, where the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition was underway. Police now had matched the descriptions of the Los Angeles detainees and knew that Larney was leading the gang. Alerts appeared in papers in San Francisco, San Jose, Portland, and Tacoma. By the time the four men arrived in Tacoma, detectives were ready for them. They were arrested on suspicion, and the news was blared on page one:

      Larney took the setback in stride, and appeared jaunty and healthy when posed for his picture, sporting a white goatee and a captain’s hat:

      Larney, with or without his companions, left Tacoma and was back east by August, 1905. He was picked up by Philadelphia detectives who had chased him to Somers Point, near Atlantic City, New Jersey. That was his final known misadventure.

#202 Charles Williamson

~ jpkntz

Charles H. Perrin (Abt. 1844-191?), aka Charles Stevens, Charles J. Williamson, Charles P. Hall, Charles Cherwood, George A. Vincent, etc.   — Burglar, forger, swindler

Link to Byrnes’s entry on #202 Charles Williamson

      Chief Inspector Byrnes named Perrin as “Charles Williamson, alias Perrine” and described him as “one of the most extraordinary criminals this country has ever produced.” “Extraordinary” may have been the right word, but should not be equated with “successful” or “skilled.” Most of Perrin’s adult life was spent behind bars, and his main talent was sheer brazenness.

      Perrin was born to Solon and Jane Perrin of Fort Covington, New York, just a few miles from the St. Lawrence River on the Little Salmon River. The Perrins were respectable people in the community; by one account Solon served as a physician, and by another he acted as Sheriff. Charles was mentioned as being noted at school for his “careless and daredevil performances.” His father Solon became ill in the mid 1850s, and died when Charles was thirteen. Charles was taken in by his uncle, Henry J. Perrin, who found work for him in the printing shop of the Franklin Gazette, located in Fort Covington.

      Charles, at age 18, joined the Union Army when the Civil War broke out, though little is known of his service record. At the close of the war, he returned to New York City, where he found employment as a printer foreman in the stationers/publishers shop of Scott & Porter on Fulton Street. One night in January, 1866, one of the proprietors, Mr. Porter, from the street saw someone entering the locked storefront with a key–no one was supposed to be there. Porter summoned the police, and after a search they found Perrin inside, trying to hide himself under pieces of coal in the coal bin. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to three years at Sing Sing State Prison.

      Byrnes cites an 1869 warehouse robbery on Howard Street as one of Perrin’s crimes, committed under the alias of Stevens, but the crime occurred on January 24th a mile away at 12 Dey St., at the location of Hugh McKay, silk importers. Perrin was arrested and convicted under the name Charles Stevens, and given a sentence of 4 years six months at Sing Sing. [Note that Sing Sing’s intake registers for these months of late 1868-early 1869 do not exist, so the evidence is only found in newspaper accounts.] After his release in mid 1873–having made many criminal contacts while behind bars–Perrin moved on to the realm of forgeries–not as the “penman,” but as a self-assured front man whose job it was to gain the trust of suspicious financial bankers and trade fraudulent stock bonds.

      In mid-1873, Perrin joined with a half dozen other criminal luminaries in a giant conspiracy to flood Wall Street with forged railroad company bonds. The ringleaders of this endeavor were  longtime criminals Andrew L. “Andy” Roberts and Valentine “Frank” Gleason, an engraver who was born into a family of counterfeiters. Joining the ring were Spencer “Spence” Pettis, an ambitious but weaselly forger; Walter Sheridan (#8), one of the most successful thieves and forgers of the 19th century; and Steve Raymond (#55), an English forger. Two others provided support in the form of references and introductions: shady broker Charles B. Orvis and a wealthy New York dental surgeon with many unsavory associations, Dr. Alvah Blaisdell (misspelled by Byrnes as “Blaisell”).

      Perrin escaped from capture of the ring members with his share: between $80,000-$100,000. He then likely headed to England with Steve Raymond. However, he impetuously decided to come back to New York in 1875 and posed as Charles Farnham, an investment banker looking to enter a partnership with a legitimate brokerage firm. He was taken in by Rollins Brothers, bankers. While there he tried to insert forged bonds into the company’s transactions, but was discovered before much damage could be done. He was arrested and kept locked up in the Tombs, the city detention center, until his trial in October, 1876. He was hit with forty-eight indictments dating back to the 1873 railroad bond forgeries, so the sentence passed on him was stiff: ten years, plus another five. He was sent back to Sing Sing that month.

      Sing Sing had a justly deserved reputation for holes in its security, which did not take long for Perrin to exploit. In 1904, a former prisoner, known only as “Number 1500,” recalled “Charley” Perrin, aka Williamson:

      “Although he was a bold and merciless crook, he was an exceedingly well-educated man, and he could think harder and longer than any one else I ever met in prison. His mind must have had magnificent training from some competent person, for he could quickly acquire knowledge and retain it in its original accuracy apparently for an indefinite time. His mental equipment was peculiar in that it exhibited a remarkable power in every task to which he applied it, except in the development of a criminal project. In this line, his own chosen life, he had no more ability than an idiot. He often explained to me plans for some stupendous rascality that were so foolish as to lead me to doubt his sanity. Certainly nature never intended him for a rogue. He had, however, succeeded in one great criminal undertaking and obtained a large sum of money, the credit of which enterprise he unjustly claimed from his more capable associates…

      “…It was on a warm June night of the next year [1877] that Williamson took his departure. He was employed in the bakery, then situated on the river front, and his occupation demanded his labor in the evening after the other inmates had been locked in their cells. The darkness of night had just fallen when the bakery was discovered to be on fire. In the excitement of extinguishing the flames Williamson’s flight was not for a time discovered. He had eluded the guards and run along the river front northward to the railway station. There he entered the Hudson and swam to its channel, a mile and a half away. He remained in the water until nearly midnight when he hailed the captain of a passing boat bound for New York. He impressed the master of the vessel with his sincerity in offering a liberal reward for his aid and in due time was landed in the city. The promise of substantial pay was faithfully redeemed and in a few weeks Williamson was safe in England. There he found friends who, like himself, had fled their country for their own and their country’s good and engaged with them in a scheme to rob a great London bank.”

