Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1893 — ROBBERS’ BIG HAUL. [ARTICLE]

ROBBERS’ BIG HAUL.

ASTOUNDING RAID ON A LAKE SHORE TRAIN. The Bandit* Get 5300.000, Shoot the Kngineer, and Make Their Escape—lnadequate Seward Offered by the Road—They Were Professional*. • Story of the Deed. When the Atlantic express on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad, which left Chicago at 7:45 o’clock Monday evening for, New York and Boston, reached Kessler, Ind., at 12:40 o'clock, it was stopped by an open-switch signal. A gang of men boarded the train, shot Engineer Stewart Knapp and blew open the United States Express Company’s safe with dynamite, stealing its contents. It is believed that these amounted to nearly $300,000, including a shipment of $250,000 from a Chicago to a New York bank. The robbery was a bold one, though it was probably the work of a gang of tramps, according to the belief of the best-known thief catchers. The train carries express, mail, day coaches, and sleepers. It is the heaviest expres s train on the road, and frequently carries a half million dollars in currency and bullion. This fact must have been known to the robbers, as they were prepared in every way to make a big haul. The robbers numbered eighteen or twenty men, all armed and prepared for their desperate work At the fall of the engineer, who was shot in the back by a masked man, who boarded the locomotive from the opposite side, the fireman was covered with a Winchester and ordered at the cost of his life to stop the train, which he did.

When the train stopped Messenger Weist thought the train had reached Kendallville, and threw open the south door to unload and take off express matter, but seeing that it was the siding he apprehended danger and slammed it shut: but almost at the same instant there was a loud report and the north door of the car flew off its hinges by the explosion of dynamite cartridges. Messenger West and his helper, named Hamblin, were covered with Winchesters and ordered to open the small safe, which they did. In the meantime ten masked men, all armed, had entered the car, three of whom went to work boring holes for dynamite cartridges in the large safe in which all through shipments of money and bullion were kept. The work was accomplished in a professional manner and speedily. In a few moments after the explosion of the cartridge the large safe door fell to the floor, opening up a large amount of money and bullion, which the robbers proceeded to load themselves with, together with that found in the small safe, which wa3 taken on at local star tions, and amounted to several thousand dollars. No attempt was made to open the inner vault to the large safe, where the bulk of the currency was kept. President and General Manager J. Newell, of the Lake Shore Railroad, has ordered that 2,000 posters be printed offering SI,OOO for the capture and convicf.on of the robbers, and that they be posted broadcast over the country. He also ordered - that advertisements offering the same reward be published in all local newspapers along the line of the Lake Shore Railroad between Elkhart, Ind., and Toledo.