Bryan daily eagle and pilot. [volume] (Bryan, Tex.) 1909-1918, 1910-09-05
'DUR|NG HIGH
way HOLD UP
TWO MEN KILLED AND six THOU
SAND DOLLARS TAKEN.

posses with bloodhounds, led by
Sheriff Payne and Deputy Sherlfl
Jeffords. are securing the mountains
and palisades of Columbia county for
five masked bandits who held up and
killed Dent Fowler, paymaster of the
Atlas Brick Company, and his driver,
George Ragsdale, a negro, and escaped
with $4,000 in gold and currency.
The crime. riyaling in daring and
dramatic intensity the most noted
slick up Of the wild West" has
aroused the quiet countryside and the
police of Newburgh, Poughkeepsie,
Haverstraw and neghboring towns
nave been requested to keep a sharp
lookout for the five assassins.
The holdup was accomplished with
such ingenuity as to show that it was
planned by master criminal mind
Young Fowler, who was "a years
old, was the son of Everitt Fowler.
president of the Haverstraw bank
He had been employed for some time
as the paymaster at the big Atlas
Brick Company, on the outskirts OF
Hudson, employing between 400 and
500 men and having weekly pay
roll of $4,000. The company keeps its
account in a bank at Newburgh, forty
miles down the Hudson. Fowler has
been going down weekly by train TO
Newburgh to draw the money for the
payroll. He returned with $4,000 In
an Oxford bag He was met at the
depot here by Ragsdale, driving an
open buggy Ragsdale had been en-
ployed by the company for a numbe'
of years. There Is but one stretch of
wooded road on the route from the
depot TO the brick plant and the rob-
bers selected this for the crime. 1t Is
two miles from the depot and only
three hundred yards from the brick
plant
The employees of the brick plant
heard a number of shots and short
time later Ragsdale's horse. drawing an
empty buggy. dashed into the yard.
The laprobe was covered with blood.
A number of men rushed up the road
TO where the shots had been fired.
They found Fowler unconscious and
Ragsdale dead lying at the side of
the road
Ragsdale had been shot in the neck.
chest and abdomen with .44.caliber
revolver Any one of his wounds
would have proved fatal. His head
was almost severed by the wound in
the neck, which seemed at first to
have been inflicted with a shotgun
Fowler was unconscious from gap
ing wound in the chest. The road Wa
tramped down as by number of men
and there were signs of struggle.
Eight empty cartridge shells were
found nearby.
Fowler was rushed to the Hudson
hospital He was placed on the uper-
ating table. and given strong stimu-
lants, under which he recovered suf-
ficiently to tell of his experiences,
Fowler declared that when within
a few hundred yards of the brick
plant five men, masked and armed,
sprang from the woods. Two of them,
with revolvers drawn, grasped the
bride, while all levelled their weapons
and ordered Fowler and Ragsdale to
throw up their hands, Fowler's first
instinct was to reach for his own re-
-volver, but at the first move one of
the bandits fired, the bullet going
through his derby hat He threw up
his hands. Ragsdale, however, refused
to comply. Instead, he lashed up his
horse and tried to ride down the men
at the bride. The move cost him his
life, for all of the men fred three of
the bullets taking effect, and the negro
pitched forward from the buggy dead.
One of the bullets clipped of por-
tion of Fowler's mustache.
Aroused by the negro's death and