      Byrnes’ summary of Perrin’s time in England are correct; he fell in with some other American forgers, tried to pass altered checks against the Central Bank of London, Southwark branch, and was captured. Perrin was sentenced to ten years at Newgate Prison under the name Charles Cherwood. There, he demonstrated some of his “stupendous rascality” by suggesting he be employed by British authorities:

      Instead, British prosecutors suggested to Perrin that his sentence could be reduced simply by informing against his accomplices in England: Dan Noble, John “Clutch” Donohue, and Joe Chapman. Perrin complied, and was released in 1883 after serving half of his sentence.

      Perrin returned to the United States via Canada, came to New York briefly, and headed west, to St. Louis. There he was caught on February 28, 1884 attempting to pass an altered check at the St. Louis National Bank. He gave his name as “George A. Vincent,” but papers found on him included letters and clippings indicating that he was a seasoned forger. His identity was confirmed by New York detectives, but proceedings against him in St. Louis continued. He was convicted and sentenced to ten years in the Missouri State Prison at Jefferson City.

      Perrin was released from Jefferson City in August, 1892, having had two years reduced from his sentence. Waiting for him at the prison gate were officers from New York, who arrested him and took him back to Sing Sing to serve out the fifteen year sentence that he had so rudely declined to endure earlier. He was later transferred from Sing Sing to Clinton State Penitentiary in Dannemora, New York.

      Perrin was finally released from Clinton on February 20, 1902. He was now 57-58 years old, and had spent 31 of his previous 36 years of adult life behind bars. However, he was still a man of surprises. From Dannemora, Perrin got on a train south to Troy, New York, where he met a woman with whom he had been corresponding through the mail while in prison. They got married that same night. Her given name was Mary Ann Smith, a former farm girl from a modest family of Cazenovia, New York–but she was not without a fascinating history of her own.

      Mary Ann was born around 1862, and in her late teens migrated to New York City and took a job in a cigarette factory. According to one story, a picture was taken of the factory girls, and Mary Ann’s attractiveness created a stir. However, by another story, she followed a brother, an actor, to the city; and she worked at A. T. Stewart’s, one of the first department stores; and later as a waitress in a coffee house. She came home to Cazenovia in the summers to escape the heat of the city.

      Around the winter of 1883-1884, she met Jacob H. Vanderbilt, a widower son of Captain J. H. Vanderbilt of Staten Island, and a nephew of magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the richest men in the world. Later, during divorce proceedings, Jacob Jr. would claim that he met Mary Ann while she using the alias “Violet Smith,” and that she worked in a “house of ill-fame” and in alliance with a bunco steerer (a recruiter for rigged gambling operations). Upon their meeting, Jacob Jr. became enthralled with Mary Ann, and even came to visit in Cazenovia in the summers of 1884 and 1885, where he would arrange rendezvous with her. Jacob realized his family would never approve of her, but secretly married her anyway in April of 1886–they both used assumed names. Vanderbilt installed her in an apartment in Manhattan, but word soon leaked out to his father.

      Jacob Sr. told him the marriage was unacceptable, that he had to get rid of her or else he would be disinherited. Jacob Jr. relented, and told Mary Ann they would have to separate, and that she would be given $1000. Mary Ann hired an attorney instead, and what had been a private matter became a very public scandal, with public sentiment on Mary Ann’s side. They eventually settled out of court, with Mary Ann getting a substantial yearly allowance. Jacob Jr. was banished by the family to Seattle, where he took over as a bank president and remarried.

      Mary Ann stayed at her Manhattan apartment, occasionally running into her Vanderbilt relatives, much to their embarrassment. It was there that she entered into a correspondence with prisoner “Charles P. Hall,”  (the name Perrin now sported.) After the two met and married in Troy, they returned to Manhattan, where Perrin enjoyed a bit of the good life thanks to the gratuity of the Vanderbilts.

      Mary Ann, still known to the public as “Mrs. Jacob Vanderbilt,” further tweaked her former in-laws by opening a tea room/smoking room catering to women on fashionable Fifth Avenue. In 1903, the idea of women smoking in public–especially at a high society address–was heartily criticized.

      Meanwhile, the urge to pursue his own schemes overtook Perrin’s judgment (as it always had in the past). Perrin started to make regular visits to New Brunswick, New Jersey, in order to convince people there to invest in an electric water filtration plant:

      While the water filtration scam was percolating, Perrin also joined a cabal of corrupt New York real estate agents and lawyers in their efforts to run fire insurance frauds. Perrin had his new wife, under the name “Emily O. Hall” buy a house in Dutchess County, New York. Two days after they (supposedly) moved in, the place burned to the ground. Hall was arrested and accused of arson, but in order to have the charges dropped, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and name his co-conspirators. Needless to say, the publicity about the arson made its way to New Brunswick, killing any last hopes Perrin had of scamming investors there.

      Both Charles H. Perrin and Mary Ann Smith disappeared from the public record after 1904. It could be that Mary Ann was mortified to learn that Perrin had returned to his criminal ways; or it could be that they vanished into new, different aliases together, and surfaced somewhere unexpected with new plans, scams, and scandals–yet to be uncovered by researchers.

#68 John Love

~ jpkntz

John Edward Love (1844-1914), aka Johnny Love, Jack Love, James Long, John Lynch, James D. Wells — Burglar, Bank Robber

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-two years old in 1886. Born in United States. Medium build. Plane-maker by trade. Married. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, 140 pounds. Sandy-brown hair, gray eyes, florid complexion. Generally wears reddish-brown mustache. Has figures “33” in India ink on left leg, also letters “J. L.” on each arm.

RECORD. Love, alias James D. Wells, is a clever store and bank burglar. He has had considerable luck in escaping punishment considering his long career of crime. He is a desperate man and will shoot on the first opportunity, and is well known in most of the Eastern States as a leader of a desperate gang of burglars. He was implicated with Langdon W. Moore, alias Charley Adams (22), and George Mason, alias Gordon (24), for the robbery of the Warren Savings Bank and the Post-office in Charlestown, Mass., on December 4, 1879. Mason, on whose testimony Adams was convicted, refused to testify in any manner against Love, and he was not indicted. Mason was afterwards sentenced to three years in the House of Correction, and Moore, or Adams, received sixteen years.

