| Mrs. M.E. Burrow: As I feel better this
morning than I did yesterday I will write you a
few lines. Elizabeth you all rest easy
about me for I think I will beat my case - my
trial is set to come up the first Tuesday in
March. You have $200.00 on hand by the
15th of November to pay my lawyer with. One of
them is a better lawyer than Frank Summers is.
So if you could employ Summers to help them in
my case would be an advantage for me to have
counsel from my own state. Tell pa that I
will answer his letter soon. Tell the
children that I will see them again.
Brock's trial was put off so he could be a
witness against me. Write all of the news.
J.B. Burrow to Mrs. Burrow |
Jim not being a convict and therefore
not required to labor, soon began to chafe under the
restraint of prison life, which was aggravated by a
depressing ??? was impossible to make an intelligent
narration of them. On Oct. 5, 1888, his earthly
career was determined by death and his unhonored grave
is surrounded by those of such hapless fellows as have
succumbed to the rigors of prison experience leaving
their bodies with their captors while their spirits have
slipped through the bars and gone for final trial
before the Last Tribunal.
On the cold and cheerless night of
December 15, 1888, the northbound express train of
the Illinois Central Railway which left New Orleans for
Chicago at seven o'clock a.m. pulled into the station of
Duck Hill, Miss. twenty-five miles south of Grenada, 13
hours later. The manner in which the engine was
boarded and the train stopped is best told in the
language of Albert Law, the engineer of the locomotive.
He said, "I pulled out of Duck Hill Station at 10:05
o'clock p.m. The fireman called to me to look out,
that there was a car of cotton ahead, on the sidetrack.
I pulled slowly by in order to avoid igniting the cotton
by sparks from the engine and when I passed the cotton
the fireman said, "All right, let her go." I
started ahead lively and presently saw the robbers climb
up on my engine from the east side.
The smaller man got on first. I
thought they were tramps and was in the act of slowing
up to put them off when the smaller man covered me with
a pistol and said, "Don't stop here! Go on! Go on! I
then saw the men were masked.
Meanwhile, the robber who had entered
the car handed a sack to Southern Express Messenger
Harris and made him diver up the contents of his safe.
Chester Hughes, a brave young fellow
from Jackson, Tenn., arose quickly and said, "I will if
I can get anything to shoot with."
Two
colored men seated nearby had each a 38-caliber
Winchester rifle. These weapons were quickly
gathered by the conductor and his gallant passenger and
loaded with cartridges furnished them by the owners they
went forth to do battle with the robbers.
Advancing abreast of each other, these
brave men fired shot after shot at the dark form of the
robber who stood as a sentinel on the outside of the
car, and who unflinchingly held the ground, returning
with steady aim charge after charge from his trusty
revolver.
Finally, young Hughes dropped
his Winchester, exclaiming, "I am shot," and fell to the
earth. Wilderson raised the brave young fellow to
his feet and dragged the unconscious and bleeding form
into the coach, and returning to the steps of the front
coach renewed the firing at the robbers.
The robber had meantime secured the money from the
messenger (about $2,000.00) and backed out of the car
still holding his pistol on the messenger ____
Tennessee. The sister knew nothing of her
brother's participation in the fight with the robbers
until he was carried back into the coach, when she
prostrated herself in affectionate embrace over his body
from which life was fast ebbing away. The scene
was an agonizing and affecting one.
The
unerring aim of the robber had sent three shots through
the body of young Hughes, all entering his stomach
within a radius of six inches and the unfortunate but
daring young fellow lived only a few minutes. The
same train, on which he had erstwhile embarked in the
vigor of health and buoyant spirits, bore his lifeless
form to the home of his widowed mother at Jackson, Tenn.
The Southern Express Company and the Illinois Central
Railway promptly presented a grief-stricken mother with
a fitting testimonial of appreciation for the heroic
conduct of her son. while, "On Fame's eternal
camping ground, their silent tents are spread, and glory
guards with solemn round, the bivouac of the dead," the
name of Chester Hughes will be enrolled among the
bravest of the brave.
The whole country
was electrified with horror at the brutal murder of a
passenger on one of the greatest railway train line, in
one of the most populous districts of the South, by
train robbers. It was determined that no expense
or labor should be spared in bringing the criminal to
justice.
General manager, C.A. Beck and
Superintendent J. G. Mann of the Illinois Central
Railway were in Memphis in a special car at that time.
During the night a violent and very general rainstorm
had prevailed and telegraph wires were down in many
places. The news of the robbery did not,
therefore, reach Memphis until about midnight.
Railroad and express officials remained at the telegraph
office all night. Seeking the details, and left
about daylight for the scene of the robbery. The
aid of the Pinkertons was again summoned, and
several of the most expert detectives of the Chicago
Agency soon arrived at Duck Hill.
