Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-08-06
PREACHER AND HORSE THIEF
|. ! :
Strange Double Life Of . Successful

Strange Double Life Of . Successful
Evangelist. -
Amos T. Whitman, preacher, horse thicf,
bigf, .ist and forger, has just been trans
ferred from the penitentiary at Michigan
City to the one at Columbus, O., and
when he has served three years there nh-
nois will reach out and claim him. So
will Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa
and Kentucky He has lived double life
and for years was undetected. By day he
was a preacher, engaged in the work of
spreading the light Of the gospel. By
lnight he was the leader of desperate
gang of criminals, who robbed his converts
| of their purses and stole their horses.
Thus he spent many years of his life I'M
til the stern hand of the law reached out
and seized him and compelled him to halt
Whitman was born in Darke county, @.
He was one of those precocious youthe
who caught on readily, and in his home
training and Sunday school days he gath
cred a smattering of Biblical knowledge
which served him in the life which he aft
erward led. He was bright, and, though
he never received anything more than n
country school education, he gained a
great fund of information.
He was possessed of meek eyes and O
dignity of carriage which made it easy for
him in after years to assume the part and
the name Of a preacher His home train
ing was excellent, but at an early age he
showed marked tendency to get at yari-
ance with the law He married at his old
home, but his crosses with the law made
that union anything but a happy one. At
last, two years ago, his broken hearted
legal wife was granted decree of divorce.
Whitman's career as q criminal on q
large scale commenced in 1885. At that
time he forged u note, stole few horses
and skipped the country by night. For
this crime he is now serving a term in the
Ohio pententiary.
After that he branched out as an evan
gelist under an assumed name. 1t was
while thus engaged that he succeeded in
organizing and putting in operation his
band of horse thieves and their subter-
ranean railroad.
During his engagements he would live
around among the members of the flock
He played the part of u man in modest
circumstances and without luggage, SO
| that he was invited to sleep and dine here
| for one day and there the next Thus ne
got among all Of the brothers and sisters.
He would pray with them in their parlors,
| ask grace over their food and adnonish
them to keep in the straight and narrow
path. After dinner he would stroll out on
the farms and size upSthe situation. If
| the brother or sister had good horse, he
| admired him and found out all he could of
his nature. He would then observe how
| and where he was kept and how the own
er cared for him.
He aimed to make round of the best
horsemen III his first week. His memo
| randuIn was then mailed, and about the
sixth or seventh night after he began his
services the work was done. The good sis
tiers and brothers would wake up the next
morning and five or six of tho best horses
in the community would be gone So Tar
| as yet known, there was never n hitch,
and the horses were always ont of the
country before the losers missed them.
Evangelist Whitman would mourn their
loss and would try to console the men vino
| were robbed. He would then sec that they
gave chase in the wrong direction,