      Love was traveling around the country with Johnny Dobbs and his gang, and was the fifth man that escaped from an officer at Lawrence, Mass., on March 3, 1884, when the rest of them were arrested. He and others were concerned in the robbery of the post-office in Gloucester, Mass., in March, 1884, also the post-office in Concord, N.H., and several other robberies in New England. Love was formerly the partner of “Jack” Welsh, alias “John the Mick,” who killed “Jack” Irving, and who in turn was killed by Wm. O’Brien, alias “Billy Porter” (74), Irving’s partner, in a saloon on Sixth Avenue, New York City, on October 20, 1883. John Love, alias “James D. Wells;” Charles Lowery, alias ” William Harris,” alias “Hill,” of Canada; George Havill, alias “Harry Thorn,” alias “Joseph Cook (15), of Chicago, Ill. ; Frank McCrann, alias “Wm. McPhearson,” alias “Big Frank,” and Mike Blake, alias “Mike Kerwin,” alias “Barney Oats,” alias “Little Mickey,” of Pittsburg, Pa., were arrested near Elmira, N.Y., on February 14, 1885, for the robbery of the Osceola, Pa., Bank on the night of February 13, 1885. The bank vault was built of solid masonry two feet thick, but the concussion of the dynamite cartridge used was so great that the neighbors heard the explosion and notified the proprietors of the bank, who in turn notified a constable. The latter gathered a posse and pursued the burglars, who had escaped in a sleigh. They drove at such a furious rate that their team soon gave out. At that moment, a farmer came from his stable with a fresh horse and sleigh, which the robbers appropriated without ceremony and continued their flight. When within four miles of Elmira, N.Y., the gang was cornered, having been traced by their tracks in the snow. Lowery, a most desperate fellow, fired two shots at Constable Blanchard, one of them slightly wounding him in the arm. The marshal, joined by others, gave chase to the burglars across Mount Zoar, and a running fire was kept up. The pursuers were joined by other officers from Elmira, and when near that city two of the desperadoes were captured. One of them, Mike Blake, alias Kerwin, was shot through the wrist; John Love, alias Wells, Frank McCrann, alias McPhearson, and George Havill, alias Harry Thorn, alias Cook, the other members of the gang, were chased until evening, when they were captured and placed in jail at Elmira, N.Y. The robbery was small, amounting to about $1,500, of which $500 was in silver and was nearly all dropped by the burglars in their flight. Charles Lowery, alias Wm. Harris, alias Hill, is without doubt one of the most desperate criminals in America. After his arrest, he was also charged with the murder of the town marshal of Shelby, Ohio; and a $6,000 burglary at Gait, Ont.; also a $10,000 jewelry robbery in Montreal, Canada. While Lowery and another burglar named Andrews were in a bank cashier’s house at Belleville, Ont., they were surprised and captured. Lowery, a short time before that, had killed a hackman. In this case he escaped his just deserts through numerous appeals and the diplomacy of his wife, who lived in Toronto, Canada. He was convicted in the Osceola Bank case, and sentenced to ten years in State prison on April 9, 1885. Love was sentenced to nine years and eleven months, Havill to nine years and nine months, Frank McCrann to nine years and seven months, and Mike Blake to nine years and six months, in the same case and on the same day (April 9, 1885). Love’s picture resembles him very much, taken in July, 1882.

      Thomas Byrne’s recitation of John Love’s record is accurate from 1879 forward, including the litany of infamous criminals whom Love accompanied on those jobs:

  • The robbery of the Post Office and the Warren Savings Bank in Charlestown, MA on December 4, 1879 with Langdon Moore (#22) and George Mason (#24).
  • The capture of the “Johnny Dobbs Gang” (Dobbs was John/Michael Kerrigan, #64) in Lawrence, Massachusetts on March 3, 1884, following a string of post office robberies in Massachusetts towns and in Concord, New Hampshire.
  • The capture of Love and four other nationally-known criminals in Elmira, New York, following the robbery of an Osceola, Pennsylvania bank on February 14, 1885. Two of the others involved were Charles Lowery and George Havill (#15). In Byrnes’s 1886 edition, Love’s portrait caption indicates that “Lowrey” was one of Love’s aliases, but that is not repeated in Byrne’s profile of Love, nor in any newspaper accounts; perhaps it was referencing the different man, Charles Lowery?

      The chase of the Osceola bank robbers was even more thrilling than Byrne’s account. The February 14, 1885 edition of the Buffalo Commercial reprinted an account from Elmira:

      Curiously, Byrnes omits mention of all of Love’s New York convictions:

  • in 1869 he was arrested under the name James Long for burglary, and sent to Sing Sing on a five year sentence
  • in 1875, he was arrested as John Lynch for burglary, and again sent to Sing Sing for one year
  • In 1882, he was arrested with Michael Kurtz for robbery of an Italian bank in New York, but was released for lack of evidence.

      In his 1895 updated edition, Byrnes indicates that Love had reformed. Indeed, in 1892, New York’s Governor issued a restitution to Love of all his citizenship rights, setting aside his 1869 and 1875 convictions–an action that Love must have requested, indicating how much it meant to him. He spent his last two decades as a bookkeeper, living in the Bronx with his wife and two sons. Love, who came from a good family, left his sons a small fortune in a trust account, not to be available to them until they were thirty years old–Love apparently wanted to make sure his sons learned an honest trade.

#52 William Pease

~ jpkntz

William G. Pease (Abt. 1840-??), aka William Pierce, William Gerrish, Frank Stewart, William Carter, William Clark–Boarding house thief, store thief

From Byrnes’ text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-five years old in 1886. Born in United States. Slim build. A painter and sailmaker by trade. Married. Dark complexion, dark blue eyes. Height, 5 feet 5 inches. Weight, about 135 pounds. Dark brown hair, sharp face; has a scar near the crown of head. Has a cross and the letters “C. I.” in India ink on right arm ; also dots on left arm and near left thumb.

RECORD. Billy Pease is an old and very expert burglar and boarding-house thief, and is well known in the principal Eastern cities. He was arrested in New York City on June 8, 1876, for having burglars’ tools in his possession, and sentenced to one year in the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island. He was shortly after discharged, and robbed a boarding-house at No. 22 Irving Place, with one George Harrison. He was arrested again on September 16, 1877, by the same officer, in New York City, for an attempt at burglary at No. 12 Avenue A, for which he pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to two years and six months in State prison on September 27, 1877, by Judge Gildersleeve, in the Court of General Sessions, New York City. Nothing further that is authentic appears upon the record to date. Pease’s picture is a very good one, taken in 1877.

