The 1831 City Bank of New York Robbery

190 years ago today on saturday march 19 1831 lancaster s burling the first teller of the city bank of 52 wall street new york locked up the vault and went home when he returned on monday according to the nashville whig of nashville tennessee at the normal hour and opened up the vault in order to take out the necessary money for the business of the day he was shocked to find that between when he locked the vaults on saturday night and when he opened the bank on monday morning someone had entered the vault and taken the astounding sum of 242 000 newspapers at the time claimed that it was the first bank robbery in the united states and all that that was certainly not the case it was perhaps the first large bank robbery in the city of new york the 1831 city bank of new york robbery is history that deserves to be remembered the first petition to create the city bank of new york was filed in 1811 in the midst of a national debate over the renewal of the charter for the bank of the united states the purpose of the request was to make banking in new york easier so as bettors compete in foreign trade with philadelphia boston and baltimore requests have been made by new york merchants aligned with president james madison and face some difficulty as a rival faction in the new york legislature supported by then u.s vice president george clinton also wanted to charter a bank eventually a compromise was reached in which the original charter was approved and the board was split between madison and clinton supporters the charter was approved by the state assembly and on june 16 1812 the city bank of new york was founded and that bank of course still exists today with more than 2 600 branches in 19 countries citibank is the fourth largest bank in the united states by asset size the city bank would quickly earn a place in american history helping to finance war bonds for the war of 1812 and in exchange being named a government depository while it had to be restructured in 1824 by 1831 the citibank was prospering with the burgeoning trade of the industrial revolution according to the new york evening post when mr burling opened the vault on monday march 21 everything was found in confusion and the robbery discovered the thieves had taken two trunks that had been left by depositors and locked in the vault s name allen had a trunk stolen that contained 18 thousand dollars in bank notes a type of currency that is a negotiable promissory note made by a bank according to the buffalo bulletin of buffalo new york it appears that the robbers selected bills of the city and other banks curiously the paper noted that they seem to avoid taking specie money in the form of coins or gold bullion with a single exception the robbers took 200 gold doubloons spanish gold coins uses the dominant currency in nova scotia and of course a common form of pirate treasure because don't all good stories involve pirates they've been kept as safe deposit by a mercantile house the reports from the time give conflicting numbers but the sum was certainly very large the total sum of the banknotes and doubloons together was in excess of 240 000 around 7 million in today's dollars surprisingly the buffalo bull noted when mr burling arrived in the morning the doors of the bank were found closed and locked as usual entering the vault would have required two keys one to enter the bank and one to enter the outer vault the door to the inner vault didn't have a lock the evening post reported there were no marks of violence perceptible on any of the doors leading into the bank or on those leading to the vaults the national banner and natural wig reported that the police magistrates had been all through the building and examined the premises and we believe all are satisfied that the bank and vault were entered with false keys false keys are a method of lock picking that use a wax bold of a lock to create a key the evening post reported that we have also heard that a few days hence it was discovered by derangement of the books papers and furniture that another banking house on wall street had been entered by false keys but the villains were not able to penetrate the vault which contained the money and we understand that two or three unsuccessful attempts were made on saturday night to enter stores in maiden lane with false keys in during which the wards of the locks were twisted and bent and the locks spoiled of the robbery the post concluded so ingenious have these become of late it would really seem that locks are no security against their depredations as to the police investigating the crime the new york city police department was not established until 14 years later in 1845 what there was in place was a night watch while there had originally been a night watch formed in new york when it was still called new amsterdam in 1658 the watch that was in place in 1831 had been created in 1801 by mayor edward livingston the website of the new york city police department explains that in the imaginations of those inclined to imagine it new york of the knickerbocker era was as quaintly picturesque as a sepia toned etching there were no elevators and hence no apartment buildings no railroads and so obviously no mass transit on the cobblestone streets prior to its phenomenal growth through industrialization and immigration the city was more intimate and orderly more homogenous safer and fairer at least in comparison to the immense and messy behemoth it would later become policing at the time was