About a
month prior to the Duck Hill robbery, the United States
Expressed Company had been robbed at Derby, Miss., a
station sixty-five miles north of New Orleans on the
Queen and Crescent Railway, by Eugene Bunch, a man who
is supposed by some persons, even to this day, to be
identical with Rube Burrow.
Eugene Bunch,
a native of Louisiana and long time a resident of Texas,
bore a remarkable resemblance of Rube Burrow. The
description, about thirty-six years old, weight one
hundred and seventy pounds, height six ___.
The Pinkerton detectives, on their arrival at Duck Hill,
was unable to find a trace of the robbers. There
were no clues from which to begin a search for them.
whence the robbers came, whither they had gone, whether
on horseback or afoot, was not known. At this
junction Detective D. C. Hennessey of New Orleans, who
recently met his death at the hands of assassins in that
city and a man of undoubted ability in his profession,
having received a description circulated of the robbers
telegraphed the official of the Southern Express Company
as follows. "Description of the robbers received,
I am well aware as to who they are, and am satisfied I
can get them.
A conference was at once
arranged with Hennessey, who declared the Duck Hill
robbery to be the work of Eugene Bunch. An
unfortunate combination of circumstances have ensued to
corroborate Hennessey's view. Bunch answered
Burrow's description with great exactness. The
former was reliable ascertained to have been in northern
Louisiana a few days prior to the robbery and therefore,
within easy reach of Duck Hill. Brunch was an
intimate friend who answered Engineer Law's description
of the smaller man who stood guard over him at Duck
Hill.
The detectives had, meantime,
traced two men riding out south from the scene of the
robbery in the direction of Honey Island in the Pearl
River, a private resort, with Bunch.
The
chase that followed, there from under the leadership of
the Pinkertons, was organized to find Bunch, and not
Burrow.
From New Orleans to Texas, to
Monterrey and Mexico to the City to Los Angeles and San
Diego and even to San Francisco, he eluded the
detectives by taking a Pacific Coast steamer. The
chase was then, after months of labor, abandoned.
Meanwhile, in a quiet way, the detectives of the
Southern Express Company were at work on the theory that
Rube Burrow was the leader of the robbery at Duck Hill.
It was discovered that Rube Burrow and Joe Jackson rode
away from the farm of Fletcher Stevens in Tate County,
Miss on Dec. 1, 1888, and after paying a visit to Rube's
brother-in-law, Berryhill, who lives 18 miles from
Oxford, proceeded to Water Valley, Miss., where they
spent the night; and that going thence to Duck Hill,
they robbed the train in the manner described.
After mounting their horses, tethered in the woods some
half a mile from the spot on which the robbery occurred,
they rode through a drenching rain a distance of 40
miles by daylight. The next day they camped in the
brush, divided the spoils of the robbery and at sundown
resumed their journey. After another hard nights
ride, they reached the vicinity of Pearl River, near
Philadelphia, Miss.
North of the bridge
swam the swollen current of Pearl River. Reaching
the opposite bank, they continued their journey through
the wilds of the southwesterly course on which they had
ridden for two days, they rode in a northeasterly
direction, traveling most of the distance at night,
until they reached Lamar County. Here they
remained in quiet seclusion until the tragic events
recorded in the next chapter occurred.
The reader may well ask what the detectives of the
Southern Express Company were doing while these men
remained in Lamar County and the adjacent county from
the time of the Duck Hill robbery until the summer of
1889.
In the contiguous counties of
Lamar, Fayette and Marion the kindred of the Burrow
family abounded on every hand. The homes of
his kinsmen - notably Cash, Terry, Barker, Smithe and
Hankins - not only furnished a safe refuge for the
robbers, but they were worshipped as heroes, and each
household vied with the others in its fealty and loyalty
to the robber chief.
"Rube never robs a
poor man," they were often heard to say, forgetting that
one never gets blood out of a turnip. These people
were of a thriftless, restive spirit, and among them
were many shrewd and cunning natures who became the paid
scouts of the outlaws. A code of signals was
established and the appearance of a detective or a
stranger of any kind in that section was at once
ascertained and the information conveyed to the outlaws.
The firing of a gun in a certain location, the cracking
of a whip, the blowing of a horn and the deep-toned "ah-hoo"
as well as codes of other signals, all had their
meaning. They gave the fugitives warning of the
approach of danger; and so, when occasional raids were
made, a house surrounded, a trial was uncovered or some
solitary scout from among Rube's clansmen were
encountered, the stillness of the air would be broken by
a signal which plainly told the detectives that their
presence were known and the robbers were on the alert.
