| Show written for this OU paper ROBBING THE MINTS I 1 OY copyrighted righted 1696 2696 by frank G carpenter washington oct aist 1896 VISITED the mint at philadelphia last week it now dont contains ains more than and it has standard silver dollars in a single vault the san francisco mint has I 1 am told more than worth of precious metal stored away and in the vaults of the mint at new orleans there are now something like 1 B J a S worth of gold and jy 0 aroi o silver during my stay in pur philadelphia treasure house I 1 was shown the different methods by which uncle sam guards his hoard every atom of gold and silver is wa washed thed and although the mint has handled more than ihan a billion and a half dollars worth of bullion since it was founded only a small part has been lost still the temptation to theft is great and every now and then the treasury department depart meni finds a shortage in some of the mints or in the government assay offices in different parts of the west the true details of such thefts seldom get into the newspapers they are filed away in the records ot of the treasury department and in the minds of the detectives and officials who whid have aided in exposing the crimes during the past week I 1 have beard the stories of a number of such robberies and in my study of them I 1 have had access to the records of the treasury in in connection with hon R E preston the director of the mint mr preston has bas charge of all the mints in the united states he is the chief watch dog of uncle sams treasures of gold and silver and he knows more about the mint perhaps than any other man connected with the government he has been in the employ ol of the united states treasury for the past forty years vears and he be is today one of its most efficient officers you remember how about two years ago henry S cochran the weigh clerk at the philadelphia mint stole bars to the value of from the gold vault stealing it bar by bar from a stack of sixteen million dollars worth of gold bullion which was there stored away mr preston was one of the officials who superintended super intended the putting away of that bullion and he was acting director ot of the mint at the time that cochrans chrans Co theft was discovered the first great steal in the philadelphia mint occurred forty three years ago just before mr preston entered the government services service and curiously enough this theft was detected by cochran who was an under clerk of the robber and who by exposing his superior got the place of weigh clerk which he held for forty years and in which which he was at the time his own robbery occurred during the investigation at philadelphia ladelphia phi the thiet Cochran told mr preston the story and mr preston repeated it to me today it was away back in 1853 said the director of the mint when a vast amount of gold old D was coming in from california sa that t the first big robbery occurred the culprit was james E negus and he was the weigh clerk of the mint there was at this time no assay office at new york and all ail of the gold dust and nuggets were sent by the banks of the different cities to philadelphia to be reduced to bullion negus had the handling of this treasure and he for a long time carried a systematic stealing from the different deposits sent in it was his business to take charge of them weigh them and put them into the vault until they could be melted by taking a nugget or a pinch of dust from each deposit he was able to steal thousands of dollars and he probably babl carried on his lings during the chofe of the four years that he was in the employ of the mint cochran was at this time a boy working in the mint he acted as negus assistant he was led to suspect that negus was taking out gold dust and substituting black sand for it in some of the deposits retook he took occasion to reweigh re weigh several deposits when negus was not present and found that they were from five to ten ounces short he went to the superintendent 0 of f the mint and charged negus with the thelt theft ne negus s was called up he confessed and stated that he had stolen worth of gold dust As you may see from the letters here in the records of the department the treasury officials believed his confession but chev did not think he should be arrested as he had made restitution he was allowed to go free within a few weeks he sailed for europe and that was the last that was ever heard of him there was no cable in those days and the probability is that he carried a goodly amount of gold away with him the robbery was not from the treasury but irom from the banks who sent in the gold and there was no way of telling just how much he stole it was in this way that henry S cochran became weigh clerk of the mint director preston went on he took the place of a thief and there is no telling how soon he became a thief himself he told me that he did not steal anything from the mint until after the deposit of that in gold bars but his connection with the mint lasted for more than forty years and his position was the same as that of negus during his whole term ot of employ employment men t he had the confidence of every one I 1 have a letter here signed by daniel sturgeon who was treas treasurer ufer of the united states when he was appointed it is he who advises the appointment