sporadic as the detective in charge of analytics for the nypd detective bureau notes presumably few crimes were solved clearance rates certainly weren't formally recorded there were essentially two systems a set of constables who kept order by day which the nypd describes as more akin to jury duty than it was to modern civil service citizens were expected to take their turns at it and their annual salaries were the roundest of numbers zero but the night watch was somewhat more professional with an actual salary though the pay was described as meager still the nypd contends the difference in compensation and stark difference in staffing between constables and watchmen is probably indicative of the temporal distribution of crime city government was clearly invested in maintaining order at night but clearly the relatively more professional night watch had failed to catch the men who had committed the robbery at citibank as the post lamented as to the city watch whose duty it is to guard our property at night the numerous recent robberies show that there is little dependence to be placed on them this would not have been a surprise to new yorkers at the time as the nypd page explains though the responsibilities of the night watch were serious the institution as a whole was not it mostly comprised moonlighting tradesmen many of whom were dismissed for drinking or sleeping on duty the bank immediately offered a reward of the substantial sum of five thousand dollars for the recovery of the property in a proportionate sum for any part the reward was quickly increased to ten thousand with an additional thousand offered by the morris canal bank company who had issued twenty thousand dollars worth of the stolen banknotes and while policing at the time might have been somewhat spotty the people of new york did have one significant police asset jacob hayes high constable of new york city born in bedford new york in 1772 hayes had been a city marshal from 1798 to 1802 and high constable in charge of both the night watch and the city's constables since 1802 according to wilbur r miller of the state university of new york in his book the social history of crime and punishment in america by the time of his death in 1850 hayes crime-fighting ex-boys were known throughout the english-speaking world upon his death in 1850 the brooklyn evening star described him as the terror to evildoers the nypd page explains hayes was half legendary himself his name evoked by parents who warned misbehaving children old hayes will get you contemporary accounts are almost unfailingly laudatory describing him as a sleuth of unusual sagacity of the strictest integrity of a generous and frank nature warm-hearted kind and true hayes was said to have an uncanny memory for names and faces and in the case of this robbery which a letter in the post described as the all-absorbing topic of the day hayes already had a suspect in mind james honeyman a 2013 retrospective in the saturday evening post notes that honeyman had recently been charged with robbing a store in brooklyn but had escaped conviction due to lack of evidence he'd also been caught trying to steal money from a steamboat and there were rumors that he was still the chief suspect in an english male coach robbery the paper notes that hayes went to honeymoon's home but found neither his suspect nor any money with honeymoon nowhere to be found there were no apparent leads on march 22nd the evening post reported we do not learn that anything has yet transpired whereby the least suspicion can attach to any of the perpetrators of the robbery of the city bank all is enveloped in utter darkness at present but that darkness would soon lift according to the evening post the monday that the robbery was discovered a person calling himself jones applied for board at a respectable private boarding house in elm street corner of broome kept by mr henry banks jones requested a private room and paid cash in advance but the paper writes he had been at his house but two or three days when the suspicions of his landlord were excited the papers had reported on the theft of trunks full of money from the bank and mr bangs had apparently become suspicious of mr jones evident anxiety regarding the smallest of three trunks which he had brought with him when jones left with one of the three trunks bangs contacted police and hayes accompanied by his son benjamin who was a constable and another constable named homans opened the trunks that had been left behind finding that the smaller one had been packed with bank notes which are at once known to be the very ones stolen from citibank the three then waited for jones to return and apprehended him the man who had been calling himself edward jones was in fact james honeyman the very near dwell that hayes had suspected from the very start the arrest laid to rest an initial assumption that the robbery might have been an inside job a march 28 edition of the post explains had the robber escaped detection a certain degree of vague suspicion would inevitably have been harbored in the minds of many that the villainy was perpetrated by someone connected with the bank this timely discovery frees all connected with the institution from every shade of doubt when brought before justice hobson the evening post said he was apparently perfectly composed and expressed with great coolness his determination to decline all questioning an article in the post in may described him as short in stature with sandy hare what may be turned a long head the moral