The American Exchange Bank Robbery
ate in the afternoon of Friday, May 4, 1888, two messengers left the American Exchange National Bank, at the northeast corner of Cedar Street and Broadway, New York City, and started down the busy thoroughfare for the office of the Adams Express Company, a few blocks distant. They carried between them, each holding one of the handles, a valise made of canvas and leather, in which had just been placed, in the presence of the paying-teller, a package containing forty-one thousand dollars in greenbacks, to be transmitted to the United States Treasury in Washington for redemption.
Although the messengers—Edward S. Crawford and old "Dominie" Earle—were among the bank's most trusted employees, their honesty being considered above suspicion, they were nevertheless followed at a short distance by bank detective McDougal, an old-time police detective, whose snow-white beard and ancient style of dress have long made him a personage of note on Broadway. Detective McDougal followed the messengers, not because he had any fear that they were planning a robbery, but because it is an imperative rule of all great banking institutions that the transfer of large sums of money, even for very short distances, shall be watched over with the most scrupulous care. Each messenger is supposed to act as a check on his fellow, while the detective walking in the rear is a check on both. In such cases all three men are armed, and would use their weapons without hesitation should an attack be made upon them.
The messengers walked on through the hurrying crowd, keeping on the east sidewalk as far as Wall Street, where they turned across, and continued their way on the west sidewalk as far as the Adams Express Company's building, which stands at No. 59 Broadway. Having seen them safely inside the building, the detective turned back to the bank, where his services were required in other matters.
Passing down the large room strewn with boxes and packages ready for shipment, the two messengers turned to the right, and ascended the winding stairs that in those days led to the money department, on the second floor. No one paid much attention to them, as at this busy hour bank messengers were arriving and departing every few minutes. Still, some of the clerks remembered afterward, or thought they did, that the old man, Earle, ascended the stairs more slowly than his more active companion, who went ahead, carrying the valise alone. Both messengers, however, were present at the receiving-window of the money department when the package was taken from the valise and handed to the clerk, who gave a receipt for it in the usual form: "Received from the American Exchange Bank one package marked as containing forty-one thousand dollars, for transfer to Washington"; or, at least, so far as has ever been proved, both messengers were present when the package was handed in.
The two messengers, having performed their duty, went away, Earle hurrying to the ferry to catch a train out into New Jersey, where he lived, and Crawford returning to the bank with the empty valise. The valuable package had meantime been ranged behind the heavily wired grating along with dozens of others, some of them containing much larger sums. The clerks in the money department of the Adams Express Company become so accustomed to handling gold, silver, and bank-notes, fortunes done up in bags, boxes, or bundles, that they think little more of this precious merchandise than they might of so much coal or bricks. A quick glance, a touch of the hand, satisfies them that the seals, the wrappings, the labels, the general appearance, of the packages are correct; and having entered them duly on the way-bills and turned them over to the express messenger who is to forward them to their destination, they think no more about them.
In this instance the forty-one-thousand-dollar package, after a brief delay, was locked in one of the small portable safes, a score of which are always lying about in readiness, and was lowered to the basement, where it was loaded on one of the company's wagons. The wagon was then driven to Jersey City, guarded by the messenger in charge, his assistant, and the driver, all three men being armed, and was safely placed aboard the night express for Washington. It is the company's rule that the messenger who starts with a through safe travels with it to its destination, though he has to make a journey of a thousand miles. Sometimes the destination of money under transfer is so remote that the service of several express companies is required; and in that case the messenger of the Adams Company accompanies the money only to the point where it is delivered to the messenger of the next company, and so on.
The next morning, when the package from the American Exchange Bank was delivered in Washington, the experienced Treasury clerk who received it perceived at once, from the condition of the package, that something was wrong. Employees of the Treasury Department seem to gain a new sense, and to be able to distinguish bank-notes from ordinary paper merely by the "feel," even when done up in bundles. Looking at the label mark of forty-one thousand dollars, the clerk shook his head, and called the United States Treasurer, James W. Hyatt, who also saw something suspicious in the package. Mr. Blanchard, the Washington agent of the Adams Express Company, was summoned, and in his presence the package was opened. It was found to contain nothing more valuable than slips of brown straw paper, the coarse variety used by butchers in wrapping up meat, neatly cut to the size of bank-notes. The forty-one thousand dollars were missing.
It was evident that at some point between the bank and the Treasury a bogus package had been substituted for the genuine one. The question was, Where and by whom had the substitution been made?