It was even impossible to trail the messengers who
carried rations to the robbers while in camp, for these
were stored in the crevices of rocks and in the trunk of
trees from which convert at the propitious times the
food would be taken.
Rube followed Jim Cash,
with a supply of provisions, to a ravine some distance
from Cash's home and saw them hidden away in the
cavernous depths of a hollow log. He concealed
himself within one hundred yards of the spot and,
knowing Rube was in that locality, felt sure he would be
able to pick him off with his trusty Winchester when he
came for the rations.
Jackson crouched
behind the huge trunk of a tree in the breathless
expectation of Rube's appearance, when a shot fired from
the vicinity of Cash's house dashed his hopes.
Half an hour later Cash walked cautiously down the hill,
took the food away and tied a flaming red cloth to the
top of an adjacent bush, thus exhibiting for Rube and
the red signal of danger.
Cash had, on this
return, with the cunning of his class, discovered
strange footsteps on his trail and rightly that his
movements had been watched. Although the
detectives took down the signal, Rube had doubtless seen
it. If not, acting on the signal previously given,
Rube missed his dinner that day.
Thus fed
and harbored, the outlaws remained in Lamar County and
the adjacent counties all the spring and summer of 1889,
without any event of note occurring until the 7th day of
July, when Rube Burrow murdered in cold blood, the
postmaster in Jewel, Ala.
Meanwhile, the robber who had entered the car handed a
sack to Southern Express Messenger Harris and bade him
diver up the contents of his safe.
Chester Hughes, a brave young fellow
from Jackson, Tenn., arose quickly and said, "I will if
I can get anything to shoot with."
Two
colored men seated nearby had each a 38-caliber
Winchester rifle. These weapons were quickly
gathered by the conductor and his gallant passenger and
loaded with cartridges furnished them by the
owners they went forth to do battle with the robbers.
Advancing abreast of each other, these brave men fired
shot after shot at the dark form of the robber who stood
as a sentinel on the outside of the car, and who
unflinchingly held the ground, returning with steady aim
charge after charge from his trust revolver.
Finally, young Hughes dropped his Winchester,
exclaiming, "I am shot," and fell to the earth.
Wilderson raised the brave young fellow to his feet and
dragged the unconscious and bleeding form into the
coach, and returning to the steps of the front coach
renewed the firing at the robbers.
The
robber had meantime secured the money from the messenger
(about $2,000) and backed out of the car still holding
his pistol on the passenger from Tennessee. The
sister knew nothing of her brother's participation in
the fight with the robbers until he was carried back
into the coach, when she prostrated herself in
affectionate embrace over his body from which life was
fast ebbing away. The scene was an agonizing and
affecting one.
The unerring aim of the
robber had sent three shots through the body of young
Hughes, all entering his stomach within a radius of six
inches and the unfortunate but daring young fellow lived
only a few minutes. The same train, on which he
had erstwhile embarked in the vigor of health and
buoyant spirits, bore his lifeless form of his widowed
mother at Jackson, Tenn.
The Southern
Express Company and the Illinois Central Railway
promptly presented a grief-stricken mother with a
fitting testimonial of appreciation for the heroic
conduct of her son. While, "On Fame's eternal
camping ground, their silent tents are spread, and glory
guards with solemn round, the bivouac of the dead," the
name of Chester Hughes will be enrolled among the
bravest of the brave.
The whole country
was electrified with horror at the brutal murder of a
passenger on one of the greatest railway trunk lines, in
one of the most populous districts of the South, by
train robbers. It was determined that no expense
or labor should be spared in bringing the criminal to
justice.
General manager C. A. Beck and
Superintendent J. G. Mann of the Illinois Central
Railway were in Memphis in a special car at that time.
During the night a violent and very general rainstorm
had prevailed and telegraph wires were down in many
places. The news of the robbery did not,
therefore, reach Memphis until about midnight.
Railroad and express officials remained at the telegraph
office all night. Seeking the details, and left
about daylight for the scene of the robbery. The
aid of the Pinkertons was again summoned, and several of
the most expert detectives of the Chicago Agency soon
arrived at Duck Hill.
About a month prior
to the Duck Hill robbery, the United States Express
Company had been robbed at Derby, Miss., a station
sixty-five miles north of New Orleans on the Queen and
Crescent Railway, by Eugene Bunch, a man who is supposed
by some persons, even to this day, to be identical with
Rube Burrow.
Eugene Bunch, a native of
Louisiana and long time a resident of Texas, bore a
remarkable resemblance of Rube Burrow. The
description, about thirty-six years old, weight one
hundred and seventy pounds, height six feet.
