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A Town Marshal Said to Be Implicated In a Bomber of Burglaries.SommitTille, a little Town Hear Marion, Comet to the Front With a Sensation.A Conflict In Which Revolvers and Gons Play Quite an Important Fart.M«kion, Ind., October 26.—A band of men organized in a civilized community for plunder and destruction, an attempted raid on a mercantile establishment, a desperate battle between two determined and armed men facing each other at a distance of less than eighteen feet with three others contributing bullets every second and the accompanying details bas occupied the* attention of the citizens of Summitville since 2 o’clock yesterday.Summitville is a town of 1,200 inhabitants on the Cincinnati, Wabash Michigan division of the Big Four, sixteen miles south of here. To that plack six weeks ago George Stroud went from a neighboring town and secured a position as night watchman. Ten days ago he told the merchants of that’place that an attempt was to be made at wholesale burglary by an organized band of thieves, including a dozen or more among its members. Last night an attempt would surely be made to plunder and burn several establishments. The first was to be the Wilkins drygoods store. In this placeof business Deputy Sheriff Coburn, Pat Hannan and Andrew Fennimore were stationed. Coburn was armed with two revolvers and the others with similar weapons. At 2 o’clock Dick Goodman, one of the members of the gang.appeared at a side window near the rear of the building. He raised the window and went in. At the order to throw up his hands he began to shoot. Coburn responded, and Hannan and Fenni-more also joined in the fusijade. Tom May, another member of the gang, appeared at the window and took part in the affray.Goodman, directly facing Coburn in a room eighteen feet wide, emptied his revolver and Coburn emptied both of his. Goodman received a shot in the abdomen from which he cannot recover, but succeeded in backing out of the window and running several squares from the building, when he fell, to be captured _and taken to jail at Anderson. Coburn received a trifling wound in (he side. Just back of where he stood in a space of six feet are nine bullet holes. Over twenty shots were fired in the room, most of them at a distance of less than the width of the room.May, the companion of Goodman, was captured by members of the .Summitville- horse thief detective association, who had been patroling the streets. Before his capture, however, over seventy shots were fired, all of which were harmless. The other members of the gang escaped. The organization of plunderers is supposed to include not less than a dozen men. But four of them are known to have been connected with the attempt last night. Officers are in pursuit of the two escaped, and others will be arrested. The gang includes members of reputable families south of Summitville. and is credited with having burned a saloon and dry goods store at Dundee, a village a few miles from Summitville, after having carried off a quantity of goods. A part of the dry goods were afterwards found in a straw stack on the Goodman farm. Innumerable other depredations withing a radius of twenty miles from Summitville are attributed to it. Stroud, the night watchman, has been admitted to the inner councils of the organization for some time. There are different theories as to why Strond sought the position of night wateh-man and then divulged the schemes of the gang. The latter is supposed to have been in existence for several years.
Newspaper Details
Fort Wayne Weekly Gazette
Fort Wayne, Indiana, US
Thu, Nov 02, 1893
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Jamie S.
NA, 07 Jul 2024
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