and he describes henry S cochran as honest able and courteous cochran seemed to be crazy for gold he fell in in love with the precious metal and when we found that he had robbed the mint af pf ot he hated to give up his steal ings and he complained bitterly when the money found in his house was taken away when be was appointed weigh clerk he be was about twenty three years old when his bis robbery was discovered h he was sixty three he was then a deacon in the presbyterian church and was organizing a campaign for the salvation army in the neighborhood in in which he lived he had been married and divorced he had a grown up daughter he appeared to be eminently respectable in every way and still he be had been stealing for years how did you come to suspect him of the robbery I 1 asked it was through his bis own actions re plied the director ot of the mint ate had you know the charge of the vaults which contained the gold bullion much of this bullion had been untouched for years la in the vaults from which the robbery was made there were 16 worth of gold bars this vault had bad not been opened for six six years the gold bad been brought from the assay office in new york in 1881 and stored away in in 1887 1 I aided in putting it in the gold bars were piled up crosswise like railroad ties and they were arranged ed a as usual in a series of melts men es when we put the gold in the vaults we put each melt by itself each gold brick has its number and it is marked as to the melt to which it belongs so we can tell just exactly how many pieces of gold there are in a vault just hist where each piece is and just what it weighs this bullion was weighed twice before it was put in there were about tons of it I 1 superintended super intended the weighing I 1 helped to seal the doors of the vault when we were through and saw that everything was secured from time to time the vault was inspected but the seals were intact and no one had any idea but that the gold was all there about two years ago secretary carlisle gave orders that the bullion be coined the vault was opened and more than pounds of gold were missing we had little trouble in detecting tec ting the thief cochran had been much excited when I 1 told him ot of the intention to coin the bullion he objected and said the gold was so nicely piled up and was such a beautiful sight to show the visitors that the government had bad better bring some of the bullion from new york and coin it I 1 laughed at this and cocbrane then insinuated that the gold might not all be there when he found that we really intended to coin the gold he be came over to washington to see me thinking there might be yet a chance to stop it he called at my house here at ix ii one night and asked if it was really true that the government was going to take the gold out of that vault I 1 replied glied yes he said well you wont find jd all the gold there some of it is missing it was never rightly weighed hand and it is not there it was at this time that I 1 began to suspect him and I 1 said to myself well I 1 it any of that gold is lost I 1 think you know where it is A day or so after this we opened the vault and we found the gold was just short still the seals were intact the steel walls walla of the vault were unbroken a and n d there w was as no sign as to where the gold had gone cochran seemed very nervous and upon finding that he was suspected he confessed that he was the thief he showed how he had fished the gold out with a crooked wire he had pulled it down from the pile and drag it to the door of the vault and then by slightly pushing the door at the bottom he was able to get et it through the crack between the door and the floor he had carried it off bar by bar in his lunch basket or in his trousers pocket and had taken it to his home in the suburbs of philadelphia what did he do with the gold I 1 asked he sold it right back to the mint from which he had stolen it replied mr preston he did not dare to do this without melting re it and as the gold was so 50 fine that it would be sure to create suspicion he had at his home crucible and he melted re the gold mixing it with silver and lead this last product he be sent to us through the express company and was able to do so without suspicion we found one bar of the gold in Coch Co chrans ranIs house the day he cont confessed contested essed and we also found in gold eagles it was a curious house bouse it was honeycombed with secret closets and it was in these that the money was found cochran kept up his stealing to the last the day the weighing was completed cochran came down early he was there before any of the other employed emp loyes ot of the mint we had weighed part of the gold the vault was open and there was a truck in it loaded with bars of bullion cochran finding no one about picked up twenty of these bars and one at a time threw them into the ventilator shaft of the vault so that they fell in between the roof of the vault and the floor above when he confessed he told where this gold was and we got it back the reminder was par bially covered by that which we found at the house and we received something from cochrans chrans Co property and his bondsmen uncle sam is however still or short from that robbery and the superintendent of the mint colonel bosbyshell may have