Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1899-06-24
A DARING HoLD-UP.
Masked Men bind Six Employees and
Steal $4,000 from Snfc in
PhiIndelphIa.

Philadelphia, June 20. - A gang of
masked robbers, probably ten in num-
Der, Monday morning raided the re-
ceiving Office of the Fairmount Park
Transportation company at Belmont in
Fairmount Park and after holding up
the receiver and five other employees of
the railway, blew open the safe, secur-
ing $4,000, the company's receipts for
two days.
Frank Leavan, receiver, Frank Wat
son and Henry B. Whitehouse, conduc-
tors; James Cavanaugh, fireman of the
power house; Philip Eaves, electrician,
and William Cadmus, laborer, were
bound hand and foot with wire. In adj
dition to the men who actually COM
mitted the robbery, others operated
miles away from the scene by destroy
ing telegraph and telephone wires con-
Meeting with the trolley company S main
office.
The Fairmount Park Transportation
company operates various lines of troll
ley cars through the park, for pleasure
riders. The traffic being unusually
heavy on Saturdays and Sundays, the
robbers evidently decided upon Monday
morning as being a good time to make
a big haul.
The men above named were all i'll the
office when the burglars made their
appearance. Each intruder was armed
with two revolvers and they took the
employees completely by surprise. 1t
was the work of n few moments for the
robbers to pinion the workmen, who
were rolled over to one side of the room
with their faces to the wall. After
ndarly two hours work the safe was
rified of its contens and the gang disap-
peared.
Frank Levan, the night receiver, one
of the men gagged and bound by the
robbers, told this story of his expert
ence:
while I was standing at the southern
door of the office next to the stalled cars
l heard footsteps in the rear. Turning.
saw two men with masks on their faces
They had two big revolvers apiece in their
hands and came directly up to me at the
desk, They told me not to move nor cry
out or they would kill me- One fellow,
| who was of enormous size, stuck one of
| his pistols against my ear. They took me
| into the conductors room and tied my
| hands and feet with wire picture cord and
| laid me on the floor, with my face to the
wall. The electric lights were burning
| brightly all the while, and when / got in
| the conductors room / saw Whitehouse
was being held up in the same way by
| other desperadoes also with masks on,
and being bound and gagged.
when we were laid on the floor a man
was detailed to guard each of us. In a
| few minutes in came another victim, who
1 think was Watson, conductor, and he
| went through the same thing. Then two
more came in and were bound, and by this
| time l thought there must be II or Il
| desperadoes in the car barn, and that they
| expected to gather in the whole list of
employees and then crack the safe, which
| contained about $4,000 The burglars
worked quietly. They whispered when
ever they said anything to any of their
| number. They turned our bodies away
from the safe so we could not see them
and started to work on the safe 1t only
| took them ten minutes to blow the safe
The works inside, however got tangled
up. and they worked and hustled to open
| the door wider for an hour and half.
The explosion of dynamite filled the
rooms with smoke that nearly choked us.
The tools they must have gotten from the
machine shop, as they started to work at
| once when they had us bound.
The guards frequently threatened to
| shoot us if we made the least outcry or
motion. 1 think they must have had o
| wagon to take away the cash, because l.
was largely made up of dimes, nickels
quarters, half dollars, which is very heavy
and not easy to get away with.
Shortly after the money was taken the
| guards who were over us with drawn
pistols left, telling us to be quiet or we
would get shot After considerable tus-
sling Philip Eaves, the electrician, got him
self unloosened, and he then unloosed us.
II tried to reach the city hall by wire. but
the wires of both telephones had been cut
and l had to run in the pitch dark cross
country to the Belmont pumping station
where l gave the alarm, and they tele-
phoned in from there shortly before thret
o'clock to the city hall, and informed the