Washburn Bank Robbery

Last time I wrote about Henry Starr's robbery of the Bank of Seligman on December 20, 1920, and I had previously written on this blog about the robbery of the Bank of Exeter that occurred on December 22, 1921. However, those heists were just two in an outbreak of five bank robberies that occurred in Barry County within a two-year period from the late teens to the early twenties.
The first of the five occurred on December 11, 1919, when two unmasked youths pulled up in an automobile outside the Bank of Washburn about two o'clock in the afternoon and left the car running as they strode into the bank armed with revolvers. They rifled through the tills and then forced cashier W. H. Jones and his wife (who was the assistant cashier) to open the safe at the point of a gun. The young robbers took about $4,000 in currency and several thousand dollars worth of Liberty Bonds, slammed the vault door shut on Jones and his wife, and made their escape. 
The crime was not discovered until twenty minutes later, when a customer came into the bank and found Jones and his wife locked in the vault. A posse was quickly organized, and the getaway car was found abandoned on the road southwest of Washburn. No other trace of the robbers was found, but it was thought they might be headed for Oklahoma.
However, the suspects were located near Stella two days later. One of them, a 28-year-old World War I vet named Claude Leonard, surrendered when officers opened fire on the duo, but the other young man, whom Leonard later identified as 21-year-old Bob Pankey (aka Paukey) of Lamar, made his escape to the woods. Leonard, who gave his hometown as Eldorado Springs, had about $1,650 on him, but he said Pankey had about $2,000 in currency and several thousand in bonds. The bank's total loss was placed at about $12,850. The chase after Pankey continued into the next day, December 14, before finally being called off when the lawmen lost the fugitive's trail.
On December 15, however, Pankey was arrested by police at a Joplin hotel where he had registered. He admitted the robbery, and he said his real name was Bob Forge (also given as Froge) but that he'd been reared by the Pankey family. He had about $8,500 in cash and bonds on him. He said he "used to be a Sunday school boy but somewhere I got away from it. But I never have sworn, smoked, or touched liquor."
Charged with bank robbery, both suspects were taken to Cassville to await trial. When their cases came up, both men pleaded guilty. Both were sentenced to forty years at the big house, but they were paroled in 1930 after serving a little over twenty.

Henry Starr and the Bank of Seligman Robbery

I've previously written on this blog about notorious outlaw/bank robber Henry Starr. One time I gave more or less an overview of his criminal career, and another time I focused on the 1893 train robbery near Pryor Creek, Oklahoma, which he was involved in. In the overview, I mention the robbery of the Bank of Harrison, Arkansas, in February 1921, during which Starr was mortally wounded. However, Starr was also involved in another bank robbery just a couple of months earlier, a crime I have not previously mentioned on this blog. 
About 10 a.m. of Dec. 20, 1920, a Marmon 6 automobile pulled to a halt in front of the Bank of Seligman. Two men got out and went into the bank, while a third stayed behind the wheel of the vehicle. Several people were on the street at the time, but nothing about the appearance of the men or the car aroused suspicion. Once the two men were inside the bank, though, one of them drew a revolver and ordered everybody to “Put ’em up!” Meanwhile, the other man looted the vault and the cash drawer, securing a little over $1,200, mostly in currency. The robbers ordered bank cashier Walter Stapleton, bookkeeper Lawrence Chapman, and patron F. W. Frost into the vault and closed the door on them. The two bandits then walked leisurely out of the bank to the awaiting getaway car. The Marmon sped away to the south toward Eureka Springs. 
Inside the vault, Stapleton went to work extricating himself and his fellow captives. He had recently read an account of a bank robbery in which a cashier had been locked inside a vault, and Stapleton had studied his own vault’s lock at that time to ascertain if and how one might be able to open it from the inside. His preparation proved worthwhile, because he was able to free himself and his companions in less than five minutes and give an alarm.
Stapleton described the apparent leader of the robbers as a dark complexioned man, who wore colored glasses, stood about six feet tall, and walked with erect posture. The second man, according to Stapleton, was blond, stood about five feet, eight inches, and appeared nervous. Neither man wore a mask, and Stapleton said he could easily identify either one.
After the alarm was given, a posse quickly organized and pursued the bandits about nine miles southeast of Seligman, where the burning Marmon was found at the foot of a steep embankment. Apparently the robbers had run the auto off the cliff intentionally and escaped to the hills on foot. Deputies followed the trail of the bandits into the woods but lost the track after about two miles.
A bank association of which the Seligman bank was a member offered a reward of $300 each for capture of the holdup men. Lee Ahl, from Galena, Kansas, was arrested on suspicion at Tulsa and brought back to Barry County in mid-January of 1921. Ahl had also been arrested on suspicion of robbing the Bank of Sarcoxie in January of 1920 and was out on bond when he was arrested on the Seligman charge. At his preliminary hearing, though, he was released for lack of evidence, and the Sarcoxie charge against him was soon dropped as well.
After notorious robber Henry Starr was mortally wounded in a botched holdup attempt in Harrison, Arkansas, in mid-February of 1921, Cashier Stapleton traveled to Harrison and identified Starr as the leader of the gang that had robbed him. In addition, Starr made a deathbed confession admitting that he and two sidekicks had pulled off the Seligman job.

