Shot All to Hell

by Mark Lee Gardner

  Which robber or robbers exited the bank first, or whether all three exited together, has often been a source of confusion. No less than three accounts from Cole Younger have Bob as the first one to answer the call to come out, after which Bob gets into his brief duel with Anselm Manning at the Scriver corner. Jesse James biographer T. J. Stiles, who would very much like to have Jesse in the bank in place of Bob, states that “No witnesses inside or outside of the bank testified to anyone exiting separately.” Stiles was apparently unaware of Frank Wilcox’s account published in the Northfield News, July 10, 1897: “The call [to come out] was responded to quickly by Pitts and Bob Younger and they were outside before the third one started” (emphasis added). This is consistent with Wilcox’s statements from shortly after the raid. He told a reporter for the Pioneer Press and Tribune that “Almost immediately they took the alarm and somehow jumped over the counter, making their exit. The small man was last to go” (emphasis added). This same scenario is also suggested in Wilcox’s testimony at the coroner’s inquest of Sept. 8, 1876. Wilcox stated that “two sprung over counter to run out of bank the 3d followed pushed Heywood from him and fired at Heywood hitting him in the head.” A previously unknown interview with Cole from 1889 agrees with the Wilcox version of events: “I called to the men inside to come out and Bob and one other came out together” (emphasis added). Clearly, Frank James was still engaged with Heywood when Bob and Charlie fled. See Stiles, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 333; Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 9, 1876; Frank Wilcox deposition, Sept. 8, 1876, cited above; and “Dying at Stillwater,” St. Paul Daily Globe, June 23, 1889.

  The men throwing rocks at the robbers are mentioned in several accounts. It was a foolhardy and dangerous undertaking. Truman Streeter would later state that he was shot at six times by the robbers. See the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 12, 1876.

  Cole Younger would later state that the reason Bob ran toward Anselm Manning at the stairs was “in order to get his (Bob’s) horse, which was tied down near the corner.” This is possible, but we are left wondering why Bob was without a horse at the end. We know that one horse was killed by Manning and two horses escaped. Either Bob’s horse was the one killed or it was one of the two that ran off. It seems more likely that his was the one killed, although Cole would always claim that Manning killed Charlie Pitts’s mount. See the Faribault Democrat, Dec. 1, 1876; the Saint Paul Globe, July 4, 1897; and The Northfield Bank Raid, 9.

  Henry Wheeler’s account of shooting Bob Younger is in the Northfield News, Sept. 10, 1926; and The Northfield Bank Raid: Fiftieth Anniversary Finds Interest Undimmed in Oft-told Tale of Repulse of James-Younger Gang, 10th edition (Northfield: Northfield News, 2008), 15–16. A slightly different version by Wheeler, from an 1897 issue of the Grand Forks Plaindealer, is reprinted in a Grand Forks Herald column by Jack Hagerty, an undated clipping of which is in box 3, folder 58, John J. Koblas Collection, Northfield Historical Society. In this 1897 version, Wheeler says that the hotel clerk handed him only three cartridges to begin with and that it was the third cartridge that fell and broke open upon the floor. Just then, the clerk gave Wheeler more cartridges, after which Wheeler made the shot that wounded Bob Younger.

  Wheeler’s bullet fractured Bob’s elbow joint, making an ugly and painful wound. Early accounts of the raid stated that Wheeler’s shot struck Younger in the thigh or leg, because Bob “at once changed hands with his pistol, grasping the wounded leg as if in pain.” However, Bob Younger later explained to a reporter that the act of his arm falling limp after being struck gave the impression that he was grabbing his leg. See the Rice County Journal, Sept. 14, 1876; the Northfield News, July 10, 1897; and the Saint Paul Dispatch, Sept. 22, 1876.

  All descriptions of Heywood’s death come from Frank Wilcox. Wilcox was generally consistent in stating that Frank James fired one shot at the acting cashier as he climbed over the counter to exit the bank. However, in his statement appearing in the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 9, 1876, Wilcox described Heywood’s killer as firing two shots from the counter, the first one “I do not think is the one that took effect.”

  Cole’s rescue of his brother Bob presents another conundrum in regard to robber identities. In an interview given before Cole was transferred from Faribault to Stillwater, Cole claimed that the two who rode double out of Northfield were the two who escaped Minnesota, meaning Frank and Jesse. When Cole recounted the raid years later, however, he wrote in much detail about how he pulled a man up behind him, but he said that man was Charlie Pitts, not Bob. Eyewitness testimony and subsequent information, however, make it clear that it was Bob who was the wounded man left on foot and who called to his cohorts not to leave him. It is hard to imagine what advantage Cole would have gained by lying about the matter. So why did he? See the Faribault Democrat, Dec. 1, 1876; and the Saint Paul Globe, July 4, 1897.

