1939-10-10 — Page 15

THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 10, 1939

TO-DAY'S STRANGE STORY OF REAL PEOPLE.

RANSOM FOR LINCOLN'S CORPSE

BY VINCENT TOWNE In the Winter of 1870 the chief of police of Springfield, Ill., was told by a woman that she overheard certain criminals plot to open the tomb of Abraham Lincoln, steal his coffin, alpk it in the Sangamon River and offer its return for $200,000 ransom. Addi- tional guards were immediately placed around the mausoleum of the martyr- President and the plot was thus frus- trated for the time being.

was dark the

Election day that year and gloomy, and by 6 o'clock blackness of night had fallen over the cemetery. The sarcophagus contain- ing the body of the President lay in a catacomb at the north end of a monumental structure, at whose southern extremity, 175 feet distant, lay Memorial Hall. The detectives selected the hall as their hiding place. They had the promise of Swegles that at the proper psychological moment he was to leave the catacomb, pre-

but on his way around the base of the hall was to come to. the door of Memorial Hall and give the detectives a countersign.

Eight months later Patrick D. Tyrell, of the United States Secret Service,sumably to fetch the horse and wagon, learned of a similar plot from Lewis C. Swegles, then being used by the Government detectives as a "stool- pigeon" or roper." The ransom, accord- ing to Swegles, was to be the same as before, $200,000. Certain St. Louis men whose real names could not be determined, were said to be parties the plot.

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GHOULS EXAMINE HALL After hiding in Memorial Hall for two hours the detectives saw the flare- of a bull's-eye lantern flash through the grating of the iron door leading into the outer world. The ghouls were making an examination of the interior of the hall, but, satisfied with the superficial examination, did not attempt to enter. The next moment they hurried around the base of the monument to the catacomb and again the detectives were left in darkness.

SELECTED AS ACCOMPLICE Swegles, detailed to keep in touch with the conspirators, later reported that he had been chosen to help carry out the ghoulish work. In fact, he stated that the details had been in- trusted to him - that he had been instructed to obtain a wagon, in which the leaden casket was to be smuggled After what seemed an interminable out of Springfield by relays of horses walt, the countersign was whispered to the sand dunes of northern In-through the bars. The detectives diana. Here the martyr-President's opened the grated door and went remains were to be buried that the cautiously around the hill, drawing shifting sands might at once obliterate the wagon tracks and other surface indications of the crime,

PLANNED WISELY

Swegles reported that the ghouls planned to take careful measurements of the distance between the place of burial and the nearest tree, in order! that there should be no difficulty in disinterment after the ransom should be paid. A convicted counterfeiter, of a dozen aliases, but generally known as Ben Boyd, and who was then serv- ing a term in the United States Peni- tentiary, was said to have been select- ed to carry on negotiations for the ransom. Boyd's freedom, it was alleged, would be one of the condi- tions under which the body would be returned.

That Boyd might prove to the au- thorities that he had accurate know- ledge of the whereabouts of the corpse, it was decided that a page of some foreign newspaper was to be raggedly torn in half, one fragment being left in the Lincoln tomb, where it might be found when the body was missed, and the other being held by Boyd. He was to let it be known that he could solve the mystery if given a pardon and to produce his claims he was to produce the missing half of the newspaper page, thus demonstrat- ing to the authorities without doubt his connection with the affair.

DATE OF CRIME CHOSEN Continuous reports from Swęgles indicated that he was in close con- fidence with the conspirators. Early in November he warned the Secret Service men that the night of Tues- day, November 7, 1876, had been chosen for the crime this, date being that of the Hayes-Tilden election. That particular time was selected because it was believed that the ex- citement incident to the receiving of election returns would shield the ghouls from any possible attention. The Secret Service men planned to hide in the tomb and allow the ghouls to actually steal the body before pouncing upon them, but the dead President's son, Robert T. Lincoln,

who had been taken into the con- fidence of the detectives, protested against their allowing the plot to pro- ceed to the point where profane hands might actually be laid upon hls father's coffin. So it was agreed that the criminals should be caught in the tomb while endeavouring to open the

grave..

LEAVE CHICAGO

The detectives' accomp, Swegles, reported that he and the con- spirators would leave Chicago on the evening before election day' and Tyrrell, the Secret Service operative, who had unearthed the caso saw his "stoolpigeon" with two determined- looking men jump aboard the Alton train-leaving Chicago, at 9 P. M. With the two detectives Tyrrell boarded same express and the six men at op-. posite ends of the train arrived Springfleld that night.

at

their revolvers as they advanced. Swegles had reported that the two Going to the door of the catacomb men who had accompanied him to they found that the staple containing the tomb were counterfeiters, known the lock had been filed off and that as Hughes and Mullen. After ter the iron door stood ajar.

days Tyrrell ran these men down and Tyrrell leading the detectives, call- | had them sent to the penitentiary for ed on whomsoever was within to a year on the charge of robbery and surrender, but there was no answer. larceny. Their counsel charged that Finally Tyrrell led the way into the the Secret Service men had "framed- tomb. Groping about he found no

up a job" on them in order to break one. Lighting a match, he saw the up a counterfeiting conspiracy in sarcophagus battered to pieces and which they were implicated. the leaden casket all ready for re- The whole affair was fraught with moval. Tools were scattered over the mysteries which no one to

this day floor, but the ghouls had fled.

has been able to solve.

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