Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1914 — SHELBY MAH HELD ON PIRACY CHARGE [ARTICLE]

SHELBY MAH HELD ON PIRACY CHARGE

Joseph Laramie figures in Sensational Case That Reads Like a Dime Novel San Francisco, Jan. 2.—A sea rover; and Arctic trader turned pirate, Andrew B. Nelson, himself a master mariner and one time owner of the schooner Hera, was brought to port today in irons, locked in the brig of the steam lumber schooner Willamsette, and turned over to the federal authorities, who held him in $10,900 bail on a charge of assaulting Captain Reiner on the high seas with intent to murder.

With him was brough Joseph Laramie, a bricklayer, who says he is from Shelby, Ind., charged with be ing an accomplice in the crime. He was held on the same bail. Neither man will admit that he knows the other. Nelson was arrested Wednesday night, after a hand to hand fight, in the captain’s cabin, Which he had entered mnifflil in a towel, wearing a brown wig, a false mustache and carrying an automatic pistol In his hand. Though a Smaller, lighter man, Captain Rainer took the pistol away from the grotesque pirate, Who immediately drew a double section revolver. He was getting the better of the captain when two sailors and a waiter rushed into the room, overpowered Nelson and ironed him. Laramie was standing outside the door while the fight was in progress.

The Willamette carried $1,500 in cash to pay her crew of twenty-five and there were twenty-five passengers quartered aft. A launch followed the vessel, keeping distant about half a mile for some time and Captain Rainer believes the pirate intended to rob his safe and hold up the passengers for their cash and valuables and make his escape to shore In the launch. A member's card m the Masters, Mates and Pilots association of the Paciflt, California Harbor, No. 15 f Idund in Nelson’s pocket®, was the clue that led to his past history. Although admitting his identity and hitsory, Nelson says he is a private detective and that he took passage on the Willamette to arrest Captain Rainer for whom a reward of SIO,OOO had been offered. Of course the reward is mythical and be many crimes, none of them specfled, which Nelson said the captain had committed, are 1 unknown to the police