  Albert H. Taisey’s story of just missing the raid is from the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 8, 1876.

  The story of the Carleton women arming themselves with axes is from “Reminiscences of Carleton’s first Dean of Women, Margaret Evans Huntington, made on June 19, 1916,” Carleton College Archives, Northfield, MN.

  Dwight Lockerby’s recollections of his teacher, Mrs. Nettie Bunker, and the Northfield Raid, are in “Councilman D. D. Lockerby in Northfield, Minn., Day James Bros. Raided the Bank There,” Eau Claire Leader, Eau Claire, WI, Feb. 21, 1915. A similar account by a fellow classmate of Lockerby’s is Harold B. Kildahl Sr., Westward We Came: A Norwegian Immigrant’s Story, 1866–1898, ed. Erlinge E. Kildahl (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2008), 57–58.

  For Nettie Bunker’s search for her husband, see George Huntington, Robber and Hero: The Story of the Northfield Raid on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, by the James-Younger Band of Robbers, in 1876 (1895; reprint, Minneapolis: Ross & Haines, 1962), 39; and the Madelia Times, Nov. 20, 1896.

  Harold B. Kildahl’s sister, Matilda, was the woman helping Lizzie Heywood with the dressmaking the afternoon of the robbery. Kildahl relates, in Westward We Came, 58, how Lizzie first heard the news of her husband’s death. Huntington also tells this story in Robber and Hero, 39–40. The relationship between Heywood’s first and second wives is from a letter of Adelbert Ames to his wife, Blanche, Sept. 13, 1876, in Blanche Butler Ames, ed., Chronicles from the Nineteenth Century: Family Letters of Blanche Butler and Adelbert Ames, 2 vols. (Clinton, MA: Privately Printed, 1957) 2: 412.

  Details on Nicolaus Gustavson after being shot and his subsequent death are from The Northfield Tragedy, 23; the Northfield News, July 10, 1897; and the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 12, 1876.

  The Adelbert Ames quote referring to the women and children viewing the bodies of the robbers is from his letter dated Sept. 8, 1876, in Chronicles from the Nineteenth Century, 404.

  The Pittsburgh traveling salesman was Albert V. Dutcher, who worked for J. P. Smith, Son & Co., a manufacturer of table glassware. Dutcher’s account was published in the Saint Peter Tribune, Sept. 13, 1876.

  The wounded Alonzo Bunker insisting on being driven through Division Street is from his account in the Madelia Times, Nov. 20, 1896.

  The story of George Bates and his souvenir bullet is from The Northfield Tragedy, 17.

  The rumor that the robbers were headed to John T. Ames’s home and Adelbert Ames’s efforts to calm his brother are from Adelbert’s letter to his wife of Sept. 9, 1876, in Chronicles from the Nineteenth Century, 405.

  The telegraphic messages John T. Ames sent to Minneapolis and St. Paul were published in the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 8, 1876. This issue also reported the rapid response to Ames’s call for help.

  The original telegram to George M. Phillips informing him of the raid and Heywood’s death is in the General Ledger, First National Bank of Northfield. A photocopy is in box 2, folder 26 of the Koblas Collection.

  Five: And Then There Were Six

  Various figures are
given for the money stolen from the Northfield bank. The figure I offer ($8 in coin and $18.60 in scrip) is from the robbery indictment against the Youngers as published in the Saint Paul Dispatch, Nov. 15, 1876.

  Cole related in an 1880 interview with J. W. Buel that Jim had received four wounds in Northfield and that he had received eleven. In one account, Cole stated that the wound in his hip was from a pistol ball and not Manning’s rifle, but in another he gave credit to Manning’s Remington. Cole would also contradict himself as to the location of his wound, claiming at one point that Manning wounded him in the thigh instead of the hip. When Charlie Pitts was killed on the Watonwan, he had, in addition to a fatal bullet wound in his chest, wounds to his right arm and right hip. One or both of these wounds may have been inflicted at Northfield. As for the James brothers, Cole indicated that neither Jesse nor Frank had been wounded during the raid. But Frank would later tell Dr. Mosher, whom the brothers would encounter during their flight through Iowa, that he had received his leg wound at Northfield. See James W. Buel, The Border Outlaws . . . (St. Louis, MO: Historical Publishing Co., 1882), 256; the Saint Paul Globe, July 4, 1897; Cole Younger, The Story of Cole Younger by Himself (Chicago: The Henneberry Co., 1903), 81 and 87; the Northfield News, July 10, 1897; the Mankato Review, Sept. 26, 1876; the Mankato Record, Sept. 30, 1876; the Minneapolis Tribune, Sept. 22, 1876; the St. Paul and Minneapolis Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 24, 1876; the Faribault Democrat, Oct. 6, 1876; and the Sedalia Weekly Bazoo, May 28, 1878.