The Pinkerton detectives, on their arrival at Duck Hill,
were unable to find a trace of the robbers. There
were no clues from which to begin a search for them.
whence the robbers came, whither they had gone, whether
on horseback or afoot, was not known. At this
junction Detective D. C. Hennessey of New Orleans, who
recently met his death at the hands of assassins in that
city and a man of undoubted ability in his profession,
having received a description circulated of the robbers
telegraphed the officials of the Southern Express
Company as follows: "Description of the robbers
received, I am well aware as to who they are, and am
satisfied I can get them."
A conference
was at once arranged with Hennessey, who declared the
Duck Hill robbery to be the work of Eugene Bunch.
An unfortunate combination of circumstances have ensued
to corroborate Hennessey's view. Bunch answered
Burrow's description with great exactness. The
former was reliable ascertained to have been in northern
Louisiana a few days prior to the robbery and therefore,
within easy reach of Duck Hill. Bunch was an
intimate friend who answered Engineer Law's description
of the smaller man who stood guard over him at Duck
Hill.
The detectives had, meantime,
traced two men riding out south from the scene of the
robbery in the direction of Honey Island in the Pearl
River, a private resort, with Bunch.
The chase that followed, there from
under the leadership of the Pinkertons, was organized to
find Bunch, and not Burrow. from New Orleans to Texas,
to Monterry and Mexico to the City of Los Angeles and
San Diego and even to San Francisco, the detectives
pursued Bunch until, just as his capture seemed certain
at San Francisco, he eluded the detectives by taking a
Pacific Coast steamer. The chase was then, after
months of labor, abandoned.
Meanwhile, in
a quiet way, the detectives of the Southern Express
Company were at work on the theory that Rube Burrow was
the leader of the robbery at Duck Hill. It was
discovered that Rube Burrow and Joe Jackson rode away
from the farm of Fletcher Stevens in Tate County, Miss.,
on December 1, 1888, and after paying a visit to Rube's
brother-in-law, Berryhill, who lives 18 miles from
Oxford, proceeded to Water Valley, Miss. where they
spent the night and that going thence to Duck Hill, they
robbed the train in the manner described.
After mounting their horses, tethered in
the woods some half a mile from the spot on which the
robbery occurred, they rode through a drenching rain a
distance of 40 miles by daylight. The next day
they camped in the brush, divided the spoils of the
robbery and at sundown resumed their journey.
After another hard nights ride, they reached the
vicinity of Pearl River, near Philadelphia, Miss.
North of the bridge swam the swollen current of Pearl
River. Reaching the opposite bank, they continued their
journey through the wilds of the southwesterly course on
which they had ridden for two days, they rode in a
northeasterly direction, traveling most of the distance
at night, until they reached Lamar County. Here
they remained in quiet seclusion until the tragic events
recorded in the next chapter occurred.
The reader may well ask what the detectives of the
Southern Express Company were doing while these men
remained in Lamar County and the adjacent county from
the time of the Duck Hill robbery until the summer of
1889.
In the contiguous counties of
Lamar, Fayette and Marion the kindred of the Burrow
family abounded on every hand. The homes of his
kinsmen - notably Cash, Terry, Barker, Smithe and
Hankins - not only furnished a safe refuge for the
robbers, but they were worshipped as heroes, and each
household vied with the others in its fealty and
loyalty to the robber chief.
"Rube never robs a poor man," they were
often heard to say, forgetting that one never gets blood
out of a turnip.
These people were of a
thriftless, restive spirit, and among them were many
shrewd and cunning natures who became the paid scouts of
the outlaws.A code of signals was established and the
appearance of a detective or a stranger of any kind in
that section was at once ascertained and the information
onveyed to the outlaws. The firing of a gun in a
certain location, the cracking of a whip, the blowing of
a horn and the deep toned "ah-hoo", as well as scores of
other signals, all had meaning.
They gave
the fugitives warning of the approach of danger; and so,
when occasional raids were made, a house surrounded, a
trial was uncovered of some solitary scout from among
Rube's clansmen were encountered, the stillness of the
air would be broken by a signal which plainly told the
detectives that their presence were known and the
robbers were on the alert.
It was even
impossible to trail the messengers who carried rations
to the robbers while in camp, for these were stored in
the crevices of rocks and in the trunk of trees from
whih convert at the propitious times the food would be
taken.
Rube followed Jim Cash, who had a
supply of provisions, to a ravine some distance from
Cash's home and saw them hidden away in the cavernous
depths of a hollow log. Cash concealed himself
within one hundred yards of the spot and, knowing Rube
was in that locality, felt sure he would be able to pick
him out with his trusty Winchester when he came for the
rations.
Jackson crouched behind the huge trunk
of a tree in the breathless expectation of Rube's
appearance, when a shot fired from the vicinity of
Cash's house dashed his hopes.
