Burglars and Bullets: The 1887 Post Office Break-In
By Sam Pickard
A country store. A cracked safe. Evidence dumped in farm fields. Gunshots and a grievously wounded man. Over the course of a Saturday night in July 1887 the peace in Marple and Haverford townships was shattered by related crimes that to this day have not totally been solved.
The Break-In
Philip Moore Jr. had operated the Broomall Post Office in his store at what is now the northwest corner of West Chester Pike and Sproul Road since 1878 (click here for more on the Broomall’s post offices). Moore had recently completed a new house near his store and upon closing for the night would retire there. On Saturday July 16, 1887 Moore closed up his store as usual and headed home. It would not be a normal Saturday night for the quiet rural communities on either side of Darby Creek, however.[1]
Three men were making their way out West Chester Pike, with the granddaughter of the tollkeeper in Haverford spotting the trio at around 11 p.m. near the present-day intersection with Stanton Road. Ten minutes later, the same men were seen by mill-worker James Boyd near the grist mill along Darby Creek (now the parking lot on Old West Chester Pike across from Barnaby’s). According to Philadelphia Times, it was believed that after reaching the store around midnight, one of the three men clambered onto the porch roof and entered an unlocked second-story window. The burglar crept downstairs and opened a side door to allow his partners in.[2]
Across West Chester Pike, Louisa Dickinson saw lights and movement in the store, but supposing it was someone from the Moore family, she thought no more of it.[3] Inside the store, the burglars got to work, drilling open a fireproof safe kept in the rear of the building. Once they were into the safe they grabbed several cigar boxes containing a total of $15 to $25 in coins, a counterfeit trade dollar, a 1792 silver dollar, and receipts, bills, and accounts from the store.[4]
With the exception of very early reports in the Chester Times, multitude of newspaper accounts of the robbery appear to generally agree with the sequence of events up until this point. What happened next varies from account to account, but the following is what I judge to be closest to what happened in the early hours of Sunday, July 17th.[5]
The Gunshot
At around 2:30 a.m., a group of three or four men left the Eagle Hotel at the corner of West Chester Pike and the aptly named Eagle Road. These men included 22-year-old farmer Charles Marsh (or March), grist mill proprietor named J. Wesley Hatton, and farmer George Moore. A fourth man appears in some accounts and is noted as either John Wood or farmhand John “Dutch John” Lewey. The men walked west along West Chester Pike and paused at Hatton’s mill (now across from Barnaby’s), where they continued to talk.[6]
As the group stood by a fence talking, they spotted three men in dark, somewhat ragged clothes. Descriptions as to their age and height varied, though it appeared that all three burglars had mustaches and one man was notably the shortest of the trio. The three burglars were hugging the north side of the pike and had a suspicious enough appearance that Marsh called out to them, asking what they were doing out at that hour of the night. The shortest of the three burglars called back at Marsh, telling him it was none of his business, punctuating his reply with an obscenity. The crude name, insulting not just Marsh but his mother, angered Marsh and, despite attempts by his friends to restrain him, he chased after the three men. As he gained on them, at least one of the men turned and fired several shots from a revolver.[7] One of these bullets struck Marsh somewhere in the abdomen—each account seems to state a different location.[8] The three burglars made their escape as Marsh’s friends tended to him—it was reported that the trio of criminals passed the last tollgate before the city line, in Upper Darby, around 4 a.m.[9]
Marsh was taken to his home on the hill above Darby creek. Several doctors were called to the house and as they were unable to locate the bullet, they pronounced that the wound was likely fatal. Early on Sunday morning, Philip Moore discovered the break-in when he entered the store at around 6 a.m. Later, the cigar boxes taken from the safe were found discarded along the road in Marple, just west of where the burglars encountered Marsh and his friends.[10]
Wesley Hatton went into Philadelphia on Monday, July 18th and met with detectives there. The police suspected the crimes had been committed by a ring of burglars based in the city and took down the descriptions of the three men.[11] By Thursday of that week, the Philadelphia Inquirer was able to report that Marsh was likely to recover from his bullet wound.[12]
Later Events
It appears that no leads on the case developed through the rest of 1887. A break in the case would finally come in early 1888; not from events in Delaware County or Philadelphia, but from New Jersey. On January 6, 1888 burglars broke into Charles McClees’ hardware store in Toms River, New Jersey. Blowing open the store’s safe with a stick of dynamite, they made off with jewelry and around $500 in cash.[13] Later the next day, a posse led by a local constable caught up with the three burglars near Shamong, New Jersey, cornering them in an abandoned cabin. When the suspects were asked if they were armed, the three said they weren’t and the posse relaxed, allowing all three burglars to pull guns on the constable and his men. In a reversal of roles, the posse were locked in the cabin and the burglars made their escape. The trapped law enforcement members soon freed themselves from the cabin and caught up with the trio of burglars around dawn, when they captured one of the burglars, Frank “Monkey” Smith of Alaska Street in South Philadelphia.[14]
Police in Philadelphia suspected that the Toms River burglars were part of a larger ring of safecrackers based in the city. In mid-February safes at a stone yard in West Philadelphia and the Church of the Assumption on Spring Garden Streets were both blown open and their respective contents stolen. Later the same week, burglars broke into the sub-post office in the Port Richmond neighborhood and blew the safe inside of it, with the resulting blast shattering the windows. A neighbor saw three men flee the building and the following day police arrested John Irwin, another neighborhood resident and a Reading Railroad employee participating in a large-scale strike.[15] Irwin may have been unfairly implicated, as police arrested three men a week after the burglary at Seventh and Pine Streets in Philadelphia.[16]
