Richmond History-Law and Order of the Olden Days II

Part Two–A Few Sensational Local Crimes

This is a condensed version of a talk I gave at the Honeoye Public Library some months ago. Bonnie Callaghan, membership chairwoman of Honeoye-Richmond Historical Society, suggested the topic to me. Some of the events recorded here did not happen in Richmond, but all were committed locally, from Canandaigua to Bristol to Hemlock.

An Infamous Affair

The kidnapping of William Morgan from the Ontario County Jail on September 12, 1826 would have consequences that resonated across the nation. When the fifty-two-year-old Batavia native broadcast his intent to reveal sacred Masonic secrets, a select group of Masons decided to stop him.

The day before Morgan disappeared he was met at his home by a group of eight or nine men and taken by force to the county judge in Canandaigua. Accused of a bogus debt, he was detained in jail overnight, in the charge of Sheriff Joseph Garlinghouse of Richmond.  The following afternoon Morgan was bailed out by another group of men purporting to be friends, and bundled into a closed carriage.  Witnesses reported his yelps of, “Murder!  Murder!”  And to be sure, William Morgan was never seen again. 

Following a public outcry, an investigation was initiated.  Arrests were made; charges were levied; trials were held.  Fifty-four Masons were eventually indicted for “ conspiring to kidnap William Morgan from the jail at Canandaigua.” No one was charged with murder, for no body was ever found.  Eleven men were found guilty, a few sentenced to jail, most were simply fined.  The incident was widely reported and fueled the Anti-Masonic rage that swept the nation, spawning a new political party and endorsing a Presidential candidate.

Stagecoach Robbery

The Canandaigua-to-Geneseo mail stage was robbed in the spring of 1868, robbed by the stage driver.  Within days, thirty-two-year-old Sam Tongate of Allen’s Hill was caught and soon afterward, convicted. Theft of the U. S. mail was a federal crime.  Sentenced to death, Sam was held at the Monroe County Penitentiary for some months before being hanged on December 20, 1873.

Attempted Burglary

In the 1870s many families kept large amounts of money hidden in their homes. Having weathered financial chaos during the years of the Civil War, Hiram Abbey of Richmond did not have faith in banks. A rather wealthy man, Mr. Abbey owned hundreds of acres in Richmond as well as substantial property in Texas. But he seriously distrusted bankers.  It seemed to be well known that he kept his movable treasures in a strong box in his bedroom, a little room just off the kitchen where he slept alone.  

His son Benton gave an account of the break-in which took place in the summer of 1874: “One evening about ten o’clock at night I heard a commotion and Father called out, ‘Boys!’  The hired man, Boyd, and I ran downstairs to find Father outside the kitchen door, totally naked, with two men standing over him. The assailants ran off and we chased them.  One of the robbers struck at Boyd with a broken stock of a gun and was able to get away, but the other man, cornered near the barn, turned and threatened to shoot me if he were not let go. I did not know these men. When we returned to the house Father was in the kitchen, dressed; he had a bruise on his forehead which was bleeding a little. He could not remember what he had been doing before being assaulted by the two men. He thought he had been in bed when he heard a noise in the kitchen. He got up to see what was going on when a man ran against the table and another burst the bedroom door open.  He was knocked down and dragged outside.”

Benton recounts that the robbers got clean away and that the family never had any idea who they were.

Murder in South Bristol

Benson Hawkins, age eighty, was murdered in his bed on the night of January 4, 1884, bludgeoned to death with a stick of firewood. Sheriff Hiram Peck, who investigated the crime, declared it “the most brutal murder that ever occurred in Ontario County.”

Mr. Hawkins lived alone in his farmhouse on County Road Twelve. Like many of his contemporaries he kept large quantities of money and other valuables in his bedroom, an alcove off the kitchen.

On the Friday afternoon that was to be his last day on earth, Mr. Hawkins had a visitor, a young man he’d known for some years.  William Francis was in his mid-twenties, married, and the father of a young child. He lived in Steuben County, but worked locally as an itinerant farm laborer. He dropped by to see Mr. Hawkins and stayed for some hours, visiting while they took turns with the butter churn. Around five o’clock William returned to Bristol Springs where he had supper with some friends and was invited to stay the night.