      Chief Byrnes muddied the waters quite a bit in his 1886 recitation of the record of William Pease. None of the arrests and convictions mentioned in the 1886 edition for Billy Pease were made under the name “Pease,” complicating the matter. Byrnes cites Pease being involved in a September, 1877 burglary at 12 Avenue A; but the three men arrested and convicted for that crime do not match Pease’s physical description, criminal record, age or background.

      Fortunately, Byrnes’ 1895 edition left out all mention of Pease’s earlier record and gave accurate accounts of his 1883 arrest and jailing and his subsequent arrest, jailing and escape in late 1888 and early 1889. Byrnes is also correct in stating that that is where all trace of Pease ends.

      Pease hailed from the whaling port area of Massachusetts, and though he used many different aliases when arrested, always seemed willing to give his birthplace as that region. His parentage has not been identified, but those ports were full of many members of the Pease family (and also the Gerrish family, which is one of the first aliases used by Pease).

      Pease’s more accurate arrest record–thanks to the good record-keeping at Sing Sing admissions–includes:

  • Sent to Sing Sing in October 1866 as William Gerrish
  • Sent to Sing Sing in November 1867 as William Pierce
  • Sent to Sing Sing in January 1877 as Frank Stewart (and likely was still in Sing Sing at the time of September 1877 burglary that Byrnes cited)
  • Sent to Sing Sing in October 1878 as William Carter
  • Sent to Sing Sing on an eight-year sentence in March 1883 as William Clark
  • Arrested in Troy NY in December 1888 for a burglary in South Shaftsbury, Vermont. Escaped from a Bennington, Vermont jail in July, 1889 while awaiting trial.

      During the early-1870s, Pease had a wife and two children living with him in New York: wife Louisa Tyler, daughter Louisa (b. 1872), and son Alfred E. Pease (b. 1875). The wife and children can’t be found after the mid-1870s; one possibility is that they gave up on William Pease after all his imprisonments, changed their name, and moved away.

#35 Robert S. Ballard

~ jpkntz

R. S. Ballard (Abt. 1835-1895?), aka Robert S. Bullard, William C. Russell, Henry C. Maltby, etc. — check forger, bigamist

From Byrnes’ text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-nine years old in 1886. Born in Ireland. Married. Physician. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 6 inches. Weight, 137 pounds. Dark hair mixed with gray, blue eyes, dark complexion. Has a wart on left side of his nose.

RECORD. Ballard, alias Harvey C. Bullard, alias W. C. Russell, alias Henry C. Maltby, was arrested in New York City on March 31, 1883, for swindling Ferdinand P. Earle, of Earle’s Hotel, out of $150 by means of a worthless check. He was also charged with bigamy and swindling. He was at one time a practicing physician, and connected with one of the New York hospitals. He was also wanted at the time of his arrest for swindling by the use of bogus checks and other devices, in New York City, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Providence, R.I., Baltimore, Md., Atlantic City, N.J., Brooklyn, N.Y., and Philadelphia, Pa.

      In 1881 he married a Miss Amelia Black, at Poughkeepsie, and deserted her a few days afterward. In November, 1882, he married Miss Annie Van Houten in Baltimore, and brought her to New York, where he deserted her at Earle’s Hotel, after swindling the proprietor. At the time of his arrest, in his valise was found hundreds of bogus checks and drafts, signed R. S. Ballard, Riggs & Co., R. S. Riggs, W. C. Riggs & Co., for sums ranging from $500 to $6,000, all bearing recent dates; and also a large number of check and bank books. One of the latter showed an alleged deposit of $15,900 in the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York. Another exhibited a credit of $10,600 on a Tarrytown, N.Y., bank, and the third represented a deposit of $14,594 in the Western International Bank of Baltimore, Md. He had checks of banks in nearly every prominent city in America. The Bankers’ and Brokers’ Association offered a reward of $1,000 for his arrest under the name of W. C. Russell. Ballard pleaded guilty on May 2, 1883, in the Court of General Sessions, New York City, and was sentenced to five years in State prison by Recorder Smyth. His sentence expires, allowing him full commutation, on December 1, 1886. His picture is an excellent one, taken in 1883.

      There are many men and women in Chief Byrnes’ book that defy research and remain ciphers, but few are more mysterious and erratic than R. S. Ballard (the earliest name under which he can be traced). Byrnes arrested him and sent him to Sing Sing for three years in 1883; and probably gave him the “third degree,” but no details he offered about his early life can be verified, except that he was born around 1835 in Ireland (he was said to have a strong northern Irish accent). Byrnes states that he was at one time a practicing physician connected with a New York hospital, but this seems doubtful–see clipping below.

       The earliest trace of Ballard is from the 1880 census, where “R. S. Ballard” (already 45 years old, born in Ireland) was working near Morristown, New Jersey as an attendant at the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum. An 1883 article from the New York Times has Ballard giving his true name as William C. Russell:

      However, this version omits his tenure as an asylum attendant in New Jersey, and contains no facts that have been verified, other than that 1881 marked the year he turned to crime.

      In mid-1881, Ballard moved from Morristown, New Jersey, to Newburgh, New York, and took up residence in a boarding house run by a Mrs. Brock. He paid his rent on time, but did not appear to be employed. Letters found in his room indicate that he applied for a job at the Hudson River State Hospital (asylum) in Poughkeepsie. He paid great attention to Mrs. Brock’s 28-year-old daughter, Amelia Brock, and proposed to her. She accepted, and they made plans to buy a larger boarding house. To fund this purchase, Ballard started to float forged checks; and when the realization came that they would be verified, he disappeared.

      Over the next couple of months he popped up sporting forged checks in Hartford, Boston, and Providence. By early December he was in Baltimore, where he was introduced to bankers by an acquaintance and was allowed to float a couple of $100 checks, which were declared fraudulent a few days later. On a train from Baltimore, Ballard met a young traveling saleswoman from New York, Annie Marie Wall Van Houten. She had been abandoned by her husband about two years earlier. The two immediately connected, promptly decided to get married, and lodged together at the Earle Hotel in Manhattan. While enjoying their honeymoon, Ballard deposited forged checks into two banks, and then withdrew some of those funds and disappeared. Annie Marie also tried to access those funds and was detained by police.

