The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1876-03-02
The Wrecking of Express Trains.


New York sun.)
A gentleman who has been annoyed by
the German journals comments upon
Thcmsssen's crime gives Sun reporter
the following details of some atrocious
crimes in which a German of noble ex-
traction shared: In 1856, on one of the
railroads terminating in Detroit, three
express trains consecntively we're thrown
down steep embankment, and many
passengers were killed. The dead and
wounded were stripped of their valuables
and the express car was robbed. The
train was wrecked at the same piace-a
high embankment. They were thrown
in the same direction, down the steepest
side of the elevation, and by the same
means Of sleepers ingeniously placed on
the opposite rail of the track. The rail-
road company's detectives found singu-
lar footmarks in the mud about the ruins
of the train. The foot was that of a
man, but almost delicate enough to be a
woman's, and in the marks made by the
heels were several small holes, seemingly
made by spikes. The detectives had
plastercast of the tracks made, and these
they kept.
Not long afterward the president of the
railroad received letter from one ofthe
most fashionable of Detroit's hotels, in
which the writer offered for large sum
money to give full information concern
ing the wreckers. An interview was APP
pointed, and the president found in the
writer a fine-looking, elegantly-attired
young man, whosaid that he was George
Gordon Byron, the illegitimate son Of
Lord Byron by a Scotch lady of rank. The
young man demanded money down; but
the president required time for consider
alton, and meeting followed meeting.
Meantime the detectives shadowed
Byron. One night he went out of the
hotel quietly, and by acircuitous route,
reached the. place at which the express
trains had been wrecked. The detectives
kept him in sight. To the latter, Byron
seemed to busy himself on the spot at
which the sleepers that had upset the
trains had been found. Then Byron
sprang on the low fence of a graveyard
at the side of the track. A detective
crept among the tombstones and waited.
The headlight of the locomotive of an
express train, bound into Detroit, ap-
peared. The jatring of the track, the
clatter and then the heavy roll of the
train were heard. The lights in. the
passenger coaches and then the entire
train became visible. The train was
seemingly rushing to inevitable destruc-
ton but it dashed by, and was safe.
Byron's diabolical scheme had in some
unaccountable way miscarried. He
looked after the vanishing train for a
few minutes, and then having cleared the
track of the Intellectual obstruction,
he sauntered to. his hotel, in a round
about way.
A few days afterward, while in Byron's
room, the detective, who by dressing ex-
pensively and spending money with a
lavish hand, had made himself one Of
ByTon's associates, saw a pair of English
cricketing shoes, with spikes in the heels,
and somewhat muddy, at the side of one
of Byron's trunks. The detective man.
aged, by turning the shoes over with his
foot, to examine the spikes. He was
convinced that they would fit in the
holes in the plaster casts of the foot
prints that had been discovered about
the wrecked trains.
Shortly afterward he invited Byron to
take short railroad journey to see some
athletic games, and then he adroitly per
suaded Byron to take part in them. Thus
the detective made the all important
cricketing shoes part of the contents Of
Byron's portmanteau. At the first sta
tion from Detroit the detective and
Byron got out for refreshments, and
Byron's portmanteau was stolen by the
detectives associate. Just before the
train arrived at the next stopping
place the detectives companion entered
the car and made the signal that indica
| ted his possession of the spiked shoes
Then Byron was arrested. The prisoner
confessed that with the aid oftwo accom-
plices, one calling himself the nephew Of
Sir Charles Napier; and German of dis
tinguished birth, he had wrecked the
three express trains, and had plundered
the dead and wounded passengers. They
had chosen express trains because of the
superior class of passengers, and the pos
sibility of obtaining>a large booty from
the express car. From the first two
wrecks Byron and his accomplices OBJ
tanned more valuable property than from
the third, the plundering of the express
cars in the last instance having been pre-
vented by the faithfulness of the dying
guard. With their plunder, younl
Napier and the German, Byron said, haC
gone to Europe, intending to live sump
tuously He had remained to trick tn,
railroad company out of as much none,
as he could, and, disappointed in that, b,
had resolved to wreck another train
Byron was convicted and sentenced t,
State prison for life. He recently diet
in prison.