cast of his countenance is decidedly bad the general expression of his face is intellectual and marked by features of a strong character shrewdness firmness of purpose and self-possession are written upon his brow in lines not to be mistaken honeymoon who at times went by the aliases both edward smith and edward jones had a wife and two daughters ages six and eight in the city he insisted that his wife knew nothing but the magistrate didn't trust her and so had her jailed along with the two girls who suffered to remain with her at her request mrs honeyman was released but the evidence against her husband was overwhelming the trunk at the boarding house contained bank notes that burling could identify a hack driver named henry allen testified that he had been hailed the monday following the robbery by two men who had carried trunks allen was able to identify honeymoon and positively identified the two trunks that had been found in the room rented by honeymoon in which the stolen banknotes were found a cart man named jedibaya corey testified that he had been engaged by two men to carry two trunks to the bang's boarding house and he positively identified honeymoon as one of the men hayes also testified at the trial and in the end the evidence was so overwhelming that the post reports that the jury found the prisoner guilty without leaving their seats but there was a problem honeymoon's accomplice in around 63 thousand dollars was still missing the accomplice james murray was identified because one of the trunks that had been left at the boarding house contained the wearing apparel of murray's wife hayes also recognized the description of a man who bangs had visited honeymoon as murray as the two were commonly seen together murray was apprehended in philadelphia on another charge and brought back to new york at the request of hayes bangs positively identified him as having visited honeymoon at the boarding house tried in july the post reported that the jury were absent for a total of about three minutes before returning a verdict of guilty the two were englishmen who in addition to being suspected in multiple crimes in new york were reported been convicted of a robbery in england before coming to the united states the vermont mercury of woodstock vermont reported that in 1826 honeymoon was apprehended on a charge of a felony and being found guilty was sentenced to be transported to botany bay the british penal colony in australia for the term of his natural life the paper reported that honeymoon and murray had become acquainted at botany bay and had eventually made their escape back to england honeymoon and murray were both sentenced to five years hard labor at new york's sing-sing prison but around 63 thousand dollars was still missing a break then came in september when a man named parkinson tried to cash a banknote that a teller recognized as being similar to those stolen from citibank it turns out that parkinson was honeymoon's brother-in-law honeyman had left a chest of money with parkinson but parkinson claimed said nothing about the manner with which it had been obtained after being caught parkinson negotiated a deal where the prosecution against him was dropped in exchange for returning the money honeymoon had given him he returned another 37 thousand dollars but the remainder somewhere around twenty six thousand dollars was never recovered henry banks had to sue in court to get the ten thousand dollar reward that the banks had promised he did eventually prevail was awarded the money in 1833 the robbery was indicative of the growing complexity of crime in new york city as the new york police department page concludes by the 1830s it was becoming obvious that crime fighting in new york city was more than a one-man job especially since that one man despite being a legend was nearly 60 years old it's hard to say how much this one high-profile crime contributed to decision-making but it was growing crime that eventually compelled the city to create a professional police force in 1845 although jacob old man hayes was allowed to retain what had become the largely ceremonial title of high constable until his death in 1850 some newspapers at the time tried to claim that this was the first bank robbery in the united states and that was certainly not the case other newspapers at the time noted a 1798 bank robbery in philadelphia that was surprisingly similar it wasn't even the first bank robbery in new york city there was evidence that jacob hayes had returned smaller sums that had been stolen from banks before that robbery in 1831 but it was the first bank robbery in the nation large enough to really gain national attention the lake county news of clear lake california noted in 2017 that the story behind the march 19 1831 bank robbery while it really wasn't the first bank robbery in the nation certainly sounds like it ought to have been the vast sums of money stolen the audacity of the robbers and the open-ended conclusion is just the sort of story that reporters and historians just can't ignore i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section i will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guy on facebook instagram twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 104,177

Rating: 4.979598 out of 5

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, city bank, citibank, bank robbery, true crime, new york, us history, american history

Id: hqFMLDfDpfs

Length: 16min 21sec (981 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 19 2021