     A few months later, Chief Byrnes and his detectives caught up with Ballard, and he was sent to Sing Sing. He served three years and was released in 1886, drifted to Philadelphia, floated more bad checks, and was sent to jail again.

     The more interesting story, it appears, is that of Annie Marie Wall Van Houten. Deserted by two husbands (and, perhaps, no less a bigamist than Ballard was), Annie eventually found employment as a detective for Wilkinson’s Detective Agency in New York, managed by a former NYPD and Pinkerton detective. In 1897 she married the boss, but the pairing ended three years later in public fashion:

      Annie lived the rest of her life (she died in 1938) without any further husbands, perhaps tiring of the institution of marriage. Who would not want to sit and trade a few stories with Annie?

#110 Edward Gearing

~ jpkntz

Edward Henry Garing (1848-1923), aka Edward Gearing, Eddie Goodie (Goodrich, Goode, Goody), Henry Miller — Butcher-cart thief

From Byrnes’ text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-eight years old in 1886. Born in New York. Married. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 65 inches. Weight, 145 pounds. Brown hair, gray eyes, fair complexion. Has a goddess of liberty in India ink on left fore-arm, anchor and clasped hands on right fore-arm, and a heart on right hand. Bald in front of head. Generally wears a red mustache and whiskers, which he dyes black occasionally.

RECORD. Eddie Goodie, or Gearing, which is his right name, was the originator of butcher-cart work, in company of Steve Boyle and Big Frank McCoy (89), several years ago. He has been connected with nearly every robbery of that character which has taken place in New York City and vicinity for the last twenty years. He is one of the smartest thieves in America, a man of wonderful audacity and resources. He is so cunning and clever that he has always managed to slip out of the meshes of the law, while others not so crafty or culpable have slipped in. He was arrested in New York City on February 13, 1870, in company of a man who has since reformed, for stealing a case of silk valued at $17,000 from a Custom-house truck. The party arrested with Goodie was sent to prison for five years, he assuming all the blame and swearing that Goodie had nothing to do with the robbery.

      In 1874 Goodie and Mike Hurley, alias Pugsie Hurley (88), robbed a butter merchant in Brooklyn, N.Y. They were let out on bail, which ended it. In 1875 Goodie, Billy Williams, Big John Tracy, and John McKewan robbed William B. Golden, a book-keeper, of $5,000, while he was on his way to pay off the hands of the Badger Iron Works Company, in New York City. The book-keeper left the Dry Dock Bank, then in East Tenth Street, New York, taking a horse-car. Two men entered after him, and seated themselves by his side. Another man, who was on horseback, followed the car. At Fourteenth Street and Avenue D the two men grabbed the money bag and threw it to the man on horseback, who was Goodie, and they all escaped. In 1876 the book-keeper of the Standard Oil Works left their main office, in Pearl Street, New York City, with $8,000 in money, to pay off the hands in Greenpoint. He was followed from New York by Goodie and two other men, who assaulted and robbed him. He was also implicated in robbing the cashier of the Planet Flour Mills, in Brooklyn, N.Y., of $3,500, in March, 1878. Goodie was the driver of the wagon used in the Northampton, Mass., bank robbery in January, 1876, and was an associate of Red Leary, George Bliss, Bob Dunlap, and several other expert bank robbers.

      He was also connected with the Manhattan Bank robbery in New York City, in October, 1878. In the latter part of 1880, Goodie and Willie Farrell (109) robbed a man of $2,200 near the Bank of the Metropolis, New York. They escaped by driving away in a butcher-cart. It was Goodie who drove the butcher-cart when Ruppert’s collector was robbed of $9,600 in money, in East Forty-second Street, New York, in July, 1881. Goodie was the man that was described as wearing a big brown mustache, who jumped over the fence in Jersey City, N.J., on July 18, 1883, when Cashier Smith, of the National Bank of Orange, N.J., was assaulted and an attempt made to rob him of $10,000 in money. Pete Emmerson, alias Banjo Pete (90), Ned Farrell, and John Nugent, the other parties in this robbery, were arrested at the time, and are now in State prison. Goodie was arrested in New York City on February 7, 1884, charged, in connection with William Farrell (109) and James Titterington, with assaulting with a piece of lead pipe and robbing one Luther Church of $2,300, on December 31, 1883. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to twenty years in State prison on February 21, 1884, by Recorder Smyth, in the Court of General Sessions, New York City. Goodie’s picture is a good one, taken in February, 1884.

      “Butcher-cart thieves” used one-horse wagons popular with butchers and other delivery services to accost bank messengers and other delivery men on the street and make quick getaways. Eddie Garing was among the best in this type of crime–Byrnes credits him with originating the technique–but Byrnes leaves out a critical piece of information. [Note that Byrnes and many newspapers used the spelling “Gearing”, but the family preferred “Garing.”]

      Byrnes lists Eddie Garing’s first crime as an 1870 robbery of a case of silk from a Custom-house truck, and mentions that he committed this crime “in the company of a man who has since reformed.” That man, whom Byrnes refused to name, was George Washington Garing, Edward Garing’s older brother. In fact, this brother, also known as “Wash Goodrich,” “Wash Goody,” “William Miller,” and “George Sloan” appears to have been the originator of the cart robbery technique; and he was arrested and convicted more times than his younger brother.

      Byrnes profiled the younger brother only–which demonstrates Byrnes’ peculiar ethical sense. Byrnes, at least in this instance, appeared sensitive to the idea that reformed former convicts should not be outed in public. Moreover, Byrnes’ courtesy was–unfortunately–misplaced. In 1888 (two years after Byrnes published his book) Wash Garing was arrested for stealing a horse and wagon; and was suspected of robbing a feed-store safe along with Herman Palmer.

      Meanwhile, Eddie Garing followed in his brother’s footsteps for 14 years (between 1870 and 1884) without being convicted. For many of those years he was a leader, along with James Titterington and Willie Farrell, of the Mackerelville gang, the terror of the East Side. The luck of Garing and Titterington ran out after they assaulted and nearly killed a man named Luther Church with a lead pipe during one robbery in 1884. For this crime, Eddie was sent to Sing Sing for a twenty year sentence. With time reduced he was released in 1896.

