Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1882-09-03
CLEVER DETECTIVES.
How the Pinkertons Run Down the
Kewanee Bank Robber.
He Turns Out to Be a Chicago Drummer
and a Novice in the Burgler Line
An Honest Farmer and Young
ID. Lady Lend their Aid.
THE CONFEDERATE STILL AT LARGE.

planned the robbery OF the National
Bank at Kewanee on the 18th Of this
month, and with one confederate: exc
cuted the same, was arrested Tuesday
in McDonough county, n. Y.
by Robert A. Pinkerton, of the Pinker-
ton agency in New York. His name is
NJ. WEIGH, formerly
drummer of McNabb 4 Co., fish
and commission merchants on South
Water street, this city, and also for
Welch, Alexander & Co., commission
ON the same street, of which
firm he was a member, and at one time
of his diversion from the fish trade he
was travelling in the west for Potter q
Wilmington, wholesale fish-dealers, III
Boston. ..
The case was worked by the Pinker-
ton agency in Chicago, assisted by In
spectOr of Detectives .. NJ. Hanscom, OF
Boston, and Mayor Hitchcock, OF Poor
Ia, Ill. The bank was robbed at 8 o'clock
on the evening of the 18th. About 3
O'Clock i'm the afternoon two men called
at the bank and asked Mr.. Pratt, assist
ant cashier, If they could leave vallse
there, Perm iSsiOn was given. Be
tween and 6 o'clock Mr.. Pratt ana
Miss Palmer were
Making Up Their Cash
preparatory to closing the vault. A
man raped at the door; 1t was opened
and two men, one of them very tall,
came in for the valise. The tall man
grabbed Miss Palmer by the meek and
hit her between the eyes, knocking her
down. The other man, Welch, gagged
MIR. Pratt, knocked him down, forced
him in the vault, where Miss Palmer
was also placed, and between $4,000
and $4,000 in money was taken out.
The assistant cashier and Miss Palmer
were left locked up in the vault for one
hour. She,untied his hands and he
took a paper-weight and loosened the
screws of the combination; he then re-
moved them with dime and thus Sc
cured their release, when they gave the
alarm.
The manner in which the case was
worked by the detective was minutely
given to your correspondent last night
by William Pinkerton, of the Chicago
agency. After the robbery had been
committed, a number of citizens in
Kewanee remembered that they had
Seen Two Men
walking Oh the railroad track, going
in the direction of Neponset, carrying
a valise between them which seemed
heavily ladened. On the day after
the agency of Pinkerton in this city was
telegraphed to for assistance, III at
10 80 O'clock that morning oper ltives
were sent down to get every NV, liable
pointer. A man named Burt, w':o was
building a house i'm Neponset, came to
this city and gave the first pointer.
On the morning of the day of the rob-
berry he saw Welch in Neponset and
spoke to him. He knew him well, hav-
ing bought fish of him in other days.
The same afternoon Burt went down to
Kewanee and met Welch again. His
attention was directed to him, inasmuch
as Welch's appearance was changed.
In the morning when he met nm
Welch had on fashionable suit and
green colored cutaway coat. In ke-
vance he had on long linen buster.
He also remembered that Wclch had
been sitting across the street from the
bank, apparently watching it, in COM
pany with q strange man. When Burt
heard ofthe robbery he recalled these
incidents. When he heard Mr.. Pratt
give n
Description OF the Man
who had left the valise in the bank, he
remembered that the description an
swered that of Welch. With this poin-
ter the Chicago agency learned that
Welch was travelling man out Of
Chicago on the Chicago, Burlington
and Quincy railroad, his territory ex:.
tending westward to the Missouri
river. A number of travelling men in
the city knew him. and several of the
conductors knew him. Some of these,
when questioned, remembered that he
had been seen on the train on the morn
ing of the robbery, and that he APP
peared sullen, which was not his
nature. They rememeer that he left
the train rather abruptly when it ar
rived at Neponset. William Arthur,
another travelling man on South Water
street, saw him on the train and spoke
to him that day. A number OF citizens
in Neponset gave the information that
he had been there that day and en-
deavored to hire horse and buggy, but
the liveryman in town refused him, as
he had no money. All these pointers
seemed to name Welch audibly. 1t
was found that he
Had Married an Estimable Lady
in Peoria, and that she was at the house
of her brother, Mr.. Alexander, on Full
ton street. Two days before he had
been to the house drunk, and had
threatened to shoot his wife. She was
frightened, and went to her home in
Peoria. At this alteration several
men were present, and prevented him
from playing the bully on his helpless
wife. He went away the day after.
He wrote to his firm in Boston that he
had had trouble with his wife and did
not care to travel any more. AT this
turn in the case Inspector HanscOmb,
of Boston, was employed in the case.
He learned from the Boston firm that
Welch, according to the route he hal
given them, should have been in Mil
waukee on his way to st. Paul on the
day when the robbery occurred in ke-
vance. The detectives IN st. Paul and
Milwaukee were communicated with,
and they ascertaincd that Welch had
not been in either place on the
Day Of the Robbery,
although he was expected in both on or
about that date. Operatives were dis
patched to Peoria, Illinois, the home OF
his wife, and it was ascertained there,
through Mayor Hitchcock, who knew
Mrs. Welch, that she had been in ig-
norance Of his whereabouts ever since
the row they had in Chicago. On the
22d of this month the Pinkerton agen-
cy was notified by inspector Hans
comb, of Boston, that letter
had been received by Potter d
Wilmington, dated in Chicago, the
18th, postmarked the 10Th, mailed from
the West division office, from WEIGH,
in which was written his final determi-
nation to quit travelling. During all
these manipulations nothing had been
accomplished toward actually locating
Welch. A shadow" was placed on the
residence of his brother-in-law, MIR.
Alexander, on Fulton street, but MOTH
ing came of that. Then one OF those
little games known TO great detective
agencies and deemed perfectly legiti-
mate in the unraveling of mysteries was
resorted to. One ofthe operatives ofthe