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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