      If Eddie then resumed his criminal career, he was equally lucky in escaping punishment in his late career as he was in his earlier career. He lived in Queens as a house-painter for the rest of his life, dying at age 75, with no further arrests or jail stays on his record.

      Byrnes realized that it was possible for repeat offenders to reform; but in the case of Wash Garing, he miscalculated the man’s resolve. There is no formula to predict how many arrests or years in prison will move a criminal to reform–or whether that experience just encourages a return to crime. Both Garing brothers lived out their last years in freedom, so on their own terms they each decided to live a straight life.

#77 Gustave Kindt

~ jpkntz

Gustave François Kindt (1835-1910), aka Isidore Marechal, French Gus, Frenchy — Thief, Toolmaker, Inventor

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Fifty years old in 1886. Stout build. Born in Belgium, Widower. Height, 5 feet 6 inches. Weight, 180 pounds. Brown hair, keen gray eyes, fresh rosy face, dark complexion. High forehead. Generally wears a gray silky mustache and imperial. He is a square, muscular man. Speaks English fluently. Dresses like a well-to-do mechanic. Has a scar on his left jaw.

RECORD. Kindt, or “Frenchy,” is a celebrated criminal. He came to this country when very young. He is a skillful mechanic, and is credited with being able to fit a key as well, if not better, than any man in America. He also manufactures tools and hires them out to professional burglars on a percentage. In January, 1869, he was sent to Sing Sing prison for ten years for robbing the watch-case manufactory of Wheeler & Parsons, in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he was employed. On February 5, 1871, he escaped from Sing Sing by cutting through the bars of his cell with saws, which friends had managed to convey to him. On October 17, 1872, he was arrested for robbing a jewelry store in Hackensack, N.J., and sent back to Sing Sing prison. He devoted his time to the invention of a lever lock, by which a single key could unlock all or part of the cell doors at once, and offered the lock, which he completed in 1874, to the prison authorities on condition that he should receive his freedom. The proposition was laid before Governor Tilden, who rejected it. “Frenchy” escaped again in 1875, and went to Canada, where he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for robbing a pawnbroker in Montreal. Thirty- seven diamonds, which he had shipped to his daughter in New York, were recovered. After serving out his time in Montreal, where he introduced his lock, he went to St. Albans, Vt., where he was arrested as an escaped convict on February 3, 1880. While on his way back to Sing Sing prison, in custody of an officer of Sing Sing prison, when near Troy, N.Y., on February 4, he made a dash for liberty. He leaped out of the car and ran across the fields. The officer followed and fired one shot. French Gus staggered, put his left hand to his cheek, but kept on. He fired again, and the burglar, flinging his arms in the air, fell headlong to the earth. He had been hit in the cheek and the back of the head. He was carried back to the train, and reached Sing Sing in a dying condition. He recovered, however, and on February 21, 1884, he was discharged, having finally expiated the crime of 1869. Immediately upon his discharge he was arrested and taken to Hackensack, N.J., to be tried for robbing a jewelry store there in 1872, an indictment having been found during his confinement in Sing Sing. There was not evidence enough to convict him, and he was released, after two months’ confinement. Kindt was next arrested in New York City, on May 23, 1885, charged with burglarizing the safe of Smith & Co., No. 45 Park Place, on April 27, 1885, where he obtained one $5,000 and one $1,750 bond, two watches, and $80 in money. He was also charged with robbing the store of G. B. Horton & Co., No. 59 Frankfort Street, of $234 in money and some postage stamps. The detectives searched the rooms of his daughter. Rose Kindt, in East Eleventh Street, New York City, and there found a complete and beautifully made set of burglars’ tools. In a sofa which they tore apart were sectional jimmies of the most improved pattern ; under the carpet were saws and small tools of every variety ; concealed elsewhere in the rooms were drags, drills, wrenches, crucibles for melting gold and silver, fuses, skeleton keys, wax, impressions of keys, etc. They also found what had been stolen from Smith & Co., and Horton & Co., with the exception of the money. When Kindt was confronted with his daughter, who had been arrested but was subsequently released, he confessed to all, and also charged Frank McCoy, alias “Big Frank” (89), with trying to obtain his services to rob the Butchers and Drovers’ Bank of New York City. Kindt pleaded guilty to two charges of burglary, and was sentenced to six years in State prison on June 4, 1885, by Judge Barrett, in the Court of Oyer and Terminer, New York City. Kindt’s picture is an excellent one, taken in May, 1885.

      Gustave F. Kindt was an expert machinist and a master of prison escapes, perhaps the most intelligent criminal in Chief Byrnes’s rogue’s gallery. Kindt’s first confirmed presence was in Brooklyn, in 1867. He placed an ad in the New York Herald, looking for any information on his brothers Joseph and Charles–apparently they emigrated separately. Kindt described his original country as Belgium (but, when posing as Frenchman Isidore Marechal, claimed to be from Lille, France.) He was said to have been trained as a watchmaker.

      In 1867, he joined a jewelry-making company in Brooklyn, working in their metal shop. Years later, the Cincinnati Enquirer recounted how Kindt robbed his workplace:

      Kindt tried to implicate a co-worker–Jeannot–in the crime; this despite the fact that the Jeannot family had housed Kindt and his wife, and had helped him try to find his brothers.

      For this crime, Kindt was sentenced to ten years in Sing Sing. In Sing Sing, he was able to craft a tiny saw, parts of which he secreted in one of his own molars that he had pulled out and hollowed. In February 1871, he sawed through three door locks and escaped from the prison and headed to New Jersey. Within six days, he found a new job at a Hackensack NJ jewelry manufacturer. He was hired, given a raise, and reconnected with his wife. While still working his job, he and his wife opened a lager hall across from his workplace. However, temptation beckoned, and Kindt open the safe of his employer and took $8000. The owner called in local police, who were stumped; they called in New York detectives, one of whom had worked on the similar Brooklyn case. Kindt was collared and reinstalled in Sing Sing to serve out his earlier sentence.