  Cole wrote that the gang intended to “wreck” the Northfield telegraph office in The Story of Cole Younger by Himself, 80.

  The gang forcing the elderly farmer off the road outside of Northfield is from John Jay Lemon, The Northfield Tragedy (1876; reprint, London: Westerners Publications Ltd., 2001), 25.

  The Northfield telegraph operator’s numerous attempts to reach the operator at Dundas is mentioned in The Northfield Tragedy, 11. The gang’s encounters with the Dundas hardware store owner, George A. Sexton, and the St. Paul traveling salesman were reported in the Saint Peter Tribune, Sept. 15, 1876; and the Faribault Democrat, Sept. 15, 1876.

  The commandeering of one of the horses from the team pulling the wagon of hoop poles was reported in the Saint Paul Dispatch, Sept. 8, 1876; and the Minneapolis Tribune, Sept. 8, 1876. Some accounts have this episode occurring just prior to the gang reaching Dundas. The two Northfield men who caught up to the gang as they were taking the horse were Jack Hayes and Dwight Davis. See the Saint Paul Dispatch, Sept. 8 and 9, 1876; and The Northfield Tragedy, 11.

  The blood trickling from Bob’s fingers was reported in the Minneapolis Tribune, Sept. 8, 1876; and the Saint Paul Dispatch, Sept. 8, 1876.

  The pail of water to wash Bob’s arm was obtained from farmer Robert Donaldson. See the Faribault Democrat, Sept. 15, 1876, which also contains the quote of the gang claiming they had killed a “blackleg” in Northfield. “Blackleg” is defined in John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary (London: John Camden Hotten, 1864), 75.

  The “borrowing” of the saddle for Bob was reported in the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 9, 1876.

  The account of the hotel owner, Samuel Cushman, recognizing the gang as they fled through Millersburg is in The Northfield Tragedy, 25–26.

  For the gang’s arrival in Shieldsville and their encounter with the Faribault posse in front of Hagerty’s saloon, see the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 9, 1876; the Minneapolis Tribune, Sept. 9, 1876; the Saint Paul Dispatch, Sept. 9, 1876; the Farmington Press, Sept. 14, 1876; the Faribault Democrat, Sept. 15, 1876; The Northfield Tragedy, 26; and John J. Koblas, Faithful Unto Death: The James-Younger Raid on the First National Bank, Northfield, Minnesota, September 7, 1876 (Northfield, MN: Northfield Historical Society Press, 2001), 103.

  The posse’s long-range fight with the gang four miles from Shieldsville is from the Saint Paul Dispatch, Sept. 9, 1876; the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 9, 1876; the Faribault Democrat, Sept. 15, 1876; The Northfield Tragedy, 27; and The Story of Cole Younger by Himself, 86. It is important to note that the Pioneer Press and Tribune reported that the man who fell from the horse during the skirmish “had a wounded arm.” That would be Bob Younger.

  Cole wrote of being “practically lost” in the Big Woods in The Story of Cole Younger by Himself, 86.

  The gang’s encounter with Levi Sager is from the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 10, 1876; the Minneapolis Tribune, Sept. 9, 1876; the Faribault Democrat, Sept. 15, 1876; and The Northfield Tragedy, 27. Accounts vary as to the direction the gang traveled with Sager and where he left them the night of Sept. 7. I have followed the report in the Pioneer Press and Tribune of Sept. 10, which represented the latest information from Waterville locals.

  Another account places the gang in the barn of Daniel Walsh, just west of Kilkenny, on the night of the robbery. However, contemporary newspapers reported that the gang’s stay with Lord Brown came from an eyewitness. A report later appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune that one of the two men killed in Northfield was believed to be one of Lord Brown’s sons. Although false, there has been speculation that Lord Brown’s son, Edward, had some connection to the robbery. Twenty-eight years old in 1876, he had recently been released from Stillwater Prison after serving time for horse stealing. See Koblas, Faithful Unto Death, 105–106; the Saint Paul Dispatch, Sept. 9, 1876; the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 10, 1876; the Minneapolis Tribune, Sept. 9 and 11, 1876; and Chip DeMann to Mark Lee Gardner, Dundas, Minn., Sept. 16, 2011.

  For Sheriff Ara Barton’s nightlong efforts to contain the outlaws, see The Northfield Tragedy, 28.

