Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1875-10-29
White alias Miles.

i burglars. We doubt whether people i
J this section who have always known hin
0 are proposed to give him credit for abb
I ity to do and accomplish all that is no,
J laid to him. The New York Sun has
1 lengthy account Of operations alleged t
: have been committed by him during tn
past ten years, and which apparently in
J cludes all the prominent or ordinar
bank robberies that have been commit
ed in New England and the Middl
States during that time, and gives sever
alias which he has assumed, always re
tanning George as the given name. Thes
are George White, George Bliss, Georg,
Meyers, George Hicks, George King
George Williams, George Miles anC
George Morton.
If White has been as active in the
burglary business, as the article in the
Sun would make it appear, he must have
given but little time to his livery stable
The story last week of an attempt to
secure Whites escape, the Montpelier
papers say is all a myth for sensation,
got up by correspondent of the Boston
journal, The Montpelier Argus & Pa
triot SAYS that U. S. Marshall, General
George p, Foster has warrants for the
arrest of White on charge of being con-
nected with the safe burglary there. AL
so that report is current that the Bar
re bank folks are arranging for settle
ment with White, the alleged sum to be
paid being $4,000
The grip of the Vermont authorities
on White is very strong. and if his bail
was reduced to nothing on the first in
dictmen', he might be worse off than
ever, as we understand the second in
dictment against him is under the stat
ute Of 1864, which provides that if any
three or more persons shall conspire to
kill, main or wound any person, or rob
any bank, &c, on conviction shall be
adjudged guilty of felony and an enemy
of the State and shall suffer the penalty
of death within 80 days An act passed
last year however would delay the pen
atty twenty months, otherwise this statute
is still in force, having been passed after
the bank raid in St. Adams in 1864.
We copy mainly the article in the
New York Sun, emitting the account of
the Walpole bank robbery, as follows;
The practice of wearing masks as a
disgui.e, and of robbers calling on each
other by numbers instead of by name
during their depredations, was introduce
ed in bank robberies by White. In
1867, he and four others robbed the
Bowdoinham Bank, in Maine, of $780,
600 He and his accomplices went to
the residence Of the cashier late at night,
and after binding and gagging his wife
and the other inmates of the house, COM
PEELED the cashier to accompany them to
the bank and open the safe. They all
wore masks and addressed each other as
numbers one, two, three, four and five
In telling the story of their raid, the
cashier and his wife said that the leader.
White, behaved like gentleman while
he was in the house. Rory" Smms,
Edward Mcguire, alias Fairy" Ma.
guire and one Bartlett, were arrested for
the robbery, and are each serving out a
fifteen years sentence in Maine. White
was kept out Of the way of the Eastern
detectives by influential allies.
Whites greatest exploit was the rob-
berry Of the Ocean National Bank. In
May, 1869, an Office in the basement I'M
der the bank at Fulton and Greenwich
streets, was hired and the words g Insur-
ance Office, Newcomb and O'Neill were
painted over the door. From that office
White and Shinborn and one or two as
sistants worked a month, tunneling their
way to the bank above Between Sat
urday night, June q, and the following
Monday morning, the bank was robbed
of half a million dollars in bank notes.
greenbacks and securities. The robbers
broke and opened three massive iron
doors, supposed at the time by the bank
directors to be fire and burglar proof, to
reach the inner vault in which the safes
were. The first door was fastened with
combination lock that turned five sen.
arate bolts. This was opened with
false key. When the robbers got to the
second door they found the key to it sus
pended from a hook in the wall, and
they used it to unlock the door. They
attacked the third door with coppered
hammers and cold chisels, and made a
hole large enough to admit an instru-
ment for purchase to the jack screws. |
With this instrument the door was
sprung sufficiently to loosen the bolts.
after which it flew open.
The robbers first tried to blow omen
the big safes that were in the vaults, but
they failed in this, and then went to
work with jimmies, coppered mallets.
thread screws and other tools. They