Читать книгу Prison Puzzle Pieces - Dave Basham - Страница 51
NORTHFIELD BANK FIASCO
ОглавлениеThis link is to a video on YouTube called "Faithful Unto Death."
This 12 minute video played at the Northfield Historical Society when I visited there. (This video is good; however it varies slightly from the information delivered on the historical society's tour.) The bank is part of the building. I like to support these places by buying their products. They did have Cole Younger's autobiography that he wrote while in Stillwater Prison, so I bought that, but they did not have this video available.
On September 7, 1876, at 2 p.m., Cole, Jim and Bob Younger, Frank and Jesse James, Charlie Pitts, Clell Miller and Bill Chadwell (aka Bill Stiles) attempted to rob the Northfield Bank in Minnesota. The Cannon River flows through the northwest side of the town. This is a very short distance behind the bank, so they had to cross a bridge to get into the main part of the town. They entered town in three groups so as to not draw attention. Frank, Bob and Charlie rode into town first and were the ones designated to enter the bank. Cole and Clell crossed the bridge next and swung around the block so they could come in from the south. Jim, Jesse and Bill crossed the river and hung out in the town square, which is right by the bank.
They were supposed to call off the robbery if there were a lot of people in town. There were a lot of people in town, but they felt these Minnesotans would be oblivious to actually having a bank robbed in their town, so they went ahead with the robbery. (A television show I saw on the history of this event stated that there were more people than normal in town on this day because it was the first day of hunting season. This was the only source that I found that stated this; however the other information was quite credible.)
When they entered the bank, Charlie closed the door. This was a warning sign to a man that had just left the bank, because the door was kept open for cross ventilation. While word of a holdup was spreading through the town, inside the bank the trio was getting on with the robbery.
Three people were working in the bank. Joseph Heywood was in charge of the vault. He was ordered to open it. The large door to a more secure area was open. The other area had a time lock on it, but it was new and was not yet operable. The robbers were told that they could not open it because of the time lock. The nature of this gang's success in the past had to do with getting in and out quick. This was taking too long and the total time reached 7 minutes. Charlie decided to try to bust into the vault himself. As he was passing through the large door leading to the vault, Heywood was able to slam the door on Charlie's arm. Charlie pushed back on the door, knocking Heywood to the floor. Frank put a bullet in Heywood's head. This robbery was not going well. One of the other three employees tried escaping through the back door. As he was running away, one of the robbers was shooting at him. The first shot missed, the second shot hit him, but he did get away. It was time to admit it was a bad day at work and to call it quits. What they never knew was that the vault had never been locked. If they would've tried opening it, they could've been in and out with $15,000 before the shooting began. One other point was that while Charlie was dealing with Heywood, the others were shaking the place down. They missed checking the cashier's drawer that had $3,000 in it. All they got away with was $27.
While all of this was going on inside of the bank, there was action going on outside. When the towns' folk became aware of the hold up, they got their weapons and started blasting away. One source stated that some were throwing rocks at the gang members. Clell Miller and Bill Chadwell were killed. All of them were wounded; Bob got it in the elbow, Cole in the hip, Jim in the jaw, Jesse in the thigh, Frank and Pitts both got hit in the leg. Bob's horse was shot.
By this account we can tell that there were definitely some people shooting that had extremely bad aim. These would be the people that get hired to have long shootouts in television and movie westerns. Maybe the town had a contest going where they got more points for hitting smaller more difficult areas to hit. Those who killed Miller and Chadwell were most likely the ones who lost the contest. Whoever shot the horse was probably eliminated from any future contests.
The death of a Swedish immigrant named Nicolaus Gustafson was attributed to a 75 foot shot by Cole Younger. It was suspected that because Gustafson did not know English that he couldn't understand what people were yelling when they hollered to clear the street. His tombstone reads, "A SWEDISH IMMIGRANT SHOT BY ROBBERS."
So that you can get a perspective of where this happened, Northfield is about 35 miles south of the Twin Cities.
The Youngers, James and Pitts got away into the woods. Many posses were formed. Over 1000 people were after them. Several days later, they were near Mankato which is about 60 miles southwest of Northfield. According to an interview with Cole, the gang decided to split up. This is common in old television and movie westerns in order to water down the size of the group pursuing you. If they were the first outlaws to do this, maybe their heirs could get residuals from all of those shows, probably not.
There are many varying accounts of the Younger Brothers and James Brothers. My guess is that the perspectives of many people confuse the facts. After this amount of time, it is doubtful that we will ever know many of the true details of these guys' escapades. Researching them and trying to find out the accurate details raised many more questions. I just had to pick a few interesting pieces to show how the Youngers wound up in Stillwater Prison history.
It's said that the Younger's and Pitts were on foot when a posse caught up with them near Madelia, Minnesota. This is primarily west, but a little south of Mankato by about 24 miles. There was a gunfight. The Younger's got wounded again. Pitts was murdered by a posse member. I say murdered, because he was shot while waving some type of a white flag trying to surrender. The Younger's were allowed to surrender. They could either plead guilty to murder and live or lose in court and be hung. Once again, they made a wise choice by pleading guilty to murder and staying alive. They were sentenced to life in Stillwater Prison on November 20, 1876.
The James brothers rode west across southern Minnesota to the Dakota Territory. They made it to Missouri and then continued on to Nashville, Tennessee where they lived without incident for three years. Frank was doing well as a farmer.
Jesse was restless, eventually recruited a new gang and started up again with his shenanigans. On October 8, 1879, they held up a railroad near Glendale, Missouri. One of the gang was captured by a posse. His name was Tucker Basham.
Tucker Basham? Was this a relative of mine? My family is from that part of the country. I was always told that my family lineage contained pirates, horse thieves and President Truman. I couldn't find anything on Tucker Basham to verify if I was or wasn't related to him. That's OK though, especially since one piece of information stated he was dim witted. Hey, watch what you think. I didn't have to tell you about that, but it does seem to make sense that he would be the only one captured.
Frank eventually got sucked back in with Jesse's criminal activities. On July 15, 1881, they robbed a train with a conductor and a passenger being killed. On September 7, 1881, Jesse robbed his last train, probably because he would be killed before he decided to hold up another one.
On April 3, 1882 Jesse was living with his wife, Zee-who was his cousin, and his kids in St. Joseph, Missouri under the name of Thomas Howard. A somewhat friend of his, Bob Ford, had conspired with the governor of Missouri. Ford was to receive $5,000 for killing Jesse. He shot Jesse in the back of the head in Jesse's own home that he was renting for $14 a month.
Thus, the chorus from the "Ballad of Jesse James":
Poor Jesse had a wife, a lady all her life
And three children, they were so brave
But that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard
Has laid ol' Jesse James in his grave
The house Jesse was shot in is a tourist attraction, but it has been moved to a different location two blocks away. You can enter the house if you get there at the right time on the right day as long as the person running the place decides to show up then. I know. I was there. It was impossible to enter.
Eventually, Frank turned himself in on robbery and murder charges on the condition that he would not be extradited to Minnesota. He was found not guilty.
Jim and Cole's parole in 1901 was on condition that they stay in Minnesota. Cole was pardoned in 1903 on the condition that he left the state and never return. Both Cole and Frank eventually joined a Wild West show in Missouri.
