Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1874 — The Shooting of the Supposed Kidnapers of Charlie Ross. [ARTICLE]

The Shooting of the Supposed Kidnapers of Charlie Ross.

The New York Times of the 18th gives the following account of the recent shooting, on Long Island, of William Mosher and Joseph Douglass, while engaged in committing a burglary in the summer residence of Judge Van Brunt, at Bay Ridge. The two burglars are believed to have been concerned in the abduction from Philadelphia of the missing boy Charlie Ross: On one of these headlands, about a mile from the landing, stand two handsome dwellings, one an old-fashioned but well-preserved house of the Long Island pattern, and the other of the more modern style of country villa. The latter is the residence of Mr. J. Holmes Van Brunt, brother of Judge Van Brunt, and the other is used as a summer residence by the Judge himself, who was born beneath its roof and continues to retain possession of it. The houses are separated only by a small piece of boundary lawn. When the Judge was closing -up his house at the end of the season he very prudently furnished it with a burg-lar-alarm telegraph, which conveys information of the slightest interference with any of its doors or windows into the bedroom of Mr. Holmes Van Brunt, in the adjoining house. On yesterday morning at two o’clock this alarm-bell rang the changes violently. Mr. Van Brunt and his wife and daughter were aw ake and heard it, the old gentleman being on a bed of sickness and general wakefulness, from which he has suffered for two pr three weeks, and the ladies being in attendance on a sick child. Up-stairs and asleep was Mr. Albert Van Brunt, a grown-up son of the old gentleman, whom Miss Van Brunt called immediately. When he came down-stairs the father said: “ Albert, go over and see what has sounded that alarm; I guess the wind has blown open one of those blinds again”—an occurrence which had more than once before caused the bell to ring. Albert complained a little about having to step down and out all alone, but, remembering the old gentleman’'s illness, he went nevertheless, first taking the precaution to put a pistol in his pocket. Approaching his uncle’s house he noticed a flickering light through the blinds of one of the windows. Then he returned to his. own house, told his father about the light, procured a lantern for himself and went to wake up William Scott, the Judge’s gardener,who lived in a cottage close by. On their way back Scott an’d Albert made another reconnoissance, and ascertained that more than one man was in the house with the light. They then went to the barn and awoke Herman Frank, the hired man, whom they enrolled in their force. Placing his little squad in watch—one man in front and the other behind the Judge’s house—Mr. Albert Van Brunt returned once more to his father’ and reported. By this time the old man felt as if he should “ make an effort,” and he made it. Though suffering excruciatingly from ah inward pain he got oht of bed and dressed himself. He and Albert gathered what guns and pistols were in the house and went forth into the darkness! When he got a few yards beyond his lewn stoop he saw the light iathe other Jtmfise and made up his mind that he had “business” before him. He sent his son to call the gardener and the hired man to him, and when they came he said: “Now, boys, we have work to do and must understand each other. W’e must capture these fellows, if we can, without killing them; but if they resist we’ll defend ourselves. Albert, you and Scott stand before the front door; Frank and I will take the Fear; and, whatever happen? afterward, let us remain in the positions we take up, because if we move around we’ll be certain to shoot each other in the dark instead of the enemy. Whichever way they coAe, let the two who meet them take care of them the best they can. If they come out and scatter both ways

then we’ll all have a chance to work.” Albert and the gardener went to the front as directed and the old ( gentleman and bis hired man took up a position close ;to the rear entrance. , The night was pitchy dark, cold and wet. The watchers waited patiently for nearly an hour, while the intruders went together through every room in the house, searching for booty, with the rays from their darklanterns dashing now and then through the clinks in the shutters. At length they came down to the basement floor and into the pantry. Through the window of this little apartment Mr. Van Brunt could see the hardlooking faces of the two burglars distinctly. He could have shot them down there and then with perfect safety to himself and his companions; but he still wished to refrain from taking life until he could be certain that they woftld show deadly resistance. He did not wish, he said, to kill them in the house, nor in any other way than in self-defence. They left the pantry and went into the dining-room, where they delayed long enough to make the watchers think they meant to remain all night. But the cold and damp air of the inclement night soon began to tell on the elder Van Brunt, and he could stand the waiting no longer. Finding he was growing numb and weak he determined to “ push things,” and, standing in front of the back door, he ordered the hired man to open it quickly. Frank proceeded to obey; but, in trying to get the key in the keyhole, he made a noise which the burglars heal'd. Their light went out immediately and their footsteps were heard descending the cellar stairs.

Mr. Van Brunt and his man moved toward the trap door of the cellar. This was soon opened and the body of a man protruded, followed by the head of another. Mr. Van Brunt cried out, “ Stand!” and called to his son and companions to remain still and “ look out.” In response to his command two pistol shots from the cellar door flashed almost in his face but nothing hit him. He then leveled his revolver at the foremost man and pulled, and a cry of agony followed. The other man fired at him a second time and 1 then ran toward the front of the house. He dashed almost into the arms of young Van Brunt, at whom he fired two more luckily missing him also. The fellow having got between Albert and the white wall the latter could see the arm raised for another shot, but before it could be fired the arm was struck down and broken near the elbow by a blow from Mr. Van Brunt’s shotgun, which was also smashed. Changing the pistol to his left hand and calling his adversary a vile name the burglar attempted to fire again; but before he could do so young Van Brunt had whipped out his revolver and sent a bullet into his would-be murderer’s breast. The burglar staggered, received anotlicr bullet in his head and fell. Meantime the villain from whom the elder Mr. Van Brunt’s bullet had brought the howl of pain continued to fire away in the dark, and the hired man replied with a discharge from his •shot-gun. In short, as far as any of the survivors can now remember, the fusillading here, became general, the only thing positively known after the second or third shot being the gratifying fact that while none of the defenders of the Judge’s property were hurt, the two burglars were literally riddled with bullets. One was stone dead, with his empty seven-shooter under his head; the other lived until five o’clock—about two hours. The. battle was heard in their houses by many of the neighbors, and the awful suffering of Mrs, Van Brunt and Miss Van Brunt, who watched the whole affray from their .window, is something that cannot very well be told. It was no more nor less than the ‘woman, the wife and the mother that soon afterward spoke, when Mrs. Van Brunt, in reply to a request for some whisky for the dying burglar, said: “ Whisky for him! for the man who tries to kill my husband? Oh, no! I don’t want him to live—let him die. At all events, he gets no whisky from me!” A number of the neighbors came rushing to the place and got there by the time the shooting was over. Among them was a sailor named Herkey, who entered into conversation with the younger of the two thieves, who was still alive. Mr. Herkey says: “I asked him who he was and he said his name was Joseph Douglass, and that he was a single man, having no relations except a brother and sister whom he had not seen for twelve or fifteen years. Mosher, he said, was a married man and had five children. Then he said, ' It’s no use lying now, I helped to steal Charlie Ross.’ When I heard this 1 sent right away to get all the people together that I could so that the evidence that he might give would be fully established. He said that he helped Mosher to steal Charlie Ross; that he was in the buggy with Mosher when they stole him. ‘ Mosher knows all about it,’ said he. I told him that Mosher was dead and asked him to tell me the particulars. ‘lnspector Walling knows,’ said he, ‘ and the boy will get home all right.’ I questioned him further but could not get anything more out of him, as he was suffering so terribly that he could not talk.”