The DeAutremont Brothers
America"s Last Great Train Robbery
Margaret LaPlante
Other books by the same author:
On To Oregon: The Stories of Seventy Families Who Settled The Rogue Valley
Images Of America: Jacksonville
Murdered In The Line Of Duty: Constable George J. Prescott The DeAutremont Brothers
America"s Last Great Train Robbery Margaret LaPlante
Copyright 2009 by Margaret LaPlante
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the author.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1449986544 This book is dedicated to:
Sidney Bates
Elvyn Doughtery
Coyl Johnson
Marvin Seng
Who tragically lost their lives in America"s last great train robbery and to their families and friends whose lives were changed forever. Introduction The Rogue Valley was ablaze in fall colors on October 11, 1923 as the Gold Special of the Southern Pacific Railroad made its way along the mighty Rogue River towards the California-Oregon border. The Gold Special, also known as Train 13 was carrying mail and passengers on a Portland to San Francisco run. At approximately 12:40 p.m. the train entered Tunnel 13. The events that transpired there soon became known the world over.
Chapter I
Anyone who has ever spent a spring or fall in Southern Oregon will tell you that the weather can change from one season to the next overnight. On October 11, 1923 the day dawned under a bright sunny sky with a daytime temperature expected to be 68 degrees. Winter would arrive shortly but for now the valley was glowing with brilliant autumn colors and the residents were enjoying the final days of an Indian summer.
The Gold Special, or Train 13 as it was also known, was on its way to San Francisco having left Portland early that morning. The passengers aboard the train were enjoying the brilliant reds, oranges and yellows of the fall foliage reflected in the Rogue River as the train wound its way through Southern Oregon. Just past noon the train stopped at the depot in the small hamlet of Ashland, Oregon. The passengers aboard were allowed a few minutes to stretch their legs. Little did they know that they were about to make railroad history.
The train crew handed over the reins to a fresh crew from the Shasta California division whose lives were about to change forever. The train engineer, Sidney Bates was just beginning his shift. He had been with Southern Pacific Railroad for thirty years. His fireman was 23-year-old Marvin Seng. Both Bates and Seng called the picturesque town of Dunsmuir, California home. Dunsmuir is a small town halfway between Redding, California and the Oregon border. Seng had been for working for Southern Pacific Railroad since 1918 and had a young wife and a baby at home. He was filling in for his friend James McDonald who had another obligation. The previous summer McDonald had almost lost his life while aboard Train 13 when the boiler exploded.
The brakeman coming on shift that day was Charles (Coyl) Orin Johnson who was one day shy of his 38 th birthday. His wife Ruth was planning a party for him upon his arrival home. In the mailcar was Elvyn Doughtery who had agreed to fill in for his friend John Edwards. Edwards had an important Masonic Lodge meeting that morning in Ashland so he asked Doughtery to cover his shift. Doughtery had a wife, Rollie and a four-year-old son named Raymond.
Train 13 consisted of an engine, the tender, one combination mailcar, four baggage express cars and three coaches. The mailcar was made of steel and separated by a steel partition, the front being used for mail and the back being used for pouches of mail and baggage. Doughtery was in the front and Hugh Huffy was in the back. There was a steel door they could crawl through to get from one side to the other. Beyond Huffy was the iceman, whose job was to continually ice the fish that was being transported to California to be sold to restaurants and stores.
The train left Ashland and began to make its way towards California. All southbound trains were required to perform a brake check prior to descending the steep Siskiyou Summit. As Bates approached Tunnel 13 he slowed to a crawl of 5-6 miles per hour. Tunnel 13 was 3100 feet long and mostly made of timber.
What no one knew was that the DeAutremont brothers, twins Ray and Roy age 23, and their younger brother Hugh, age 19, were hiding near the tunnel. As the train slowed, Roy and Hugh jumped from the bushes they were hiding in and climbed aboard the train. Although they had done this numerous times in the past as they traveled from one place to the next, this time they almost missed. In the midst of trying to catch the train, Roy lost his .45 pistol along the tracks. This slowed him down and he would have missed the train completely had it not been for Hugh who saw what had happened and was able to pull Roy aboard the train. Ray was up ahead in the tunnel chain smoking in an effort to calm his nerves.
Roy and Hugh made their way from the baggage car to the tender where they jumped down into the engineer"s cab, startlingly Bates and Seng. Hugh pointed his loaded shotgun at Bates and demanded that he stop the train once the engine was barely clear of the tunnel. Hugh threatened to shoot if his demands weren"t met. Bates informed Hugh that he had to turn the warning bell on as he entered the tunnel because that was company policy. Hugh reluctantly agreed to the request. Bates did as he was told and Train 13 came to a stop inside Tunnel 13 with just its nose outside of the tunnel.
Ray was in the tunnel with a detonating device and dynamite which he placed up against the door of the mailcar. He saw Doughtery stick his head out the window in an effort to determine why the train had come to a complete stop. Ray fired his shotgun at Doughtery but missed. Doughtery quickly bolted the window shut and locked the safe.