  There are contradictory accounts as to where Ira Sumner photographed the dead outlaws. Elise Ytterboe, a teenager at the time of the robbery, claimed she visited Tschann’s Meat Market the morning after the raid and saw “the two dead robbers propped up in a sitting position between two buildings near the market having pictures taken of them.” Tschann’s Meat Market was on the south side of Mill Square, the same side of the square that contained the vacant store where the bodies were stored. Ira Sumner’s daughter, on the other hand, wrote that the bodies were taken up to her father’s studio to be photographed. Sumner’s daughter was not yet born in 1876, so she was no eyewitness, but Elise Ytterboe’s account was not written until sixty-two years after the raid. A close examination of the photos themselves indicates that the bodies were photographed indoors. See Elise Ytterboe, Ole Voices No. 1, Reminiscenses, ed. by Jeff M. Sauve (St. Olaf College: Shaw-Olson Center for College History, 2009), 4–5; and Grace Sumner Northrop to Emith Buth, Sun City, AZ, July 18, 1978, Rice County Historical Society, Faribault, MN. My thanks to Quinn Jacobson, Denver wet-plate photographic artist, for his comments on the postmortem images.

  The 11:00 A.M. coroner’s inquest is mentioned in the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 9, 1876.

  The account of the bodies being displayed in Mill Square on Sept. 8 is from George Huntington, Robber and Hero: The Story of the Northfield Raid on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, by the James-Younger Band of Robbers, in 1876 (1895; reprint, Minneapolis: Ross & Haines, 1962), 40.

  The quote of the Minneapolis Tribune’s correspondent regarding the “floodgates of information” is from the Tribune issue of Sept. 8, 1876.

  Several newspapers printed descriptions of the dead robbers’ clothing and personal effects, but see the Saint Paul Dispatch, Sept. 8, 1876; the Minneapolis Tribune, Sept. 8, 1876; the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 9, 1876; and The Northfield Tragedy, 12–15. The Arab Horse Maxims were printed periodically in newspapers as filler throughout the late nineteenth century. I have quoted the first maxim from the Indiana Progress, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Feb. 24, 1876.

  The Saint Paul Dispatch of Sept. 9, 1876, initially reported that Chadwell’s body had been identified by Peterman as Bill Yates, “a former resident of Minneapolis,” but later corrected the name to Stiles in its issue of Sept. 11, claiming that Yates and Raymond were Stiles’s aliases. The response of Bill S
tiles’s father, Elisha, to the news (false) that his son had been killed in Northfield, is quoted from the Pioneer Press and Tribune, Sept. 26, 1876. The several articles pointing out the many problems with the Stiles identification are found in the Saint Paul Dispatch, Sept. 16, 1876; the Wright County Times, Monticello, MN, Sept. 28, Oct. 26, and Nov. 30, 1876; and the Faribault Republican, Oct. 25, 1876. Bob Younger is quoted from the Mankato Review, Nov. 28, 1876.

  William “Bill” Stiles is enumerated in the household of Elisha Stiles in the 1857 Minnesota territorial census, the 1860 U.S. census for Minnesota, and the 1870 U.S. census for Minnesota. In the 1857 and 1860 censuses, the Stiles family is living in the town of Monticello, Wright County. In the 1870 census, they are found living in the town of Santiago, Shelburne County. In each census, Bill Stiles’s birthplace is given as New Brunswick, Canada. Stiles’s mother appears to have died sometime before 1860, and his youngest sister, Minnie May, was adopted by Reverend Elijah W. and Mary C. Merrill. Minnie May wed Caleb H. Peterman at Cannon Falls, MN, on Aug. 10, 1875. According to the contemporary newspapers, Peterman was no longer living with his wife at the time of the raid. See the Elijah W. Merrill household in the 1870 U.S. census for the Cannon Falls Township, Goodhue County, MN; Goodhue County, MN, marriage records for 1875; and The Northfield Tragedy, 14.

  In 1897, Norman Van Buskirk, a Northfield resident, claimed he took Caleb Peterman and another Cannon Falls man to see the bodies of the robbers the day after the raid. According to Buskirk, as they were viewing the corpse of Chadwell, Peterman said, “For God’s sake, Norm, don’t you know that man? Why that’s Bill—Bill Stiles, my brother-in-law.” Buskirk did not explain why Peterman thought he should recognize Stiles, and I have my doubts about the story. See the Saint Paul Globe, July 11, 1897.

  Governor Pillsbury’s reward proclamations are printed in the Minneapolis Tribune, Sept. 9 and 13, 1876, as well as several other Minnesota newspapers. The reward offer of the First National Bank is explained in the Rice County Journal, Sept. 14, 1876. The criticism of the initial $500 reward is found in the Saint Paul Dispatch, Sept. 9, 1876.