      In November 1875, Kindt escaped from Sing Sing a second time–the only man ever to do so. This time, he was aided by a corrupt guard, who allowed Kindt to hide in a prison workshop instead of being returned to his cell. From the workshop, Kindt was able to get off the prison grounds, and made his way north to Canada. There, he used his French language skills to assume the alias of Isidore Marechal. About a year later, in November 1876, Kindt picked the lock of a pawnshop, opened the safe with a duplicate key he had made, and took about $20,000 in jewelry, watches, silverware, and bank notes. He melted down the metals into bricks, and sent an accomplice to New York to sell the precious stones. However, a suspicious cleaning lady tipped off authorities, and evidence was found in Kindt’s rooms. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to the Provincial Prison for three years.

      Upon his release in 1879, he robbed a Montreal store of $4000 worth of silks. After fencing the goods, he headed back across the border into Vermont, shedding the “Isidore Marechal” alias and becoming “Gus Kent.” The silks were traced back to Kindt through a woman he had been intimate with in Montreal; she told Montreal detectives that he could be found in St. Albans, Vermont. They contacted the sheriff of St. Albans, who found that Kindt had been working in a machine shop there for six weeks. He was arrested; in his rooms they found a new set of safe-cracking tools that indicated he was about to commit another robbery. A message was sent to Sing Sing that an officer should come to retrieve Kindt and take him back to that prison.

      An officer arrived to take possession of Kindt, and they boarded a train heading south to Troy, New York, where they needed to switch trains. They were delayed in Troy for several hours, and as they waited in the station, Kindt attacked the officer and tried to make a dash for freedom. They wrestled for several minutes, and finally the officer was able to pull out his revolver and shoot Kindt. The bullet glanced his head, causing a serious wound. He was bandaged and placed on the train the next day, but when he arrived at Sing Sing, there were doubts he would survive.

      Imprisoned in Sing Sing once more, Kindt used his time productively. During his earlier stay at Sing Sing, he had observed that the workshop and exercise periods wasted much time with the unlocking and locking of individual cell doors. He had drawn a diagram for a mechanism that would allow one guard to lock or unlock a whole row of cells at one time. He offered his invention to the warden in exchange for a commuted sentence. The request had gone up to Governor Tilden in 1875 and had been turned down. Now, once again confined to Sing Sing, Kindt obtained a US patent for his invention. Kindt was later able to sell the rights to prisons in Great Britain.

      Kindt was in and out of prison two more times (in 1885 and 1892), and was arrested again in 1900, but escaped conviction. His final years were spent in Philadelphia, where the city directories listed him as “inventor” or “mechanic.” He was known to be a manufacturer of burglar and safe-cracker tools. He obtained a second patent for an improvement to his cell-block locking mechanism  in 1898. He died in Philadelphia in 1910, age 75.

#54 Albert Cropsey

~ jpkntz

Albert J. Cropsey (1852-1934) aka Alfred Cropsey, William Crosby — Hotel and boarding-house thief

From Byrnes’ text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-three years old in 1886. Medium build. Born in United States. Light complexion. Not married. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, 135 pounds. Light hair and mustache when worn. Has letters “A. C.” in India ink on right fore-arm ; also letters “A. C.” and “A.,” bracelet, anchor and dots on left hand.

RECORD. Cropsey is a very clever hotel and boarding-house thief, and is a man well worth knowing. He was arrested in New York City on May l0, 1878, for robbing a safe in Stanwix Hall, a hotel in Albany, N. Y., and delivered to the Albany police authorities. He was convicted there and sentenced to five years in the Albany, N.Y., Penitentiary on June 29, 1878, by Judge Van Alstyne. He was arrested again in New York City on November 4, 1883, and sent to Passaic, N.J., where he was charged with stealing $300 worth of silverware from a Mr. Lara Smith. In this case he was tried, but the jury failed to convict him and he was discharged. He is known in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and several other cities in the United States. Cropsey’s picture was taken in 1878.

      Albert J. Cropsey’s criminal career followed a depressingly familiar trajectory: between ages twenty to forty-four, he was sent to prison four times for burglarizing boarding houses, hotels, and stores–his sentences totaled fourteen years. Moreover, those represent just the jailings that are known; there may have been more under unidentified aliases.

      Albert was born to Jasper and Caroline Cropsey, living in Manhattan’s Ninth Ward. Despite the proximity of place and time, Albert’s father Jasper was not the famous landscape painter of the same name.

      Albert was first jailed in 1872 under the name William Crosby for Grand Larceny, and sentenced to Sing Sing for a period of two years and six months. He was sent back to Sing Sing in 1875 for burglary, for the same length of time. In 1878, he and an accomplice stole money from the safe of the Stanwix Hall hotel in Albany, earning him a sentence of five years in the Albany jail.

      Albert was out by 1883, when he was arrested for stealing silverware from a boarding house in Passaic, New Jersey. His method was to check in to boarding-houses as a resident, observe where the valuables were kept and the habits of the staff, and then make off with whatever he could fence. In this case, he was discharged for lack of evidence.

      However, he was caught again in New York in April, 1890, and recognized by Chief Byrnes. This time, he had cajoled two young English immigrants to do the stealing of silk bolts, which he received in order to sell. For this crime he was sent to Sing Sing for four years.

      …and then Albert J. Cropsey changed his life.

      When the Spanish-American war fervor reached its peak, Albert J. Cropsey enlisted as a 46-year-old private. after the war, he was hired at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as a painter. In 1903 he married Jane (Jennie) Winn, and in 1907 they had a daughter, named Caroline after Albert’s mother.

      Albert J. Cropsey and his family lived peacefully in Brooklyn for the next three decades, until his death in 1934 at age 82.

#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.

#152 Abraham Greenthal / #153 Harris Greenthal

~ jpkntz

Abraham Greenthal (1822-1889), aka General Greenthal, Abraham Leslauer, Abraham Meyers; and Hirsch Harris (1824-1886), aka Herman Brown, Harris Greenthal, Herman Harris, Harris Meyer — Pickpockets

From Byrnes’s text on Abraham Greenthal:

DESCRIPTION. Sixty years old in 1886. Jew, born in Poland. Calls himself a German. Widower. No trade. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, about 185 pounds. Dark hair, turning quite gray. Prominent nose-lines ; mole near one of them. Beard, when grown, is a sandy gray. Generally has a smooth face.