Mount Vernon

In 1894, the Springfield Democrat ran a series of articles promoting Greene County and all of southwest Missouri, including specific towns throughout the region, especially those located on railroads and, therefore, readily accessible to travelers. Most of the articles about the individual towns were brief and didn't offer a lot of information, but some of them were nonetheless interesting.
Take, for example, an article that appeared in a September 1894 issue about Mount Vernon. The paper reminded readers that Mount Vernon, situated on the Greenfield & Northern Railroad about 40 miles west of Springfield, was the county seat of Lawrence County. Furthermore, the article claimed, Mount Vernon was also the "Mecca of this region for invalids." According to the newspaper, "The purity of the atmosphere, which winnows in from the mountains; the sulphur spring, which is renowned for its medicinal properties, and the reputation of the little city with its 2,000 inhabitants for longevity have made Mt. Vernon famous as a health resort."
The article then went on to cite statistics that, at least in the light of what me know about modern medicine and fitness, seem to call into question whether Mount Vernon was, in fact, a very healthy place. "There are thirty men in the place who weigh between 250 and 300 pounds," said the newspaper, "and the rising generation, some of them promise to tip the scales at 400 pounds and still not have superfluous flesh.
"The town has every possible natural advantage," concluded the article, "while in educational and religious matter it takes a back seat for nothing nor nobody."

City Crime Versus Country Crime

Do cities generally have a higher rate of violent crime than small towns and rural areas, even after you allow for the population difference? I suspect that they probably do. I think that people in small towns and the country often have stronger ties to the community, more of a sense of belonging, and just an overall sense of close-knittedness that is sometimes missing in large cities. However, my opinion is really just a hunch. What I know for sure is that this subject has been a matter of debate for a long time.
The day after Christmas of 1895, the St. Louis Republic reported that there had been 15 murders in St. Louis during the past 90 days. Anticipating the Republican National Convention that was scheduled for St. Louis in June of 1896, the newspaper suggested that the city's criminal record would be a magnet for criminals of every stripe from across the country and that they would turn St. Louis into a "harvest field."
The Republic blamed the recent uptick in crime in St. Louis on lax administration. For instance, the newspaper alleged that bad men were able to "purchase exemption" from their crimes and that such corruption only made the criminals bolder. Unless the city started enforcing the law more strictly, the newspaper warned, St. Louis would soon "witness such carnivals of crime as Chicago has seen."
About a week later the Taney County Republican reprinted part of the article from the Republic, and editors B. B. Price and S. J. Williams observed that the 15 recent murders in St. Louis had caused "less fuss" and received less publicity than one similar murder would have received "if it happened in Taney County." The editors went on to claim that, "for some reason or other, crime in the big cities does not receive such sensational treatment as crime in the country." They concluded that, in fact, life and property were much safer in Taney County than they were in St. Louis because the laws were more strictly observed and enforced. Perhaps the editors were a little touchy because of all the negative publicity Taney County had received during the Bald Knobber era of the 1880s, At any rate, they seemed to suggest that the only reason crime in rural areas received so much publicity was because such crime was rare, thus adding another twist to the debate about the prevalence of crime in the cities versus the country.