Half an
hour later, Cash walked cautiously down the hill, took
the food away and tied a flaming red cloth to the top of
an adjacent bush, thus exhibiting for Rube the red
signal of danger.
Cash had, on this
return, with the cunning of his class, discovered
strange footsteps on his trail and rightly that his
movements had been watched. Although the
detectives took down the signal, Rube had doubtless seen
it. If not, acting on the signal previously given,
Rube missed his dinner that day. Thus fed and
harbored, the outlaw remained in Lamar County and the
adjacent counties all the spring and summer of 1889,
without any event of note occurring until on the 7th day
of July, when Rube Burrow murdered in cold blood, the
postmaster in Jewel, Ala. (Family members and
others claim another person actually shot the
postmaster.)
Rube had concluded that a
wig and false whiskers were necessary in his line of
business.
His robberies were now of such
frequent occurrence that he sought to disguise himself
more closely and after writing for a catalogue an
selecting what he desired in his line, he wrote the
following letter to a Chicago house:
| June 1, 1889 Mr. Sthrel:
I just received your catalogue of wigs and
will order wigs and bird. Pleas ship
one set of Bird, 4 or 5 inches and one wig,
cullor of goods light red, slieghtly grey,
and chopped hair. Ship goods to
Sullgient (express office, whip at once)
Lamar County, Ala., too W.W. Cain.
P.S. Please find five dollars inclosed, eye
hav no sample of hair. |
Meanwhile Jim Cash had made several
inquiries for the catalogue to Cain's address before
it arrived. On the arrival of the parcel
containing the wig and whiskers, the wrapper being
torn, the contents were exposed.
Naturally, great curiosity was
excited as to the ownership of these queer looking
articles. The rumor soon gained currency that
Jim Cash had been inquiring for mail for W.W. Cain.
The postmaster recalled having
delivered him the catalogue and this parcel was
supposed to be is property.
Cash was told that the contents had
been examined and that the postmaster declared he
intended to arrest the party who called for the
parcel. When this information was imparted to
him by Cash, Rube became greatly enraged. He
swore he would go to the post office in person, get
the mail, and kill Graves.
Accordingly, he left the home of his
brother-in-law, Cash, about daylight on the 7th of
July for Jewell, distant about six miles. Rube
knew Moses Graves, who kept the post office
in connection with a country store and who was a
quiet and inoffensive citizen.
Rube arrived in Jewell early, but
the full-orbed day was not a fit time for the
execution of the dark deed upon which he was bent.
He lurked about the outskirts of the quiet little
village.
The men, who had been playmates in
their childhood, stood face to face and exchanging a
silent recognition. Rube said, "Have you any
mail for W.W. Cain?"
"Yes," answered Graves, but I cannot
deliver it to you."
Instantly, Rube drew his heavy
revolver and fired, the ball entered the stomach and
piercing him through and through. "I'll teach
you how to open my mail," said Rube. Graves
staggered toward a chair and falling into it said,
"Rube Burrow, you have killed me."
The murderer then turned and
leveling his pistol to the head of the young girl
who was an assistant in the post office, said, "Get
my mail or I will blow your head off."
The frightened creature, in her
terror, could not find the parcel until Graves,
pointing to it with uplifted hand, bade her get it,
and sinking to the floor soon expired.
Graves' wife, at the firing of the
shot which killed her husband, rushed in from an
adjoining room. Despite Rube's threat to kill
her if she entered, she flew to the assistance of
her dying husband.
He was conscious long enough for his
ante mortem statement to be carefully taken in the
presence of witnesses, certifying to the fact that
Rube Burrow was his murderer, Rube walked out of the
town unmolested and at 10 o'clock that night reached
the house of Jim Cash, his hands stained with the
blood of one of Lamar County's most respected
citizen - the perpetrator of a deed as wanton and as
cold-blooded as ever blackened the annals of crime.
Rube and Joe were not amiss in
surmising that the officers of the law would swoop
down upon them. As soon as Rube returned to Jim
Cash's, about ten o'clock that night, he informed
Joe Jackson, his partner, of the event of the
evening. The later had advised strongly
against the policy of taking Graves' life and warned
Rube of the consequences; but Rube's spirit was full
of revenge and he determined upon the murder.
(Many people at that time, including his family, do
not think Rube was the murderer.)
All of northern Alabama was aroused
with indignation at the cruel and wanton murder and
ex-sheriff Pennington, heading a posse of determined
citizens, went into the Burrow neighborhood a few
days afterward and made an earnest endeavor to
capture the outlaws.
Too much praise can not be accorded
this brave and gallant man and had the laws of
Alabama admitted his re-election to a second term,
it is more than probably that the career of these
train robbers in Lamar County would have been less
bold and protracted.
