The age-herald., 1901-01-13
THE CHARLIE ROSS MYSTERY CLEARED Revelation by State Senator Plum
 kilt of New York A BURGLARS DYING WORDS It Seems That the Boy Was Taken to New York and Thrown into the
 Bay-Weighted Down
 With Irons.

Chicago, January 12.-A special to the Times-Herald from New York says that after nearly thirty years of impenetrable mystery in the case of Charlie Ross, dur ing which fortunes have been spent ana continents have been searched in vain ef- forts to find the stolen boy, or to learn ms fate a revelation has been made of many of the most important facts in the case
 These disclosures have come from Sena-
 tor Plunkitt, member of the State Legls- lature from this city, who says he has se- cured information never before made pup lie in connection with the Philadelphia kid
 naping.
 Acting upon this information, Senator
 Plunkitt has introduced at Albany an
 amendment to the present law against kid naping and providing more severe penalty
 for the crime.
 The abductors of Charlie Ross" says
 Senator Plunkitt, were two New York
 river thieves one of them named Mosher.
 The wagon in which Ross was carried away
 was hired in New York by Hosher and
 driven to Philadelphia so as to prevent any
 possible discovery of the offenders The
 wagon was driven about thirty miles out
 of Philadelphia and was there abandoned
 Mosher and his companion, accompanied by
 their victim, taking passage on the train
 to New York Fear kept Ross quiet.
 Upon arriving at New York Ross was
 taken on one of Mosher's river craft and
 finally, to prevent detection, Charlie was
 thrown overheard in the bay, after Cav-
 ing been tied to iron, so as to make it inn
 possible for his body to rise to the sur
 face. The New York man who let the
 horse and wagon to Mosher never claimed
 his property for fear of being charged with
 complicity in the crime.
 When Mosher shot while attempt
 ing to rob the Van Brunt mansion at Bay
 Ridge, several months after the kidnap- ing he attempted to explain the Charlie
 Ross affaa. but death came as soon as the name passed his lips
 Statement Correct. I"1 know my statement is correst," said Senator Plunkitt because l got tt from a
 bigger man than any of us here I got it from a Supreme Court judge" The Senator would not name the judge but it is known that he referred to Judge Van Brunt, who successfully resisted an attempt to rob his home at Bay Ridge by shooting Mosher and his pal" On July l, 1874, Charlie Ross, then years old was playing with his older brother Walter in front of their home in East Washington Lane Germantown a suburb of Philadelphia. Two men in a light spring wagon, who had been seen to pass the house number of times before, induced the boys to go with them flor drive" They promised the children some candy and fireworks for the approaching Fourth 1 They would also visit Aunt Susie" the men said This was a fictitious parsonage invented for the occasion.
 | As the vehicle neared Palmer and Rich mond streets Walter Ross became fright ened and began to cry. One of the men gave him quarter and told him to go and buy some fireworks in a store near by. When Walter returned the wagon had gone. Charlie Ross never appeared again. Soon after the abduction an advertisement appeared in the Philadelphia Public Ledger offering to restore the boy If the father, Christian K. Ross, would pay the abduc- tors $200OO. MT. Ross was a man of mod crate circumstances and such a large sum was impossible for him to pay.
 Ingenious Abductors. The abductors had made their terms in a very ingenious manner and the money could have been delivered, if MT. Ross had had it, without any possibility of the detec- ton of the abductors. But all Mr. Ross could do was to offer them $3O0 and promise
 them more as soon he could raise it. The abductors then wrote a letter to MT. Ross threatening that Charlie would be killed if any attempts were made to trace the perpetrators of the crime. Then the friends of MT Ross promptly raised the S2O,oO0 and proposed that the conditions of
 
 The police, however, interfered with this proceeding and Mayor Stokely, of Phila- delphia, turned the case over to the de- tectives ,at the same time offering a reward of $20000 for the arrest of the kidnapers and the return of Charlie Ross. The offer of this reward drew worldwide attention to the crime, but led to no clew either to the criminals or the whereabouts of the child. About two months after the abduction the police found clew which seemed to fix the crime on William Mosher and Joseph Douglass, two notorious burglars whose | field of operations had been in Philadelphia William Westervelt "a brother-in-law of Mosher told the story of the abduction and so fixed the guilt.
 On the night of December IA, Mosher and Douglass robbed the house of Judge Van Brunt at Ray Ridge. The brother of the judge shot them both, killing one and fatally wounding the other. The dead man was Mosher. Douglass, before he died, con- fessed that they had stolen Charlie Ross. Walter Ross identified Mosher as the man who took his brother. Westervelt was sen fenced to seven years In the penitentiary | for complicity in the crime, but Douglass and Westervelt both admitted that the boy would never be found because he was be- yond life.
 Since that time many cases of alleged l Charley Rosses have appeared in various parts of the country. Mir Ross spent his | little fortune trying to find his son, but without avail and about ten years ago his mind gave way under the strain and he was sent to an asylum for the insane