Then there was Jim Van Rensaellaer’s case. Jim was a big, fat, good-natured agent of the American Express Company at Winnipeg and of the Winnipeg-Moorhead stage company for years, and was liked by everybody. One day, it was discovered that from the vault in the express office had been taken a package of money—said to be $10,000 but really $15,000 (to save extra express charges) which a bank was sending to Winnipeg. There was absolutely no clue to the robbery. For years Van was shadowed by local and imported detectives and every device resorted to in order to catch him. His friends stood staunchly by him, but the money was gone, and who could have taken it if not Van? Coming on the train from Devil’s Lake, Dakota, to Grand Forks one day, I met Jack Noble, a detective, whom I had known for years. He told me the express company never let up in running down express robbers, and that he expected to catch Van before long—and this was a couple of years after the theft. In a friendly spirit I told Van all this when I reached home, but Van seemed perfectly unconcerned, and said he was as much interested in solving the mystery as the company was. Some years later when in London, England, I spent an evening with H. G. McMicken, who at the time of this robbery occupied part of the express office as a railway and steamship ticket office. He was a sort of amateur detective and could open a safe in first-class Raffles style, and he had given a good deal of attention and thought to this affair. The only solution he could offer—and it was probably the correct one—was that on the eventful day a number of workmen were employed in whitewashing the office. The vault door had been left ajar, and one of the men, seizing the opportunity, had snatched the package and secreted it in his whitewash pail, where it would immediately be covered with the lime solution. He could then easily leave for lunch with his booty in the pail, which he doubtless did. This theory was afterwards corroborated by a contractor who told a friend of mine that the culprit had confessed the crime to him—a long time after it had been committed. And the express company was out only $10,000 besides its expenses for detectives, and the bank lost $5,000. But the latter’s reputation suffered more than Van’s.
The Case of Lord Gordon-Gordon
A remarkable case was that of Lord Gordon-Gordon, a presumed nobleman, who in the early ’70’s cut a wide swath in Minnesota, where he was royally entertained by leading people. He intimated that he was acting for his sister, who desired to invest heavily in western lands. He was “pie” for the Minnesotans, who were willing to unload on her ladyship all the land she coveted. A fine looking gentlemanly fellow, he quickly made hosts of friends. It was not long before it was discovered that his lordship had previously got into difficulties in New York with Jay Gould, the well-known railway magnate, and was out on bail. He promptly immigrated to Manitoba, and to secure his return to the United States an attempt was made to kidnap him. He was forcibly seized at the residence of Hon. James McKay, whose guest he was, and hurried towards the boundary line, but the authorities interfered and brought back Lord Gordon-Gordon and his kidnappers to Winnipeg, where the offenders and their accomplices, who were prominent business men and politicians of Minnesota, were lodged in jail. Amongst them was Loren Fletcher, of St. Paul, who wired his friends a pithy telegram which has been often quoted: “I am in a hell of a fix.” Lord Gordon-Gordon, who had the sympathy of the people, went to a friend’s house in Headingly, and when advised that he would have to be extradited, asked for time to pack a few clothes, went into an adjoining room, from which was heard the sharp report of a revolver, and when his friends rushed in he was dead. Who and what he was has never been revealed, but some years later Chambers’s Journal had a long and interesting article about him, in which it was made to appear that he was the illegitimate offspring of a Cornish family, whose ancestry had accumulated great wealth through smuggling. His remarkable career is now about forgotten, but he set the pace in New York and through Minnesota and created more excitement in Winnipeg than any other event of the early days, excepting perhaps the Riel Rebellion.
The Farr Case
Early in the morning of Saturday, April 13, 1895, the wife and children of William Farr, a C.P.R. locomotive engineer, operating a yard engine at Winnipeg, were awakened by the smell of smoke and fire, and their cries aroused Mr. T. C. Jones, living in the adjoining house, which was a double frame structure on the south-east corner of Ross and Isabel Streets. The aid of neighbors speedily extinguished the flames. On arrival of Chief Billy Code, of the fire brigade, the smell of coal oil aroused his suspicions and he sent for the police. On investigation, it was found that coal oil had been sprinkled on the steps, both front and rear, of the stairways leading upstairs, and also around the windows and doors leading outside. The conduct of Farr while on his engine and following the period of the midnight meal by asking if his mates had not heard a fire alarm, and the conditions at his house, were sufficient to cause his arrest by the police. Only circumstantial evidence was in possession of the police and they could not discover a motive for the dastardly deed by Farr. It was on information which James Hooper, city editor of the Daily Nor’-Wester, of which I was then managing editor, furnished Chief Code and Chief of Police McRae, that they traced his connection with a young woman, whom he had promised to marry. He had attended church and theatres with her and had made her many costly presents of clothing and furs.
Farr escaped from the police station during the early hours of Monday morning, April 15, by wrenching one of the iron bars out and then spreading the others sufficiently to permit him getting his body through, and opening the window, made his escape. He got away and was not recaptured for a considerable period. It is supposed he was concealed in the cab of a westbound locomotive. On his recapture he was tried and convicted, and sentenced to five years in the penitentiary. On his release, after serving his term, he took up residence on the Pacific Coast. The young woman subsequently married a farmer and lived for a number of years in the vicinity of Glenella.
Well I remember the day she came half frightened into the Nor-’Wester office to endeavor to have her name in connection with the affair kept out of the paper. To me behind closed doors she tearfully related her version of her companionship with Farr, whom she said she had frequently seen in church with his family, but which, she alleged, he told her was his dead brother’s widow and children, whom he was supporting. Between her hysterics and weeping, I said consoling words and showed her the futility of suppressing her name, and finally convinced her that her story would, if printed, be better for her. When she left she was, although undoubtedly ill, comparatively in bettered condition, and, as it was raining, I sent her home in a cab, with strict injunctions to take a hot drink and go straight to bed, and to see no one, which she did. That evening the Nor’-Wester had a two column story with startling headings, and the other papers hadn’t a line.
Some Prominent Old-Timers
Among the many outstanding figures of those days was W. F. Luxton, founder of the Free Press. There were three other newspapers published in the village of Winnipeg when Kenney & Luxton issued the Manitoba Free Press, a weekly, in 1872. The Free Press embodied and expressed Mr. Luxton’s views on public questions and also his ideas as to what newspaper service to the public should be. The paper grew from weekly to daily in due course and secured a hold upon the respect and confidence of the people of Manitoba which, under many changes of management and policy, it keeps in a large measure to this day.