Acting on a tip, police had shadowed one of the men, initially identified as James “Richmond” Ferrod, and confronted him when he met up with two others—Philip Sweeney and James Ogden. Ferrod attempted to pull a revolver from his coat pocket when confronted, but all three surrendered when police drew their weapons first. The Philadelphia Times reported that police found gunpowder-blackened cotton used for blowing safes in Ferrod’s room and that Ferrod had been tentatively identified as both a participant in the Toms River burglary and as one of the men present at the shooting of Charles Marsh in July 1887. Eventually, Sweeney, Ogden, and another man picked up as part of the sweep were all released due to lack of evidence and testimony from Ferrod that they were not involved. Ferrod, however, appears to have admitted to the Toms River burglary and was extradited to New Jersey to face charges there.[17]
Ferrod, who after his extradition to New Jersey was identified as James Forrest (seemingly his legal name), admitted to the Toms River burglary, but claimed that Frank Smith had been drunk at the railroad station during the crime and that the safe had actually been blown by an unnamed western “crook.”[18] None of this mattered much however, as Ferrod/Forrest and Smith staged an escape from the jail in Toms River on April 1, 1888. While the sheriff was at church, the men called for a pitcher of water from the jailer. When the jailer opened the door with the pitcher, the men set on him and quickly disarmed him.[19]
Despite numerous alleged sightings, it was not until September 1888 that Ferrod/Forrest was found.[20] After having fled north to Canada, he had returned to Pennsylvania. In Harrisburg he was arrested for carrying a large concealed revolver while using the name “James Fitzgerald.” Apparently Ferrod/Forrest wrote to friends in Philadelphia for bail money, and they in turn tipped off police. He was finally returned to Toms River and upon once again confessing to the burglary that took place there was sentenced to 10 years in state prison.[21] Frank Smith was luckier, and despite some alleged sightings had not been caught as of December 1891.[22]
The burglary of the Broomall post office and the shooting of Charles Marsh were not major events in Marple Township’s history. Indeed, it appears that no one was ever prosecuted for the crimes. Despite this, it gives us a vivid snapshot of the community during this era and provides a clear demonstration as to how interconnected events in this 19th century farming community could be to the wider world.
[1] “Burglary and Probable Murder,” Delaware County Advocate (Chester, Pennsylvania), 23 July 1887, 3; Allan Cleaves Dodge, “First Broomall Postoffice Located in Old Landmark,” Chester Times (Chester, Pennsylvania), 10 August 1949, 11.
[2] “Shot By a Safe Burglar,” Times (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), 19 July 1887, 1.
[3] “Burglary and Probable Murder,” Delaware County Advocate, 23 July 1887, 3; 1880 U.S. Census, Schedule 1.— Inhabitants, Pennsylvania, Delaware Co., Marple Twp., 5, line 33.
[4] “Shot By a Safe Burglar,” Times, 19 July 1887, 1.
[5] “Fatally Shot,” Chester Times, 18 July 1887, 3; “The Haverford Shooting,” Chester Times, 19 July 1887, 3; “Shot By a Robber,” Harrisburg Daily Independent (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), 19 July 1887, 1; “Shot By a Robber,” Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), 19 July 1887, 2; “Shot By a Safe Burglar,” Times, 19 July 1887, 1.
[6] “Shot By a Safe Burglar,” Times, 19 July 1887, 1; “Burglary and Probable Murder,” Delaware County Advocate, 23 July 1887, 3; Entry for “Charles Edward March,” died 12 June 1933, in “Pennsylvania Death Certificates, 1906-1967,” Ancestry.com, [online database], original data from Pennsylvania (State), Death Certificates, 1906–1963, Series 11.90 (1,905 cartons), Records of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Record Group 11 (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission).
[7] “Shot By a Safe Burglar,” Times, 19 July 1887, 1
[8] “Fatally Shot,” Chester Times, 18 July 1887, 3; “The Haverford Shooting,” Chester Times, 19 July 1887, 3; “Shot By a Robber,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 July 1887, 2; “Shot By a Safe Burglar,” Times, 19 July 1887, 1
[9] “The Haverford Shooting,” Chester Times, 19 July 1887, 3.
[10] “Shot By a Safe Burglar,” Times, 19 July 1887, 1.
[11] “Shot By a Safe Burglar,” Times, 19 July 1887, 1.
[12] “Fragments of News,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 21 July 1887, 3.
[13] “Blowing Up a Safe,” Times, 8 January 1888, 5.
[14] “Captured Their Pursuers,” Times, 9 January 1888, 1.
[15] “Bold Safe Robbers,” Philadelphia Record (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), 18 February 1888, 1; “Blew Open the Safe,” Times, 18 February 1888, 1.
[16] “Suspected of Safe Robberies,” Times, 26 February 1888, 2.
[17] “Suspected of Safe Robberies,” Times, 26 February 1888, 2; “A Burglar Confesses,” Evening Telegram (Camden, New Jersey), 28 February 1888, 1; “City Notes,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 6 March 1888, 2.
[18] “Local News,” Monmouth Democrat (Freehold, New Jersey), 15 March 1888, 1.
[19] “Escape from Jail,” New Jersey Courier (Toms River, New Jersey), 4 April 1888, 3.
[20] “They Didn’t Find Him,” Bridgeton Evening News (Bridgeton, New Jersey), 7 April 1888, 1; “Cumberland County Notes,” Camden Daily Courier (Camden, New Jersey), 26 July 1888, 1; “Forrest Not Here,” Bridgeton Evening News, 30 July 1888, 1.
[21] “A Well Known Cracksman,” Harrisburg Patriot (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), 26 September 1888, 1; “The Safe Robber’s Movements,” Bridgeton Evening News, 8 October 1888, 1; “A Long Sentence,” Post (Camden, New Jersey), 10 October 1888, 1.
[22] “Got the Wrong Man,” Bridgeton Evening News, 7 December 1891, 1.