to pay this 11 1 1 what did they do with crochran 1 I 1 asked he was tried and sent to the penitentiary tent iary arv for a term of six years and seven months he is now in prison he weighed pounds when he was arrested he does not weigh now and has lost pounds since his theft was discovered do you think he was insane that is a question replied the director of the mint he seemed to be a mono manic on the subject of gold he claimed that he had saved the united states millions of dollars by gi guarding i r di ing its i treasures a and nd he was ing indignant nj an t when the gold was taken from him since that time we have not kept gold bullion in vaults of this nature and there probably never be a robbery of that kind again has uncle sam ever lost as much as this in the past there was little loss in Co chrans case replied director preston the money was nearly all recovered there have however been big losses in the past in 1885 just about the time I 1 entered the treasury department uncle sam lost at the san francisco mint when one of the settlements was made it was found that this much was short the and refiner claim that this was waste that it had been lost in refining or had escaped up the flues it is a question in mine mind whether he be did not tell the truth at any rate he was arrested but not convicted shortly after his trial he be left the united states and went to south america he was drowned there another curious case in connection with the san francisco mini min 1 I mr preston went on occurred just about the close of the war or about 1865 the cashier of the mint whose name was william macey was the brother in inlaw in law of the treasurer of the united states during one operation the coiner ot of the mint claimed to have delivered in gold double eagles to the cashier the cashier credited his books with jo oooo and swore that this was all the coiner had given him the result was that there was missing i about this same time it was discovered that macey the cashier had embezzled of the mint funds set aside for wages he acknowledged the stealing of this but not the other he happened to have many influential friends and in some way or other he escaped prosecution se he was discharged from the mint and came east on his way through omaha he deposited 1500 in one bank there he put it in under an assumed name and was given a certificate of deposit he lost nis certificate and the bank refused to return the money he never got it there was a queer robbery at san francisco in 1878 by which a colored night watchman stole in gold it was known that gold was in some way or other being taken out of the mint but it could not be traced the detectives finally discovered that henry smith the negro night watchman had ha been selling bullion they arrested him and charged him with taking it from the mint he denied the crime they then went to his house bouse and thoroughly investigated it they took up the floors and broke the furniture turn iture but could find nothing they next attacked the yard they dug the soil over with spades and found a little furnace in which gold had evidently at some time been melted this was shown to the watchman but he said he knew nothing about it they then went back and dug up a flower bed which they had not touched on account of its beauty it was filled with pansies and the ground about it was covered with rose bushes and geraniums they had dug about two feet down into this bed when they found a big earthen pot which was covered at the top with melted wax breaking this they discovered a saucer beneath it and under this there were seven cones of yellow gold 0 id 1 worth all told about T they hey took this to smith and he at once confessed he had stolen about 20 coo in less than three years he had taken the gold from the separating tanks by means of a spoon the bullion was placed in such tanks and treated with acid and water to remove the silver by the action of the acid the gold fell to the bottom in the shape of a fine black precipitate and the silver solution was washed away the tanks were covered and locked at night but there was a hole in the bottom of them in which a hose was inserted for the washing 06 0 the precipitate the watchman unscrewed the hose and then by means of a spoon ladled out a few spoonfuls a day and took them home each spoonful was worth about 20 20 and he laid the precipitate aside until he could buy a furnace and crucibles cruci bles with these he turned the black powder into yellow gold by melt ing it and he sold the product to the bullion dealers of san francisco what was done with this man I 1 asked he was arrested tried and sent to prison replied mr preston but his fat fate was rather an exception to that of the mint robbers of the past many of them have escaped punishment I 1 do not believe in this at all I 1 think they should be prosecuted and punished to the full extent of the law and I 1 think the sentence of cochran was just take the case negus he confessed to the stealing of and was allowed to go free macey the cashier of whom I 1 spoke as stealing 2 oooo was not prosecuted the and refiner who was short was nat not convicted and there have been several other case of like nature in 1865 there was a change in the mint at san francisco the coiner and and refiner delivered all the bullion to the |
