Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1893 — RECOVERED THE BOOTY. [ARTICLE]

RECOVERED THE BOOTY.

Short Work Msde of the Meoaba Banc* Robbers. The whole of the $70,000 taken by the Mesaba Range, Mich., train robbers has been recovered. When the robbers had secured their booty they were smart enough to know that it was imjxissible successfully to secrete the gold anywhere on the Keweenaw Peninsula. It was equally dangerous to keep it on their persons. One of the gang went to Houghton, dressed as a miner, and for a consideration of 50 cents, it is said, induced a baggageman to check his trunk through. It is not known that the baggageman was aware of the contents of the trunk, but a special train soon followed with officers, and the booty was overtaken on the road quite a distance from Houghton. Liberty, a fireman on the Duluth Road, was arrested on suspicion of being a party to the conspiracy. He made every effort to get away, but without avail. Another fireman on the road is also in custody. The other men now under arrest for the daring train robbery are John King, the Cornish wrestler; Jack Chellew, said to be the keeper of a disreputable place in Ishpeming; John Kehoe, a Red Jacket saloon-keeper; John Quinlan, and a stranger named Butler from Marquette. A strong clow is that some women saw a horse tied near tho scone of the robbery that tallied with the description of a hor6e hired by King earlier in the day. In addition, Chellew, King, and Kehoe left Hancock early in the morning and returned to town from the direction of tho robbory shortly after it was committed. The robbery was ono of the slickest jobs in the annals of criminal history. The robbers knew that $30,000 furnished by tho Superior Savings Bank, of Hancock, and $40,000 furnished by tho First National Bank, of Houghton, was on the express ear, designed for the payment of Calumet and Hecla miners. If they had been still wiser they could have obtained $40,000 more;; which a messenger from the First! National at Hancock, carried in a hand-sachel. Boston is about five miles south of Calumet. It is a fiag station. When the engineer, Nick Schuler, saw a man vigorously signaling from the depot platform, ho stopped the train as a matter of course Scarcely had he done so when the supposed agent went inside, donned a mask and in a jiffy jumped into the cab, drawing his revolver and firing a shot in the air. Then he told the engineer to stand aside. He would run the “d d machine.”

The fireman, thinking an escaped lunatic was on board, ran along the Bide of the lccomotive, but throe shots In uncomfortable proximity to his head led him to stop in his mad career and return to the cab. All this time Messenger D. W. Hogan sat in the express car making out bills. The door was suddenly broken dow ( n by a sledge, falling with a crash, and when the startled man found himself looking into the barrels of an ugly bulldog rovolvor he didn’t stop to argue. His hands soon pointed heavenward, while a man extracted his revolver from a pocket and told him to produce his key. Hogan made a feint. This didn’t go. The key was produced instanter, and the robbors departed with the swag. Meanwhile tho baggageman, who sat in another part of the car, was disconsolately studying the barrels of another gun. Two shots were fired by tho robbers when they left the car. This was a signal to start the train again. The highwayman with the boodle waved his hands derisively at the'now frightened passengers as the train moved away. So little time was taken up with tho work that the train was but five minutes late when it reached Calumet. The robbers threw away their masks and also the express messenger's revolver. These were afterwards found. The men probably were anxious to leave nothing on their persons to incriminate them. It now transpires that 'the robbers had prepared to derail the train, but hadn’t time to complete tho job or were disturbed.