Show I A i WESTERN STAGE ROBBER The Lawless Career of the Daring1 and Desperate Burton The lawyers have made use of the Supreme Su-preme Court decision on the invalidity of criminal convictions by information to obtain the release of Hamilton White alias Burton from the Federal Penitentiary Peni-tentiary at Albany N Y where he was serving a life sentence for stage and mail robbery in Colorado The crime of White or Burton although al-though it occurred at a time when stage robberies and holdups were of common occurrence in Colorado was so bold and daring in character that it occasioned great excitement and comment all over the country The whole career of the robber shuws him to be a desperado of the most pronounced type The 28th of June 1881 the stage running between Lake City and Alamosa was making the trip to the latter place with fourteen passengers pas-sengers including one lady About midnight mid-night the stage had reached a point about nine miles west of Alamosa Suddenly the cry of Halt was heard For Gods sake dont shoot I exclaimed ex-claimed the driver Out of the darkness appeared the form of a man with masked face and cocked revolver In courteous tones he requested re-quested the passengers to alight and be relieved of all superfluities on their persons per-sons Across the road a heavy branch had been placed and on this hung a large piece of canvas From behind the canvas a number of dark objects strongly resembling riflebarrels were pointed at the coach Dont shoot boys the highwayman called out to the darkness behind the canvas these people are all right He then proceeded to blindfold the passengers and to reap a harvest of about 2000 including the mailsack containing contain-ing several registered letters calling every now and then to the force behind the canvas His work done he bade the passengers good night i and disap peared The news of the robbery cause great excitement particularly after it i was discovered that the man had beer entirely unaided in his attack on the < fourteen passengers an investigation showing that the supposed riflebarrel behind the canvas were only a collection of dried and blackened sticks To shov more plainly yet the daring of the man he was of slight build and consumptive His right hand was crippled and he wai lame in one leg Yet he had overpowered overpow-ered thirteen male passengers including a number of freighters by his consummate consum-mate coolness and daring in carrying out his ruse The robber was arrested in Pueblo tin day following the holdup by City Marshal Mar-shal Desmond The latter immediately telegraphed the fact of the arrest to the postoffice officials in Denver and was instructed in-structed to bring the prisoner to that city July 1st the Marshal with his charge < started for Denver Realizing that lu had a desperate man Mr Desmond die not leave his side until the train was speeding down this side of the divid < south of Castle Rock He then rose for a glass of water Burton made a rush for the door The < train was moving at the rate of twenty five miles per hour Desmond made a clutch at the escaping prisoner but was too late Burton plunged on his shoulder on to the ties his head falling but a few inches horn the rails He rose < and made over the prairie Desmond and a number of the passengers pas-sengers followed in hot pursuit but it was not until Desmond fired a shot which grazed the robbers head that the latter came to a halt It was then found thai in his flight he had taken Desmondf valise with him expecting as he afterwards after-wards explained to find a revolver in it He had in some way managed to draw one hand out of his manacles Burton was then taken to the county jail ir Denver Meantime stories of his past life began to be circulated It appeared that he was at the time of his arrest under indictment in-dictment for murder in Texas and alsc for robbing stagecoaches Five years previous he had been sent to the penitentiary for robbing a stagecoach stage-coach and about six months previous to his advent into Colorado Col-orado had been pardoned out by President Hayes Between the time ol his pardon and the stage robbery in this State he had been putting in his time committing a murder and robbing three stage coaches He had fixed methods in his exploits similar to those used in his Colorado feat He always went alone and usually employed the ruse of pretending pre-tending that he had a force of armed accomplices ac-complices in the background He was noted for his chivalry never robbing the ladies treating all the passengers with courtesy and politeness While he was robbing the Alamosa coach one of the passengers begged for money to buy a drink when he reached Alamosa With grim humor the robber handed him 250 It became apparent that White was a desperado of the most pronounced kind and he was guarded with the utmost care during his sojourn in the county jail in Denver In the course of a few months he was taken to Pueblo for trial During his trial there he was confined in the city jail and made himself again notorious by another daring and desperate attempt to escape He tried his operations on Deputy United States Marshal Sim Can trill but the latter was at the time smarting smart-ing under the fact that Billy LeRoy another an-other stage robber had escaped from him on the Kansas Pacific near Fort Wallace a few days before He was too gamev for Mr White Whites scheme in this case showed the same daring and cunning which always al-ways characterized him He in some manner got hold of some tinfoil This he shaped in his hands to the form of a revolver One evening while Cantrill was alone with him in the cell he suddenly sud-denly produced the tinfoil pistol and cried out to Cautrill to hold up his hands Cantrill did not detect the ruse and probably supposed that that moment would be his last but nevertheless he made a rush on White seized him and threw him to the floor and then for the first time discovered that the prisoners weapon was not a genuine one The trial of White occasioned much interest tlnoughoui the countrv I resulted in his being sentenced to life imprisonment Then came the question ques-tion where could he be confined with safety His desperate character was well known and it was understood that the strongest of prisons must be used for his safekeeping There was talk at first of confining him in the United States prison at Fort Laramie but it < decided that this was not strong enough Finally Fin-ally it was decided to take him to De troitUnited United States Marshal Wilcox wasthe man on whom fell the pleasant duty of accompanying White to his future home When the two started on the journey the Marshal took every precaution to insure the safekeeping of White and during most of the journey all went well About fifty miles this side of Detroit as the two were sitting side by side White suddenly rose in his seat raised his manacled hands and struck Wilcox in the face Wilcox reached to his pocket for his gun but the desperado was to quick for hIm White in some way obtained a hold on the gun and pointed it toward Wilcox but in the struggle the latter succeeded in getting his finger behind the trigger so that it could not be pulled Meantime the wildest tumult arose among Meantme widest and all ran out the passengers in the ca ad al rn While the two combatants except one woman Wie batants were in the interesting position described the woman ran behind White jumped on him and forced him down thereby enabling Wilcox to extricate himself and overpower the prisoner himsel in Detroit The latter was on his arrival Detroi put under strong guard and hurried to prison He was confined there for sometime some-time and was afterwards removed to Albany where he has remained up to the time of his releaseThe Detective I |