The murder of the postmaster at
Jewell was done by Burrow in a spirit of bravado and
doubtless with the design of terrorizing the
law-abiding people in that section into such a state
of timidity as would give additional safety to is
chosen place of refuge, and at the time knit him all
the more closely to the lawless band of his
followers, who not only connived in his crimes but
profited from the spoils of his misdeeds.
Despite the vigilant and unremitting
search of the detectives, the presence of the bandit
in Lamar County had not been definitely known until
the murder of Graves occurred. Officials of
the Southern Express Company determined, therefore
either capture Rube or drive him from Lamar County.
The task was a difficult one, in view of the fact
that Rube never slept under a roof or broke bread at
any man's table in Lamar County after the murder at
Jewel. Soon thereafter, when invited by his
father to come into his house, he refused, saying on
one occasion, "I might as well give myself up."
Detective Jackson and Burns of the
Southern Express Company about this time went into
Lamar County and literally camped there. They
endeavored by every possible means to discover the
whereabouts of the outlaws by shadowing the persons
who communicated with them from time to time, but
the army of scouts in the secret service of the
cunning desperado was so well trained.
About Sept. 1st, Rube and Joe
concluded to depart. A few days before their
departure, however, Mrs. Allen Burrow brought Rube a
message from Rube Smith to the effect that the
latter wanted to see him. Rube Smith is the
son of James Smith, who lives in Lamar County, near
Crews Station and about eight miles from the home of
Allen Burrow. He is a first cousin of the
Burrow brothers.
Smith was about 28 years old, five
feet eight inches high, weighed 160 pounds and bore
a very bad reputation in all that section. He
never followed a legitimate occupation except for a
short period in 1883; he had been an itinerant
photographer, moving about from place to place and
making photographs in country towns of north
Alabama.
In the fall of 1888, however, he was
indicted with James McClung and James Barker, an
uncle, for robbery from the persons of a Mr. John
son, a respectable old farmer of Lamar County.
Smith and party went to farmer Johnson's home about
nightfall, with their faces masked and at the point
of their revolvers demanding his money.
The old man hesitating was cruelly
beaten and at last divulged the hiding place of his
money, over $300, which the robbers secured.
They left their victim bleeding and maimed, lying
upon the floor where he remained until the next
morning when kindly neighbors came to his
assistance. Rube Smith then became a fugitive
from justice. Burrow, knowing of the presence
of the detectives in the vicinity, suspected that
Smith was being used by the officers to entrap him.
After considering the matter several days, he sent,
through his sister, a message to Rube Smith that he
would meet him at the house of midnight, September
4th in Fellowship Church yard, a point about four
miles from Vernon.
Thither Burrow and Joe Jackson
repaired early after dark on that night for the
purpose of forestalling any plan which the
detectives might have to capture them through Smith.
The watch was set and each by turn stood sentinel in
this quiet and lonely spot waiting the appointed
hour. Smith, in due course, appeared as
agreed. He was alone and Burrow was soon
assured that his proposal to join him was genuine.
There in the graveyard of Fellowship
Church, where the body of the famous outlaw now lies
buried, at the solemn hour of midnight, the compact
which linked Rube Smith's fortunes with his own were
made. There was no subscribing to the black
oath, no signing in letters of blood, but with the
skillfulness of a master Rube Burrow inducted his
young kinsman into the office of train robbing to
which he had elected him.
He described the preliminary step of
boarding the engine and getting the "drop", the
method of "holding up", and all the subtle articles
of the craft, in such a masterful style that the new
recruit smacked his lips in anticipation of the rich
dish spread before his mental vision.
After the manner of little Jack
Horner, he mentally, "put in his thumb and pulled
out a plum" and said, "what a good boy am I".
Setting out, therefore, with the two fold object of
avoiding the detectives in Lamar County and robbing
a train, the three men journeyed southward without
any particular destination in view.
Going down the west bank of the
Tombigbee River, he traveled about 150 miles
to Buckatanna, Miss., on the Mobile and Ohio
Railroad, 73 miles north of Mobile. After a
careful deliberation of the matter, Rube Burrow
selected Ellisville, Miss., a point of the Queen and
Crescent Railway, 65 miles south of Meridian and 55
miles each across the country at the point of making
his seventh train robbery.
Leaving the Mobile and Ohio Railroad
at Buckatunna on the 14th of Sept., the men walked
towards Ellisville, arriving there on the night of
the 17th of September. Here Rube Burrow
concluded, after finding there were three trains
daily each way on that road, that there was no money
in robbing a train on the Queen and Crescent
Railway. He argued that the shipments would __
each day. Accordingly, the robbers resumed their
journey toward Buckatunna through the "Free State of
Jones."The county of Jones, Miss bears to this day
the appellation of the "Free State of Jones."
