Connecticut western news., 1883-10-17
COURT NOTES. kHadley, Howard and " OOd Sentencea to States Prison for 1O Years.

criminals, but the importance of the arrest was not fully known until quite recently. Shortly after their contine- ment in the Litchfeld jail a conspiracy was formed by them with one Frank
 Bardell alias Oliver Wood to break jail l and escape.
 Wood was confined in cell with a
 small window in the back end of the same about 20 feet from the ground. Hadley wrote lengthy letter to one
 Patrick Ryan, No 23S East 24th street, New York city, describing the location of the jail, Woods cell, window, etc, and
 directed Ryan to come there on certain
 night and he would find a small string
 hanging down to the ground from
 Woods window. Ryan was also re-
 quested to bring with him rope, jack screw, jimmies, files, revolvers, etc, and pass them up to Wood, who was in the secret and was willing to pay $2,00O to escape. Hadley attempted to smuggle this letter out of the jail, but fortunately 1t fell into the hands of Jailer Sedgwick, who immediately turned the same over to States Attorney Huntington and he forwarded 1t to Pinkerton, who with dozen of his detectives had been hunting for this same gang of thieves for several months. From this letter and what they knew of Paddy" Ryan, the detect ives were enabled to make statements and representations to Hadley which led him to believe that Ryan had given him away and induced him to put the officers in possession of evidence of Ryans nefarlous operations. When Ryan was confronted with the proofs of his guilt, he made clean breast of everything. Then followed another confession from Hadley.
 It appears from these confessions that Hadley was the leader of @ gang of seven or more burglars, whose operations for the past year have been confined to Connecticut and Western Massachusetts. In that tim e, three unsuccessful attempts were made to rob the Birmingham post office :; two burglaries of the Newtown post office with plunder amounting to $2.75; Watertown post office, $2OO; Wal lngford post office, $500; Essex post office, $1OO; Oalzville, $50 Bristol, $500; Fairfield, $50; West Stratford, $50; Southport, $2O New Milford and West Hartford, $1OO Woodbury savings bank, 5000; E. Hollister's store at Great Burlington, $500 worth of silks; jewelry store in Essex, 5000 worth of goods; jewelrY store in Meriden with several hundred dollars worth of goods, together with many other burglaries and horse stealing operations.
 Hadley and Howard, when first dis covered by Sheriff Van Deusen on Camp Ground hill, were trying to make way with the silk stolen from Hollister's store in Great Harrington, July 5. They stole the horse, wagon and harness from Shaw's barn and stopped at the barn of Frederick Abbey, 0 short distance this side of Shaw's, and tried to find the silk which had been hidden in he hay mow at the time of the burglary, nearly a month before. In the meantime MT Abbey had filled his barn with hay and they could not obtain their plumber. Coming south to Canaan, they concealed the horse and wagon on Camp Ground hill and lay down and waited for night. Hadley's confession corroborates Deputy Van Deusen's ver- sion of the desperate battle on Camp Ground hill with one or two immaterial | variations.
 At the time of their second appear ance, when they were arrested, they had two jobs in view,-Tobey's jewelry store at Great Darlington and the Falls Will lage savings bank. They had MT U. H. | Miners residence mapped out and that of his assistant, MT Ensign, and contem- plated stepping in some pleasant even ing with little party of seven men and invite one of the two above mentioned gentlemen to open everything at the bank except the vault, which is provided with time lock and which they claimed they could open with the tools which were captured with them.
 Some Of their spells were disposed of in New York city, some hid in barns, stone walls and woods and some of it was burned. About $7,000 of the Woodbury savings bank plunder was dug out of an old stone wall near the jail in Bridgeport with the assistance of a map furnished by Hadley. From Hadley's confession, MT Van Deusen was able to dig up MT Hollister's silk in MT Abbey's hay mow on Friday morning of last week. Hadley's true name is Higgins and he has @ wife and five children living in Bridgeport.
 Howard is an old liner for one of his age, having been once in Sing Sing prison and two or three times on Black wells island his true name Is Tom Brown. Both men have their pictures in the Rogues' gallery at New York. Their trial for stealing Shaw's horse was assigned for Wednesday morning and occupied nearly the whole day. The only defense offered was an attempt by Howard to prove an alibi.
 The jury promptly brought in a yer dict of guilty and the judge gave them the extreme penalty of the law for such offences, namely, that they each be con- fined in the Connecticut states prison for 10 years.
 Ryan has been arrested by government officials and is now on trial in New York city for burglarizing post offices. Thus 1t appears that by the arrest of Hadley and Howard @ dangerous gang of des- peradoes has been broken up and that the public have rid themselves of two desperate characters, for time at least.
 Deputy Sheriff Bob Van Deusen of this place is entitled to great credit for the bravery shown by him in arresting these dangerous men and 1t would seem to be In order to pass around the hat and make 1t an object for an officer to do his duty.
 Frank Bardell, alias Oliver Wood, was one of the nobbiest criminals that ever adorned the prisoners dock i'll Litch- field. He came in fresh and smiling Tuesday afternoon and plead not guilty to 8 charge of stealing a valuable team of horses from James Hoyt in
 Westchester county, N.Y.Wood brought the horses through Ridgetield in Fair field county and New Milford up the Housaton1c valley and was arrested by Messrs Averill and Roraback between Sheffield and South Egremont with the stolen property in his possession. The owner of the horses came up from