Monday 3 September 2012

1902-12-27



In the Herald of last Saturday was an interesting history of the celebrated Townshend gang that terrorized the neighborhood within and surrounding Hamilton in the years 1857-58. Before Townshend took to the road as a highwayman and leader of a gang that stopped not short of murder if robbery could not be accomplished in any other way, he was a quiet, inoffensive fellow, except when under the influence of liquor; then he was a demon incarnate. Townshend was raised up on the Grand River, and about 1854-55, he worked for Holt’s brewery and drove a beer wagon to empty customers in the villages and roadsides within a day’s journey of Dundas. The drivers collected the bills from the tavern-keepers, and all through Townshend’s service with the brewing company, he was honest and faithful, and when he left to come to Hamilton to drive a cab, his employers regretted losing him. It was while driving a beer wagon that Townshend begot a taste for drinking, as the brewing companies in those days allowed their drivers a liberal sum for daily expenses in treating; as it was expected that the beer man would “set ‘em for the crowd;” and the thirsty ones generally managed to be within hailing distance when the beer wagon entered the village. When he became a cab driver in Hamilton, he fell into dissolute ways, and from holding up drunken passengers, it was an easy step to the highway. Being a bright fellow and of iron nerve, he gathered a gang around him that acknowledged his leadership and was ever ready to do his bidding. There would be weeks when nothing was heard of Townshend, and then, in a half a dozen different directions, miles from each other, raids were made on villages or farm houses, where the farmer was reputed to have money. In 1857-58, there was a great financial crisis beginning with the failure of a large banking house in Cincinnati, Ohio, the influence of which extended not only throughout the United States, but into Canada. Banks were suspending everywhere and American paper money that might be good at night was in danger of being worthless by the next morning. The people in Canada had no great confidence in their banks, for a majority of them were conducted by private individuals with but little capital as a foundation. The result was that the money was hoarded in the homes, and whenever a farmer sold his crop or his cattle, sheep or hogs, the gang was sure to pay him a visit before he had time to invest the proceeds. The operations of the gang were so widespread that Townshend got the name of being ubiquitous for he was personally credited with all the robberies and outrages committed. The city police, the township constables and the sheriff’s officers were on the watch, for a goodly reward was offered for the capture of Townshend or any of the gang, which was said to comprise six or eight young men. Nothwithstanding the dangers he was in of arrest, Townshend made his headquarters in Hamilton, and the rendezvous of the gang was an old building in Beasley’s hollow, between this city and Dundas.

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          One night in the spring of 1858, William Walton, who died in Paris, Ontario, a year or more since, was driving out from Hamilton to Dundas when he overtook Townshend. Walton knew Townshend well for both had worked for the Holt brewery at the same time, and indeed Walton had charge of the delivery wagons and employed the drivers. The night Walton was returning to Dundas, having been in Hamilton all day making weekly collections from the tavern keepers, and he had between $700 and $800 in his pocket. Townshend knew that Walton was the collector, and that Monday was the day to be in Hamilton, and when Walton was hailed by Townshend on the highway, he thought he would soon be separated from that money. They chatted together during the drive, Walton holding the reins in one hand grasping a revolver in his back pocket., expecting every moment that the tug-of-war was to come. Before reaching the hill this side of Dundas, Townshend asked to be let out of the wagon, saying to Walton, “William, don’t let on that you saw me,” and bidding him goodnight, started across the country through a field. Mr. Walton, in telling the story afterwards, said that the he never passed an hour of such terror in his life, and he was very careful not to tell of his ride with the outlaw till long after Townshend had been captured and acquitted, for he did not want to be called as a witness to identify him. Walton’s kindness to Townshend, when both worked for the brewery, was not forgotten by the outlaw.

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          Before the gang was captured, two members attempted to hold up a big Irishman, who was driver of one of Holt’s beer wagons. The Irishman had been in town during the day delivering beer and making some small collections, and had a couple of hundred dollars with him. Probably the highwaymen had met him in his journeyings around town and knew that he had money. The Irishman was feeling pretty good after his day’s libations, and when he got down into Beasley’s Hollow, two men jumped out from their hiding place, one of them grabbing the horses by the head and the other with a revolver in hand ordering the Irishman to throw up his hands. He obeyed the order promptly, but brought it down as quickly, hitting the highwayman on the head with such a blow with the butt end of his whip that the fellow dropped in the road without uttering even a groan. The other fellow was kept busy trying to hold the horses, so that he did not see what had happened to his pal, and the first thing he knew, the Irishman had tapped him on the skull with the whip handle, and both were left unconscious. The Irishman drove on to Dundas and told the story of his hold up, and a number of men were gathered and went out to where he had downed the highwaymen, but they had gone. After that, orders were issued by Mr. Holt that the men who made collections must be home before dark.

