Volume 18 , Issue 2

1895 - Masked Robbers Hold Up A Train

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri), dated 7 October 1895, Monday, page 1, reported on this day: "Masked Robbers Hold Up A Train." A Frisco passenger train was attacked by daring bandits, and got but little booty. They uncoupled the express car in Indian Territory and Terrorized passengers while rifling it.

Found on Newspapers.com

Ft. Smith, Ark., Oct. 7 (1895) -- The northbound Frisco train was robbed at Caston, I. T., fifty miles south of Ft. Smith, Arkansas, the night before. There were six men in the party, and after holding up the train one stood guard over the passengers while the others cut loose the express car and ran it up the track. They failed to get at the through safe and the amount secured from the local, 85 cents, disgusted them, so they threw it on the floor and left it.

They cursed the messenger for not having more money and left. The train was crowded with people coming to Ringling's Circus, but he robbers said they did not want any thing from the passengers. A great sensation and almost a panic was produced among them by the action of a boy who became scared and ran. The robbers' guard told him to halt and fired through the bottom of the car, but the boy stumbled and fell and it was thought he was killed. The robbers were very cool and it was thought they were old hands at the business. It was laid to the Christian brothers gang, but at the United States Marshal's office it was thought to be a new gang. The Christian brothers had a host of friends near Caston and were harbored there after they escaped from Oklahoma. It was near there that they had the fight with the officers in which one of the gang, John Fessenden, was killed.

Supt. Simpson, of the Wells-Fargo Express Company, received by wire Monday morning the details.

The train had stopped at Caston tank for water. The spot was a lonely one. There wasn't a residence in sight and a heavy forest of live oaks stretched in all directions for miles. An unvaried path of cloud muffled the expanse of sky from zenith to horizon, did not a star was visible. Almost before the engine came to a stop it was boarded by two men wearing masks of bandana and handkerchiefs and big revolvers.

In the meantime the others of the gang were going through the passenger coach, firing their pistols into the floor and terrorizing the passengers.

A fifth man stood in the shadow of the tank and gave directions to the others. The engineer and fireman at the points of revolvers were forced by their captors to uncouple the combination mail and passenger coach and the baggage car from the main train, and with the five bandits in the cab to run the engine and two cars to a point two miles above the tank.

Before leaving the main train they made the conductor send a flagman back to prevent a collision. They also forced the conductor to accompany them. Arriving at rendezvous, they demanded of Wells-fargo Express Messenger Andrew of this city to open the safe. When informed by him that it had a time lock, and he couldn't open the safe, they threatened to blow it up with sticks of dynamite which they carried. The conductor told them that they might blow the whole train to smithereens without damaging the safe,a nd this induced them to turn their attention from the express to the mail car. They rifled the mail pouches, but got very little money.

Supt. Simpson, who had been mainly instrumental in having the old cook and other gangs of Indian Territory train robbers captured or killed off during the past year (1894), thought this band was an entirely new one, and was inclined to believe that it was led by some railroad man,because of the accurate knowledge displayed in the handling of the train.
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