Lynching of George Graham

Shortly after one o’clock on Tuesday morning, April 27, 1886, a large body of horsemen rode into downtown Springfield from the west and surrounded the courthouse at the corner of College and the public square. Almost all the men were armed, and nearly all had handkerchiefs across their faces. They numbered about one hundred and fifty and appeared well-organized. Eight or ten of them dismounted at the jail, located on College Street at the rear of the courthouse, and they rapped on the door.

            When night watchman R. W. Douglas opened the door, the small mob presented their weapons and marched Douglas into the sheriff’s quarters, where two of them grabbed Sheriff F. M. Donnell as he was rousing from bed and putting on his pants. Donnell offered no resistance, against the heavily armed men.

            They told Donnell they didn’t want to hurt him but they would if he didn’t let them have George Graham, who had recently confessed to killing his first wife and dumping her body in an abandoned well on a Brookline farm owned by nationally known temperance revivalist Emma Molloy. Fearing for her husband’s safety, Mrs. Donnell turned over the key to a drawer where the jail keys were kept.

            After the mob retrieved the jail keys, two vigilantes guarded Donnell while the rest, taking Douglas with them, unlocked the door leading to the cells. Douglas refused to say which cell was Graham’s, but one of the men looked into Graham’s cell and recognized him. The mob soon had the door to Graham’s cell open.

            The prisoner thought the men were bluffing at first, but realizing they weren’t as they entered his cell, he became defiant, calling them Brookline murderers. One of the men put a shotgun to Graham’s head and ordered him to shut up and put on his clothes. Graham sobbed briefly as he dressed but quickly regained his composure.

            The vigilantes tied Graham’s hands, put a rope around his neck, and herded him outside. They put him into a spring wagon, and they made Douglas get in the wagon as well. The cavalcade started east on College Street, crossed the public square, and turned north on Boonville. Aroused by the commotion, many curious onlookers trooped along behind “the march of death.” Periodically the rear guard of the night riders stopped to warn the spectators back.

            The march continued north to within a couple of blocks of Division Street, then wound its way west, finally halting beneath a blackjack oak tree about 300 yards north-northwest of the woolen mill on or near the site of present-day Weaver Elementary School.

            The rope around Graham’s neck was tied to a limb about nine feet off the ground and the wagon driven out from under Graham. However, the rope was too long, allowing his feet to hit the ground. Two of the gang lifted him up while others adjusted the rope around the limb. The ones holding Graham up then let go, and he swung with his feet barely touching the ground until he finally choked to death. 

            It was after 3:00 a.m. when most of the gang rode away to the south and then went west out of town. About thirty men remained at the tree, but they, too, rode away a half hour later, leaving the curiosity seekers free to approach the body.

            They found Graham dead with blood oozing from his mouth and nose. Pinned to his coat was the following message:

When the Coroner is in possession of this paper, Geo. E. Graham will be dead, and as little punishment will have been inflicted as if he had been hanged by legal authority.
It is a matter of right to the community and justice to humanity that we, “The Three Hundred," ignore the law in this instance.
We recognize that our criminal statues are not equal to all occasions, therefore we have resolved to remove from our midst the worst criminal who has ever infested our country before he gets the “benefit of clergy,” that we may hereafter and forever live and be without his presence and vicious influence.

                       

            The note cautioned other criminals to stay away from Greene County and warned that anybody who tried to discover the identity of the lynchers would be “speedily DISPATCHED TO HELL.” It ended with a warning to Sheriff Donnell to keep his mouth shut if had recognized any of the vigilantes, or he would “die the death of a dog.”    

Released after the lynching, night watchman Douglas returned to town to get the sheriff, and the two lawmen went back to the tree to cut Graham’s body down. It was taken downtown, where a coroner’s jury later that day concluded that George Graham “came to his death by being hung by the neck until dead by parties to this jury unknown.”

            Speculation arose after the lynching as to the identity of the mob, but a grand jury failed to return any indictments. Critics of Mrs. Molloy, who had been charged as an accessory after the fact in Sarah Graham’s murder, suggested the lynching might have been instigated by her Springfield friends to keep Graham from revealing incriminating information about her.

            The available evidence does not support such a conspiracy theory. Instead, the lynch mob was probably organized in the Brookline area, where the murder had occurred.

            This blog entry is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Bigamy and Bloodshed: The Scandal of Emma Molloy and the Murder of Sarah Graham.