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          The holt company was making a lot of money in those days out of the sale of beer, for it was the favorite tipple in the taverns in Hamilton, and up as far as Paris, Brantford and Galt. Mr. Holt was a sensitive man and could not withstand the upbraidings of his temperance friends that he was engaged in such a business. There was considerable temperance sentiment in what was then called Upper Canada, and Mr. Holt abandoned the brewing business, started a flouring mill and lost about all the money he had made. Verily virtue did not have its reward in this case.

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          When Townshend was on trial for murder in the court house in Cayuga, Samuel Black Freeman and John H. Stuart defended him. Mr. Freeman was a member of the firm of Freeman, Craigie and Proudfoot, and Mr. Stuart was of the firm of Spohn and Stuart. Both were able lawyers, and Mr. Freeman had the reputation of being one of the strongest criminal lawyers in Canada; hence he had all of that kind of cases to attend to, leaving to his partners the routine business of the office. Thos. H. Beasley, city clerk, was a student under Mr. Freeman, and he described him as a man of easy-going disposition, preferring leisure at any time to the plodding work of the office, but when he became connected with a big law suit or criminal case, especially if it was of importance, his whole nature seemed to change, and he was all business till after the trial was over. For pastime, he indulged in the game of politics, and being a Reformer and eloquent as a speaker, he represented the south riding of Wentworth in the provincial parliament which in those days met in the city of Toronto. Townshend denied his identity when he was on trial, claiming to be McHenry, a returned Californian. Indeed, he carried out the McHenry idea so strongly that Mr. Freeman was almost convinced that the wrong man had been arrested. Mr. Beasley says that till long after Townshend’s trial and acquittal, Mr. Mr. Freeman was still in doubt. The Townshend trial was one of the most noted criminal cases In Canada at that time, and Mr. Freeman’s success in making the jury believe that it was McHenry, an innocent stranger, instead of Townshend, the outlaw, that was on trial, made for him a reputation as a skillful and successful criminal lawyer. After Townshend’s release from prison, he quit his marauding methods of life and started out, under the name of McHenry. He and Walton recognized each other, but Walton never divulged the secret.

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          John W. Harris, the father of the Harris Brothers, of the Herald, had a job printing office on the corner of King William and Hughson streets, in the stone building now used by a religious society. He thought it would be quite a feat of enterprise to get out a pamphlet edition of the history of murders committed by the Townshend gang, which would sell at ten cents, He had no doubt but that they would go off like hot cakes, and there would be money in it for himself and the dealers who sold them. S. I. Jones, the uncle of the Harris boys, was the local agent and reporter in Hamilton for the Toronto Globe, and being a good newspaper writer, he prepared the pamphlet giving histories of Townshend and his gang, and a condensed report of the trials, and a large edition was printed. In the year 1858, business of all kinds was bad, and a majority of the men were glad to work at even half time. A couple of printers who were working in the Christian Advocate office thought they could add to their revenue by selling the pamphlets, and they bought 500 as a starter and went to Brantford to the provincial fair, expecting to sell out and order another loot for which they made arrangements with Mr. Harris. Townshend and his gang had been making the Grand river country, their principal field of operations, and it ought to be expected that everybody in that section would be at the fair in Brantford, the speculating printers were confident of coming home with their pockets bursting with the coin of the realm. But, sad to relate, their bright hopes were knocked into pi: the rain poured down in torrents during the greater part of the fair and nobody seemed interested in Townshend or his gang, as some of them were sentenced to be hanged, and the leader escaped punishment. The printers decided not to bring back the pamphlets, so they got off into a dry corner of the fair grounds and made a bonfire of the pile. They were out their expenses and the price of the 500 pamphlets. Mr. Harris had printed a large edition, expecting an immense sale, but it is doubtful if he sold enough to pay for the ink with which they were printed. In a back room of his printing office, the history of Townshend was piled up, and it is said that everyday Mr. Harris used to retire alone to that back room and express himself in forcible language about the people who could not appreciate the efforts of an enterprising publisher in furnishing up-to-date history.

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