Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1910-09-16
Miserllaneou5 &radina.
A CHAMPION ROBBER.
J. r. Hare's Career When Pickines
Were Good.

Were Good.
II have been more successful than
any other robber that ever was in the
country" says Joseph Thompson
Hare in his confession, written in
ISIS, a short time before he was
hanged.
| This was no idle boast on his part.
T, for in the seven years of his active
career his takings amounted to more
than $120,000-a vast sum in those
early days of the nineteenth century,
and one which, considering the great
er purchasing power Of money at that
time. would be equal to a cool half
million.
Compared to Hare, his eighteenth
century predecessors, the Doans and
James Fitzpatrick, become mere petty
thieves and fade away into insignif-
canoe. At a later date operations on
so large a scale were impossible, be-
cause money was not carried in such
large sums along the roads. at least
His was the golden age. and the
pickings were correspondingly rich.
In his first three months on the road
Hare and his two companions obtain
ed $4,000, and in another two months
after that, they got together some
$27 900.
Hare, single handed, robbed a trav-
eller near Princeton, n. j., of $780,
900. and in Canada, with the assist
ance Of one other man, he held up
gig to the tune Of $14,700; and in his
final robbery, the looting of the North
Carolina mail, near Havre de Grace.
the sum of $4,000 was shared among
Hare and his companions.
Hare's confession, which has re-
Gently been raked up out of the ar
chves of a historical society," Is as
much a human document as the more
famous, though not more naive diaries
of Samuel Pepys His was a simple,
child-like nature, open, frank and,
one almost says, honest.
He takes a pardonable pride in his
exploits, goes prattling along about
them as innocently as a child, and
suddenly, time after time, he fetchcS
| up with a bump. He remembers the
gallows that awaits him and the part
| he has undertaken to play-that of
repentant and pardoned sinner.
Then, I'm deliciously unconscious hu-
NOR, he breaks out into the most con-
ventional expressions Of cant.
LET no person." he says, "be In
duced to turn highwayman by read
ing this book and seeing the great
sums of money which | have robbed
for IT Is a desperate life, full of danger,
and sooner or later ends on the gal
lows"
Again, after telling Of his marriage
to a young and innocent girl OF II;
"I wish" he adds, this book to serve
rs a caution to the young girls who
read it, to be particular how they
choose a husband, and pray that some
good angel will tell them what road
their husbands will be likely to
travel"
His description of the white horse
which he declares once appeared to
him while he was being pursued after
robbery, and the vision which visit
ed him in prison, strike the more
sceptical reader as mere flights OF
fancy possibly remin SCIENCES of early
readings in "Pilgrim's Progress" But
bits Of description, that OF the rop-
berry in the canebrake on cloudy day.
and that of the cave on the night af-
ter a robbery, ring unmistakably true.
Here, at least, he shows genuine feel
ing and some little power
Joseph Thompson Hare was born
in Chester county, Pa. When he was
81 years old he sailed for New Orleans,
and started life by knocking down
and robbing people on the streets OF
that city But such very retail busl-
ness was not for him, and with two
friends he decided TO go out on the
road They bought three tirst-rate
horses that were swift and genteei
and started for Nashville.
Outside of Nashville they came on
four travellers in the midst of a great
canebrake, so thick that one could not
see ten feet from the road. 1T was
a cloudy day and everything looked
very black and gloomy, and the sound
of the cane, though it did not frighten
me, made me feel very strange and
out of the way"
Because they had neglected to paint
their faces Hare's companions were
in favor of killing all four OF the
travellers, but Hare finally persuaded
them not to do 50. One of his men
rined the pockets and saddlebags or
these unfortunatcs while the others
kept them covered. Then they were
allowed to depart.
Hare and his men established them
selves i'm cave near the ChickasaW
Bluffs. and having provided them
selves with a feather bed and cooking
utensils they managed to be very COM
Portable indeed. or the night after
this robbery Hare says:
AS for me, | could not sleep, but
lay looking sometimes in the fire we
had kindled, sometimes at the stars
and listening to the wind in among
the canebrake, which made such
wonderful rustling noise that L often
thought something or somebody was
coming through the cane after US.
So / got up and went to see if our
horses were near which we had let
loose near the brake. for | thought
they might stray. and the Indians
might get them, and, after L found
them. employed myself counting
the money, while my two companions
slept on as if nothing had hap
pened."
Hare found great deal Of money
in gold and specie in buckskin bags.
One of these in particular. over which
the owner had sighed an an old lady
would over Il favorite daughter, as II
she expected Il gentleman was about
/ ..ss /. RN.l