Hugh Huffy was also curious when the train came to an unexpected stop so he peered out his door in the baggage car. From his vantage point he could see Seng with his hands in the air and he could see that two men were holding guns on him. Huffy quietly closed his door and waited.
As Hugh stood with his gun drawn on Bates and Seng, Roy left to help Ray with the dynamite. The brothers had spent the past few weeks planning to dynamite the mailcar so they could quickly grab what they thought would be at least $40,000 and make their great escape before anyone knew what had happened.
The warning bell continued to clang loudly and that along with the unexpected stop made the passengers and other crewmembers begin to question what had gone wrong. The conductor of the train, C.O. Merritt and brakeman Coyl Johnson started for the front of the train when suddenly a tremendous explosion ripped through the tunnel. Although Ray had had some experience using dynamite, it was actually Roy who plunged the detonator. The blast took out all of the train"s windows and filled the entire train and tunnel with smoke. The boys thought if they detonated the dynamite while the train was inside of the tunnel, no one would be able to hear it in the distance. This logic proved to be an incredible mistake because the mailcar was soon engulfed in flames and thick smoke making it impossible to see anything. Hugh ordered Bates and Seng back into the cab and demanded they move the train forward so the mailcar would no longer be inside of the tunnel.
Merritt turned back when the explosion occurred but Johnson continued to make his way towards the mailcar. In his hand he carried a red lantern. He came upon Roy who informed him a robbery was taking place and that his life was in great danger. Roy ordered Johnson to go and tell Bates to move the train forward. As Johnson began to walk towards the cab still carrying his lantern, he startled Ray and Hugh who both fired their guns. Johnson crumbled to the ground uttering his final words, “that other fellow said to pull the thing ahead.”
Johnson was in great distress and Hugh shot him again.
Bates was unable to move the train forward due to the substantial damage it had suffered. By this time the boys were in a panic realizing that everything was going wrong. The twins made one last attempt to get inside the mailcar but it was essentially an inferno. Doughtery died in the inferno.
By now all three brothers knew the situation was helpless and they prepared to leave this debacle of a crime scene empty handed. Roy in a panic and not knowing what to do, suddenly opened fire on Seng, killing him instantly. Before leaving the crime scene Ray realized that Bates was a witness. He ordered Hugh to, “bump him off and let"s get out of here.” Hugh shot Bates which brought the death toll to four innocent, hard working, law abiding men. Their children would have to grow up without their fathers and their widows would have to struggle to provide for their families in an era that offered few opportunities for working females.
The brothers ran from the crime scene in a panic leaving behind three knapsacks they had brought to use to haul away the loot. They became disoriented and began arguing about which direction their hide-out was. As they ran they could hear the warning bell echoing throughout the countryside. The brothers finally found their shack after going in the wrong direction for a couple of miles.
Chapter II
Just who were the DeAutremont brothers and where had they come from? Based on the heinous crime they had committed, one could assume they had just been released from a high security prison after a lifetime spent committing crime.
It would come as quite a surprise to learn that with the exception of one brother who had spent a year in a reformatory, their criminal records were squeaky clean. Twins Ray and Roy were born on March 31, 1900 to Paul and Belle DeAutremont in the small town of Williamsburg, Ohio. They joined an older brother, Verne. Paul worked as a barber but times were tough for the young family and not long after the twins arrived, the family moved to Mena, Arkansas. It was there that Hugh was born in 1904.
Paul continued to work as a barber but when Hugh was just six months old, the family packed up and moved to Colorado. They settled near Cripple Creek and Paul worked as a barber but also began doing painting and wallpapering. Belle gave birth to their last child, a boy they named Lee while living in Colorado.
Money continued to be tight which led to considerable fighting between Paul and Belle. They raised their children in the Catholic faith and attended mass on a regular basis. As the boys grew, the fighting increased. When Paul heard about the great opportunities in New Mexico, he thought that would be the answer. He read some promotional brochures that touted Lakewood, New Mexico as the place to be. The material promised fertile valleys with plenty of water. Paul was sure this was his chance to make it big so he bought a plot of land sight unseen. Paul, Belle and their five children placed all of their worldly goods into a covered wagon and walked almost 800 miles to New Mexico. Upon arriving, it was obvious the promotional material was nothing more than a lie. As far as the eye could see, there was just arid desert with little water in sight. Years later Ray recalled the entire thing seemed hopeless but his mother insisted they try their hand at farming despite the overwhelming odds. Ray spoke of the back-breaking work to raise a crop only to be cheated by the crop buyers. He told of the cattleman taking their water and their inability to do anything about the injustices they suffered. Later Ray recalled the situation in Lakewood being the first time in his life that he felt hatred towards another human being, recalling those who had cheated his family.
The financial situation placed increased strain on the parents. Eventually Paul left the family and returned to Colorado. Belle tried to run a store for a time, but unable to make ends meet, she packed everyone up and moved back to Colorado where she reunited with her husband.
They remained in Colorado for a couple of years but when the fighting became intolerable, she packed the boys up and moved back to New Mexico. Not long after Paul returned to New Mexico to give the marriage one more chance.