During the late Civil War, the county seceded from
the Confederacy and set up an independent government
of its own. Here, in the famous Bogue Homer
Swamp, which covers one-third of the area of the
county, hundreds of Mississippians and Alabamians
from across the border, declared themselves
non-combatants and gathered their families about
them, set up a military of their own.
Fortified within the inaccessible
wild land, by the aid of their flintlocks, they
defied Confederate and Federal alike, and in the
solitude of a peacefulness disturbed only by an
occasional unsuccessful raid upon them, lived an
unmindful of the fate of the Republic. One may
ride, at this day, over the public road, so called,
from Ellisville to Buckatunna, 60 miles and in all
that distance he will find no sign of human
habitation save at intervals of 10 miles or so a
rude log hut, and here and there a resin orchard.
Through this lonely woodland,
to the music of the sough? Where the outlaws
wended__ who lives three miles from Buckatunna
station.
Neil found the men snugly quartered
in this outhouse early Monday morning and had
frequent interviews with them during their stay of
48 hours on his premises. The robbers visited
a trestle at Buckatunna Creek, two miles south of
the station of that name. During Monday, and
after carefully maturing their plans, agreed to rob
the southbound express train due on Wednesday, Sept.
25th, about 2:30 a.m., at the trestle, one and a
half miles south of the station.
Leaving Neil McAllister's cabin soon
after dark, the trip passed through Buckatunna and
went to the trestle, where they remained until the
northbound train passed at midnight. Rube
Burrow and Rube Smith then walked to the station
where, on the arrival of the southbound train, in
charge of Conductor Scholes and Engineer Therill,
the two men quietly boarded the engineer as it
pulled out from the station.
The cool and determined manner in
which the work was done is well described by Zack
Terrell, the engineer, in his statement taken by the
express official the next day.
Just as I was pulling out of
Buckatunna, I heard a voice in my engine and I
thought the fireman was speaking to me. I
turned to find the fireman and myself covered with
pistols by two men. The larger of the two men
who had his pistol presented, "Pull on out!" Stop
the train on the trestle beyond the bridge so the
passengers can't get off. "I will kill every
one that hits the ground."
I stopped as directed and was
ordered to get down from the engine.
When I got down there was a man standing opposite
the gangway on the ground, which I will designate
number three. He backed toward the express car
door. The man number one, who was in front,
covered the messenger, who was sitting on the
engine, said, "Call the express messenger." Just
then robber number three, who was in front covering
the messenger, who was sitting on the opposite side
of the car with his back toward us. The
conductor came out at this moment and asked what was
the matter. The big man, number one, fired a
shot over my head toward the conductor and said,
"Get back or I will kill you!" The messenger
had not yet opened the door but was covered by the
pistol of number three. The big man, number
three, then covered the messenger as soon as he had
shot. The fireman was standing behind me with
a cool pick covered by number two, who had been on
the engine. The messenger shoved the grated
door back, the wooden or outside door being already
open. The messenger could not have stepped
aside, as he was covered by two pistols.
Number one then said, "Give me your hand and pull me
in the car. Handle my hand carefully, as there
are corns on it."
The conductor came out at this
moment and asked what was the matter. The big
man, number one, fired a shot over my head toward
the conductor and said, "Get back or I will kill
you!" The messenger had not yet opened the
door but was covered by a pistol of number three.
The big man, number three, then
covered the messenger as soon as he had shot.
The fireman was standing behind me with a cool pick
covered by number two, who had been on the engine.
The messenger shoved the grated door back, the
wooden or outside door being already open.
The messenger could not have stepped
aside, as he was covered by two pistols.
Number one then said, "Give me your hand and pull me
in the car. Handle my hand carefully, as there
are corns on it." He was in the car five or
six minutes. Just after he got in the car, the
conductor then called to know what was the matter.
Number three said, in a low tone or
voice, "Look out, I will settle him." He went
forward a few paces and called out, "Come and see,"
squatted and fired one shot. He then got up,
ran forward about 10 feet, and laid down flat on his
stomach. He laid there until number one in the
car told the messenger to get out of the car which
he did, in front of the robber who gave him the bag
with the contents to hold, while he himself got out.
Number one then said to me, "Go to
the engine with me and pull the mail car off the
trestle." I told him it was off and told him
if it was not off, I did not have steam enough to
move the train. He then said to number two,
"Take the fireman to the engine," and added, "Wait,
I will go with you." He told the fireman to
get his fire started, ordered number two to stay
with the fireman and instructed me to go with him to
the mail car. Before he started off, he told
the fireman not to move the engine.
