The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1905-04-02
SOLVING A CELEBRATED
OIL DTIME BANK ROBBERY


| When at rare intervals they appear 1t
will be in the hands of a man who is
not deceived as to the character of the
paper, but who is absolutely ignorant
of the source of the securities which
II is to his immense advantage to dis
pose Of"
inspector Byrnes then told in detail
the story of the robbery, the magni-
tude of which shocked the entire
world.
No story in the Arabian Nights is
one-half so wonderful as this great
bank robbery" he said.
1T was away back in 1878, but all
of the facts to the last detail are as
fresh in my memory as if they had oc-
Cured but yesterday. When the news
OF the robbery of more than $500, 900
or money and securities from the Man.
haitian bank was announced in the pa
pers one Monday morning, the whole
financial world, as we'll as this COM
munity, received a tremendous shock.
Owned and controlled by the Schell
family, the bank was one of the oldest
and strongest Institutions for banking
in this country
I'VE Swallowed hundreds of suspi-
cious characters in vain until one
night we had a stroke of great good
fortune. A few doors above Blocker
]
Grady kept place under suspicious
circumstances. We knew that he was
a go-between for thieves, and for
many other jobs he was well known
to us.
We'll, he, among others, was shad-
owed and one night the detective who
had him under surveillance saw him
meet Patrick Shevlin.
Finally We came to know Shevlin
pretty well, and at last stumbled on
the fact that he had been employed as
sort of extra night Waterman at the
bank, taking the place of the regular
man on special occasions. He had
been worked on for months by the
members of the band. They had piled
him with drinks, and by infiaming his
imagination and arousing his cupidiity
by their tales of the fabulous wealth
he could have If he aided them, they
finally induced him to join them. 1t
was through him that they had gain
ed entrance to the bank, and after that
the rest of their work was compare
lively easy.
Find Lucky clew
"Shevlin, we found, after weeks, and
1 may say months of careful investi-
cation and of following him night and
day, was connecting at intervals with
one Of the men we suspected, and
seemed to be on familiar terms with
several of the men we were confident
were in on the job
Il finally determined to arrest him
and take the forlorn hope of trying TO
get him by some device to talk. When
he was brought to HEADQUARTERS he
looked like bum, and was as dirty.
devil as have often to deal with.
For five days he remained obdufate.
On the sixth day l went at him again.
L thought he probably had gotten the
worst of Ii when the plumber was di-
vided and took a chance along that
line. After 1 had talked with him for
long time, trying to gain his confidence,
pumped this at him:
Shevlin, don't you know that they
made a sucker" of you? Now, you
know that you didn't get more than
$4,000 or 100000 out of the haul, while
they have hundreds of thousands
1T was a most dramatic moment for
me when he blurted out:
s4OOl'
Then the fellow broke down and
told me the whole story Of how they
had worked on him by slow degrees,
and finally had brought him around to
join in their scheme. He gave me the
whole story of how he let them into the
bank, and how they bound and gagged
the regular night Waterman and then
proceeded to crack the great vault at
their leisure.
"On the strength of Shevlin's evil
dence we arrested Kelley. He was
tried before Judge Charles Daniels, and
on conviction was sentenced to ten
years Imprisonment.
Alarmed by this turn of events in
our favor, the others had fed and were
scattered in all parts of the country.
1 followed them as best l could, but
the case remained dormant so far as
actual results were concerned until
Jack Cannon, a thief close to the band
that robbed the bank, but not con-
cerned in the actual burglary, tried to
negotiate bonds for $4,000. In Phila-
delphia. The alteration of the payee
was discovered, just as it was in the
case of the bond offered as collateral
here the other day, and we were noti-
fed.
Edward Schell, the president Of the
bank; Walter Hutchins, his counsel,
and l went to Philadelphia and made
the case against Cannon. He too, was
convicted and was given fifteen years
sentence
"That was the only instance when
bond was offered for sale, as far as
know, until the attempted deal of a few
days ago.
Search for the Leader
'"Then came another lull, until after
while Coakley and Emerson were ar
rested in Philadelphia. We went over
after them, and, strangely enough, we
brought them here bound to us by the
very same handouts they had used to
bind the hands of the old night watch
man Of the Manhattan bank. For many
months they lay in the Tombs, but
there was no way by which we could
corroborate Shevlin's story
While they lay in the Tombs we
added Dobbs to our collection. He,
too, was arrested In Philadelphia, but
against him we could obtain no strong
er evidence than against the other two.
and yet we were morally certain that
we had the right men. He was held
a. prisoner here for months, and was
then taken East to serve out an un-
expired term, where he had broken jail
few years before.
Hope, the principal figure in the
robbery, the master mind that planned
the long campaign leading up to the
burglary, was still at large. He, like
Dobbs, was an escaped convict, having
broken from Connemora prison in the
northern part of the state. Finally he
was caught in another bank robbery
in San Francisco.
I'VE Immediately furnished the au-
thorities there with requisition papers,
but certain influences were brought to
bear to save him from being turned
over to US.
Il happened a few days after that
to meet in Broadway a man from San
Francisco who had tremendous influ-