When the fighting escalated yet again, the twins decided they had had enough and they set off on their own at the age of 16. Ray left home first and headed to Oklahoma where Roy soon caught up with him. The twins attended barber school and worked at a boarding house waiting tables. Not long into enjoying their new found freedom, the boys received word their father had once again left their mother, this time moving to Oregon, and their mother needed help on the farm. Ray decided to return to New Mexico to help his mother. He soon found himself frustrated by the lack of opportunities in Lakewood and within six months he set out once again to explore parts unknown.
Ray took to catching freight trains or “riding the rails” in railroad parlance. It was while riding the rails that he met up with some men who were preaching about socialism. Ray began to feel a sense of belonging within their group, something that had been lacking from his life. The group was known as the Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.) or the “Wobblies” as they were called. The Wobblies believed that no one cared about the little guy, the unskilled worker, who was barely making a living. The Wobblies took on many of the large employers in the Pacific Northwest including the timber and shipbuilding industries. They walked picket lines and caused disruptions in those industries they felt were taking advantage of the unskilled laborers.
At the age of 18, Ray arrived in Portland, Oregon as a proud, card-carrying member of the Wobblies. He found work as an architect"s assistant at a shipyard in Vancouver, Washington just across the river from Portland. For the first time Ray had a decent job with a promising future but he still felt a keen sense of brotherhood amongst the Wobblies.
In the small town of Centralia, Washington a large protest broke out on Armistice Day, November 11, 1919. A parade was held in downtown Centralia and American flags swayed in the breeze from every building downtown except for the building occupied by the I.W.W. For reasons that were never resolved, when the Legionnaires in the parade reached the Wobblies" headquarters they were stopped. Within minutes a shot rang out followed in short order by many more. When it was discovered minutes later that three Legionnaires had lost their lives, their comrades quickly surrounded the Wobblies" building. Wesley Everest who was inside the building at the time, dashed out the back of the building only to discover the river was going to impede his ability to get away. He immediately turned and shot the Legionnaire closest to him. He gave himself up right there on the spot and was quickly transported to jail. That night there was a complete black out in Centralia and when daylight came the next morning, Everest"s body was found dangling from a bridge, riddled with bullet holes. In all four Legionnaires had lost their lives, Everest had been murdered and eight Wobblies were arrested. The state of Washington had had enough and it was decided that anyone carrying a I.W.W. card was to be arrested at once. Within days, jails throughout Washington were overflowing with Wobblie supporters.
One such member that met that same fate was Ray DeAutremont. He was living in a hotel in Vancouver, Washington when the police came knocking. Ray handed over his card and informed the police he was proud to be a member of the I.W.W. In short order Ray found himself behind bars for the first time in his young life. This only reinforced his belief that the little guy was once again being taken advantage of. Ray"s time in the Clark County jail would probably have been short lived had he not come up with an escape plan. He brought a fellow inmate, John Johnson in on the plan which turned out to be his undoing. Ray thought that he and Johnson would simply walk out the kitchen door to freedom. When it was time to put the plan into motion, Johnson panicked and in doing so, drew attention to himself and Ray. Within minutes of running out the kitchen door they were caught and found themselves back in their cells facing new charges of attempted escape. Ray was sentenced to one year at the State Reformatory of Monroe, Washington. This outcome only increased Ray"s belief that the big guys were against the little guys. Ray recalled years later spending that year brooding and sulking. He felt the hatred well up in him whe
never he thought of how those in power treated the little guy.
Upon learning of his twin brother"s incarceration, Roy immediately left Oklahoma City and headed out west in the hopes of being able to help Ray. Roy appeared before a judge and assured him that if Ray was released, he would personally see to it that Ray would return to the family"s farm in New Mexico. The court refused to consider the plan and Ray remained locked up.
Roy settled in Salem, Oregon where he lived with his father who had remarried. Roy worked in Paul"s barber shop but his eyes were giving him problems. After a few months he left that trade and took a job in the State Mental Hospital. He disliked working there but he was earning $57.50 a month plus room and board. Roy had no way of knowing at the time what meaning this hospital would have in his life someday. He visited Ray as often as possible but most of their visits resulted in heated debates with each trying to convince the other that his beliefs were wrong. Ray"s time in Monroe only made himmore bitter towards the “establishment.” Roy"s beliefs were firmly planted in the Catholic Church but he was unable to convince his twin of the benefits of religion.
The day finally came when Ray was released from the Reformatory. On May 12, 1921 he was once again a free man. The twins shared a room in a boarding house in Salem. Ray was unable to find work which only deepened his belief that the world was against him. By this time Roy was feeling torn between his religious beliefs and his love for his brother. Living together in close confinement,it wasn"t long before Ray was able to convince Roy to join him in his beliefs. Roy cast aside his religion and over time grew to believe that the establishment had wronged his brother. Soon the twins took on an us versus them philosophy. Still unemployed, Ray decided to ride the rails to Chicago to try and catch up with some big time criminals he had heard about while serving time. He was hoping to learn the fine art of robbing a bank as he felt this wasto be his future “career.” Once in Chicago, Ray was unable to locate the men so he returned to Oregon feeling somewhat defeated.
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