RECORD. “General” Greenthal is known all over the United States as the leader of the “Sheeny mob.” He is acknowledged to be one of the most expert pickpockets in America. His home is in the Tenth Ward in New York City, and he has been a thief and receiver of stolen goods for the last thirty years. He has served time in several prisons and penitentiaries, but has generally obtained his release before his sentence expired. He is a clever thief, and will fight when forced to. The “General” was arrested in Rochester, N.Y., on March 1, 1877, in company of his brother, Harris, and Samuel Casper, his son-in-law, for robbing a man (see record of No. 153), and sentenced on April 19, 1877, to twenty years in Auburn, N.Y., State prison. He was pardoned in the spring of 1884 by Governor Cleveland.

      He was arrested again in Brooklyn, N.Y., on December 30, 1885, in company of Bendick Gaetz, alias “The Cockroach,” for robbing Robert B. Dibble, of Williamsburg, N.Y., of a pocket-book containing $795 in money, on a cross-town horse-car in that city. The “General” pleaded guilty to grand larceny in the second degree, on March 23, 1886, and was sentenced to five years in Crow Hill prison by Judge Moore, in the Brooklyn Court of Sessions. The “General” is an old friend of Mrs. Mandelbaum, who is now in Canada. Greenthal’s picture is a splendid one, taken in March, 1877.

From Byrnes’ text on Harris Greenthal:

DESCRIPTION. Fifty-eight years old in 1886. Jew, born in Poland. Married. No trade. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 5 inches. Weight, about 150 pounds. Brown curly hair, turning quite gray ; brown and gray whiskers, high forehead.

RECORD. Harris Greenthal, a brother of the “General” (152), is also an old New York thief and member of the “Sheeny gang” of pickpockets, who have been traveling through the country robbing people for a number of years. He resides in New York City, and is well known in all the principal cities in the United States and Canada. Harris Greenthal, alias Brown, the “General,” alias Meyers, and Samuel Casper, the “General’s” son-in-law, were arrested in Rochester, N.Y., on March 1, 1877, charged with robbing William Jinkson of $1,190 in money, at the Central Railroad depot. Jinkson was a farmer who sold his farm in Massachusetts, and with the proceeds had started West. The “Sheeny gang” had seen him showing his money in Albany, N.Y., and had followed him from that city. At the Central depot in Rochester they told him he would have to change cars. One of the trio took his valise, and the entire party entered another car. In jostling through the crowd the “General” relieved Jinkson of his pocket-book containing the money, which was in bills. They escaped, but were arrested about an hour afterwards. They were indicted, tried, and convicted. The “General,” alias Meyers, was sentenced on April 19, 1877, to twenty years at hard labor in Auburn, N.Y., State prison. Harris Greenthal, alias Brown, received a sentence of eighteen years, and Casper fifteen years. Harris and Casper were pardoned by Governor Cleveland in December, 1884, the “General” having been pardoned some months before. (See record of No. 84.) Harris’s picture is an excellent one, taken in March, 1877.

      Several of the personages profiled in Byrnes’ Professional Criminals of America have been written about extensively, either through autobiographies, biographies, or essays: Sophie Lyons, Langdon Moore, Jim Brady, George W. Wilkes, etc. The blog entries composing this project are too abbreviated to match the historical details that exist in those studies. This inadequacy was never more evident than in the case of Abraham “General” Greenthal, the leader of the so-called “Sheeny Mob” (“sheeny” being a derogatory term for Jews, especially emigrant German Jews.)

      Greenthal’s entire criminal career, genealogy, and Prussian-Jewish origins have been documented by Edward David Luft in an essay of astounding scholarship, “Stop Thief! : The true story of Abraham Greenthal, king of the pickpockets in 19th century New York City, as revealed from contemporary sources.”  Luft’s essay is all the more impressive given the elusive clues available: Greenthal was an adopted alias, and was often misspelled in newspaper accounts: Grenthal, Gruenthal, Green, etc.; and it was sometimes dropped by Abraham and his family in favor of “Meyers/Myers” or variant spellings of an earlier established family name: Leslauer (found as “Leslan” “Leslau” “Leslie,” etc. in some newspaper records)

      Greenthal and his gang of associates were pickpockets, sneak thieves, and fences. How extensive their network was is unknown, but the core of it consisted of Abraham, his wife, their daughters, and their husbands; and his brother Hirsch’s family. A leading figure of the gang, in addition to Abraham, was Hirsch’s daughter Augusta Harris, who acted as the main fence, or receiver, during the 1870s.

      Little more can be added to Luft’s study of “General” Greenthal, but Luft mentions his brother, Hirsch Harris, very briefly. A few records exist for this man: his prison intake and discharge papers; the 1870 census, and the 1880 census. Unfortunately, after 1884, traces of his family disappear.

      He was called “Hirsch Harris” by newspapers more frequently than any other name; but he was sent to Auburn prison in 1877 under the name Herman Brown. In the 1870 census, his name was transcribed (in an obvious error) as “Hanna Harris.” In 1880, he was listed as “Hermon Harris” (although he was actually still in Auburn at that point.) The family consisted of four girls: Augusta, Amalia, Hattie, and Lille; and a boy, Moses. Moses and Amalia were not listed with the family in 1880. Amalia was old enough to be out on her own, but perhaps Moses met an early death.

      Augusta was described in several articles as the leader of the Greenthal mob’s fence operation, mentioned in the same breath with Marm Mandelbaum (whom one article suggests pushed Augusta out of business using her political connections). Augusta was married in the early 1870s to Charles “French Charley” Perle, a pickpocket and thief. However, the two had a falling out, and a newspapers suggested they were divorced (“out of the courts”) in 1876.

      Newspapers also referred to a daughter Mary/Mollie, who may have been the same person listed in the 1870 census as Amalia. Mary/Mollie was said to have been the fiance of burglar Johnny McAlpine. Their romance would have been interrupted by McAlpine’s being sentenced to 20 years in Sing Sing in 1873.

      Chief Byrnes, in his 1995 revised edition, suggests that Hirsch Harris died “within a few months” as his brother, in 1889; however, an earlier article on the conviction of Abraham in 1886 states that Hirsch (under the name Harris Meyer) died on March 31, 1886.