I called the mail agent as
instructed, who was inside the car. As soon as
he approved, he was covered by number one, who
ordered the mail agent to get up his registered
letters and said to him, "You have been hiding
them."
The mail agent replied, "No, I have
only turned the lights down."
The mail agent showed him the
registered mail saying, "There it is," and added,
"You will get the U.S. government after you, and
there is not $2,000 in the pile."
"That don't make any difference,"
said the robber. "I will take them anyhow."
He left the car and said to the mail
agent, "if you don't want to get hurt, shut the door
and keep it shut until the train leaves here."
He gave the packages he got out of the mail car to
number two who was guarding the fireman and told me
to get up on my engine and pull out.
I had started up on the engine when
he told me to sit in the gangway between the tender
and engine. Number one then said, "Do anything
you want to get steam up." We were 10 minutes
getting up steam. During that time he said he
worked on a section once though not on this road and
was discharged and a Negro put in his place.
He then decided not to work anymore for a living.
He said he had been around towns and had heard
people say what they would do if they were "held
up".
"What can a man do." I asked. "In
the fix you have me in?"
"Do as I tell you," he replied.
When I got steam up he said, "Hurry
up to State Line and send a message up and down the
road so they can get after us. Tell the
operator I say to hurry up about it. Tell the
boss of those cars (meaning the express cars) to put
steps on them or I will stop robbing them.
Don't ring the bell or blow the whistle," he
concluded, "or I will shoot inside the engine."
The man described by Engineer
Terrill as number one is easily recognized as Rube
Burrow, number two as Joe Jackson and number three
as Rube Smith.
The trestle at which the robber was
committed and undergoing repair by a force of bridge
men, and the train was in the habit of
stopping and then proceeding slowly across it.
When the train stopped, Messenger Dunning,
therefore, supposed it was on account of the bad
condition of the trestle, and gave little thought to
the matter. When hailed by the engineer, who
had been instructed by the robbers to call him to
the door, the messenger found himself, on facing
about, covered by revolvers through the grated or
iron-barred door of the car, the outer wooden door
being open. He told me while going down to the
bridge that he came here to rob this train because
there was a boast in the papers last spring that he
could not rob it and he just wanted to show them
what he could do.
"Hold your hands down and come to
the door or I will kill you" said Burrow. A
shot from the pistol of one of the robbers on the
outside of the car gave emphasis ___. Securing
$2,685 from the express car, Burrow then went to the
mail car and called for the registered mail.
Mail Agent Bell had been collecting the registered
matter, preparatory of leaving the car with it, when
Rube entered and demanded. The registered
mail, which contained $795, made the total amount
secured $3,480 or $1,160 each. In stopping the
train, the passenger coaches on the trestle so as to
prevent anyone from reaching the ground 20 feet
below and making an attack from that quarter.
The shots fired soon after the train was halted, two
of which hit the steps of the coach on which
Conductor Scholes stood, silenced further inquiry
and the work was completed without molestation.
When Burrow joined his comrades after leaving the
mail car, he seemed anxious to have the train start.
During the run from the station down to the trestle,
he had forbidden the fireman to put any coal in the
firebox and, hence, while the train was being robbed
so much steam was being lost that it was 10 minutes
after the robbery was over before sufficient steam
was obtained to get underway. Finally the
train resumed onward and Burrow sending a few
parting shots of humor after engineer Therrell
joined his comrades who was anxiously awaiting his
coming in the brush a few yards distance. The
train dispatcher's record of that day bore the
simple explanation, "Number five delayed thirty
minutes at Buckatunna trestle, getting robbed. "The
news of the robber brought the officials of the
Express and Railroad companies by special train to
the scene. Posses were at once organized and
sent in pursuit. It was evident that work was
that of Rube Burrow, "I will rob this train or kill
every man on it." was the identical expression used
at Genoa and at Duck Hill. His disposition to
be humorous in fact, every detail of the robbery
gave evidence of his identity. The robbers
were chased from the scene of their crime in an
easterly course. Bloodhounds were used in the
pursuit, but the trail being cold, they were
abandoned. The detectives, however, quietly
took up the trail and followed it toward Demopolis,
Alabama. At this point it was found that Rube
Smith separated from the other men. When the
Buckatunna robber of September 25, 1889, occurred,
the fact that three men participated in that deed,
proved that a third man had joined Rube Burrow since
his last robbery at Duck Hill on December 15, 1888,
and the identity of the third man puzzled the
detectives of the Express Company for some weeks.
An accurate description, however, of all three of
the men had been obtained and Detective Thomas
Jackson, after a visit into Lamar County a few weeks
after the robbery, because convinced it was Rube
Smith.
Rube Burrow Page 3
