Volume 18 , Issue 34

Huge Train Robbery, 13 September 1893

According the The McPherson Daily Republican, out of McPherson, Kansas, 13 September 1893, Wednesday, on page 1, the headlines read: "Huge Robbery." A Lake Shore train, a New York express, had been held up by twenty men. The engineer was wounded. And the express car was blown open and $300,000 taken. Who were these twenty something men?

Found on Newspapers.com

Kendallvile, Ind., Sept. 13 (1893) -- Lake Shore express train NO. 14, the New York express, was held up and robbed by twenty desperadoes at Kessler siding, west of Keqdallville, Indiana and 140 miles from Chicago, just after midnight that morning. One express car blown up with dynamite, the safe blown open and the engineer shot through he shoulder. The robbers secured probably $300,000, of which $250,000 belonged to a Chicago bank and was being sent to New York.

As the train was passing through a stretch of timber land near the siding, the engineer saw a red light ahead and slowed up. As the red light drew nearer the engineer saw the group os men. In front of the night the train came to a stop when a dozen men sprang into the cab and leveled rifles at the heads of the engineer and fireman with the order, "Throw up your hands."

The fireman lifted his arms at once, but the engineer with a cry of warning on his lips turned toward the passenger coaches. A dozen rifles were quickly turned toward the plucky fellow and a dozen shots startled the passengers who had been awakened by the sudden stopping of the cars. The engineer, named Knapp, had one hand on the throttle and attempted to start the train. One of the robbers pushed a big revolver against his shoulder and fired. The bullet passed clear through, tearing a hole in which a lead pencil could be laid.

The next moment there was a terrific explosion. The robbers had put dynamite under the train, and as the stillness of the lonely place was broken, the express car cracked and split and showed a huge gash in its side.

The conductor and the brakemen hurried to the platform only top e covered by Winchesters in the hands of men who said they should shoot to kill if a move were made. The railroad men became motionless and dumb. A guard was put at the end of each car and the express car was attacked.

The messenger behind his barricaded door refused to obey the command of the robbers to open thecae door. Shot after shot was fired tat the car but the robbers soon saw that they could gain no entrance by intimidation. They were prepared for this resistance and seizing engineer and fireman they used them as bucklers. The messenger then surrendered. He was soon disarmed and with a blow on the head leveled on the floor senseless.

Half a dozen of the twenty men then looted the express car. Dynamite was again used in opening the safe and the thieves used their own time in taking everything they thought worth carrying away.

The guards at the doors of the passenger coaches were called off, a few parting shots were fired - perhaps in the air - to warn those on the train that pursuit meant death, and the band of robbers disappeared in the wooded stretch of land that skirts the railroad.

The dynamite having wrecked only on express car, the robbers contented themselves with looting this alone and made no effort to force an entrance to the second.

A tramp who was stealing a ride on the express car of the train said there must have been twenty or twenty-five men in the gang. He says that as soon as the train came to a standstill the men ran along the rear end and when the trainmen came out on the platform to see what was the matter they were confronted by Winchesters.

The noise caused by the crashing of the door when the dynamite bomb was hurled against it was the first intimation the passengers had that the train was in the hands of robbers. There was a lively scramble among the passengers to crawl under the seats and secrete what valuables they had in sight, such as watches and other jewelry.

Stories of Huge Hauls Denied
Chicago, Sept. 13 (1893) -- General Superintendent Crosby, of the United States Express Co., declared that afternoon that the robbers thought they were carrying away national bank notes, but secured mostly papers worthless to them and overlooked $15,000 worth of gold bullion. He denied that $275,000 had been taken. In the safe blown open was a sealed bag full of packages of about the size and shape of packages of bank notes. These were marked $1,000, $2,000 and so on. These figures indicated what some of the packages were listed at but practically they were worth no more than the paper they contained, their contents consisting of settlements with agents, receipts for moneys, legal papers, etc., which could all be duplicated after a time.

The report that the safe contained a shipment of $250,000 from a Chicago to a New York bank could not be confirmed, no banker admitting having made such a shipment and the express company's officers flatly denying that there was any such amount on the train.

President Newelll, of the Lake Shore road that afternoon offered a reward of $1,000 for the capture and conviction of the robbers.

A man giving the name of C. A. Belden, of Pocatello, Idaho, and a supposed to be one of the robbers, was arrested in Peru, Indiana. He arrived over the Wabash railway during the night on a freight train. From general indications the police were confident they had one of the men or a decoy sent that way by the robbers.

Chicago Officers On Guard
Chicago, Sept. 13 (1893) -- It was just 3:30 o'clock that morning when the special officers at the Lake Shore depot rushed into the Harrison street station and told the lieutenant in the charge that No. 14 had been held up and robbed while rolling over the Indiana marshes.

Lief. Shepard at once sent a half dozen officers to intercept the bandits if they came toward Chicago. The officers were given orders to go to South Chicago and wait there until daybreak.

The sheriff of the county in which the train was held up telegraphed Sheriff Gilbert, of Cook county, to be on the lookout for the robbers, as they were coming that way.

The express car robbed was one used by the United States Express Co. The crime was thought to have been the work of a gang of tramps.

It was a well known fact that the train which the robbers despoiled at the lonely hamlet of Kessler, Ind., frequently carried as much s $500,000 in currency at one time.

The railroad detectives and local police claim that the work was done by men inexperienced and new to the business, but, on the face of the returns, the figures showed that they knew what they wanted, wasted no time or energy in going for it, and they had got what they went after.

Their plan of operations was carefully considered, and boldly and systematically executed. They were all mounted as the tracks of horses near the scene of the robbery showed. The Associated press correspondent saw places where they had leveled the fences between the tracks, and the road over which they took their hasty departure.
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