On Saturday morning Mr. Hawkins’ battered body was discovered by his daughter who lived nearby. Within hours William Francis was apprehended.  Sheriff Peck reported that “the evidence against Francis is very strong.” William had been away from his friends’ home between the hours of seven and ten on Friday evening, his whereabouts unknown. At the murder scene were boot tracks in the snow matching Francis’ boots. The bloody tracks showed that he’d entered and exited the house through a kitchen window. In the kitchen were found used matches of a type not belonging to Mr. Hawkins, matches of the same type found in Francis’ shirt pocket. At the home of his friends his bloody overcoat was found and bloodstains marked his bedding.

At his trial four months later, William Francis was found guilty of Second Degree Murder and sentenced to life imprisonment at Auburn.  As his trial came to a close and his young wife heard the verdict announced, she collapsed, hysterically howling her distress, declaring that she would never be able to live without him. Two months later she remarried.

William Francis died in prison May 24, 1894, ten years to the day of his sentencing.

The Quarrel That Got Out of Hand

On the eighth of May 1890, Alfred Leach, age fifty-five, was murdered on his Canadice farm by a disgruntled tenant.

On that fateful Thursday morning Alfred sent his nineteen-year-old son Myron to tell the hired man, Frank Lamont, that his services were no longer wanted. Frank said he would not leave the farm on Myron’s say-so; he wanted to hear from the boss himself.

Myron walked back to his house and reported to his dad.  A short while later both father and son returned to the tenant house.  Alfred reiterated the message he’d entrusted to Myron – Frank’s services were no longer wanted; he and his wife were to leave the farm before the weekend was over.  Frank said he wouldn’t leave, and an argument erupted.

After several minutes Frank left the yard and stormed into the house. Thinking the matter settled, Alfred and Myron started back toward the farmhouse. Moments later Frank appeared in the yard with a shotgun. Before either of the Leach men could react, Frank fired, hitting Alfred in the back. Alfred Leach died on the spot as his son watched in horror. Lamont was arrested that afternoon in Springwater.  

At the trial three months later, Frank was found guilty of Second Degree Murder and sentenced to twenty years in Auburn Prison. He died there eighteen months later. Both Alfred Leach (1835-1890) and Frank Lamont (1866-1892) are buried in Springwater’s Evergreen Cemetery.

Did He Do It?

In April of 1892 a short notice was printed in a local newspaper, the gist of which recounted details of the murder of a young woman in West Bloomfield. The primary suspect was the husband, twenty-seven-year-old Galen Plimpton. The coroner’s jury recommended the arrest of the husband “due to the habits and disposition of the man.” He was said to be a “drunken brute…a man of brutal instincts, who made life a burden to [his wife].”  He was in the habit of beating her even before her marriage. Edith Greenman had married Galen only four months earlier, “against the advice and pleadings of her relatives and friends.”

A second piece in the (Rochester) Democrat and Chronicle of December 7, 1897, concludes the story: “Sunday afternoon the body of Galen Plimpton, of West Bloomfield, was found [in the road] near Lima. Coroner Strasenburgh was notified [and] Yesterday morning he summoned a jury to attend the inquest.  It is thought Plimpton had been dead about four hours when found. The theory is that he died of alcoholism.  A few years ago Plimpton’s wife was found dead, having been shot, and he was arrested for the murder and held on suspicion, but the grand jury failed to find an indictment against him and the evidence was not strong enough to hold him. He has been a heavy drinker for years and held a hard character.”

The question remains — Did he do it?  No one else was ever arrested or even suspected.

Robbery at Gunpoint

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas White, both in their eighties, lived in a large farmhouse at the north end of Clay Street in Hemlock. Mrs. White’s brother, Alva Reed, lived about two miles away on CR 15 in Richmond. On the morning of September 16, 1932, Mrs. White – Belle – set about her usual morning chores in the kitchen. Tom went out to feed the stock. Almost as soon as he entered the barn he was grabbed from behind and confronted with three masked men; the spokesman of the trio was carrying a revolver. 

The men forced Mr. White back in the house, rounded up Mrs. White, and shoved them both into their bedroom.  Under the mistaken belief that the Whites had $2,000 hidden in the house, the men demanded money. The old couple denied they had anything like that amount in the house. Bullied beyond endurance, Belle pulled up her skirt and extracted $150 in cash from her petticoat pocket.

One of the men, convinced there was more money hidden somewhere, proceeded to slash up the bedding. The Livonia Gazette reporter who covered the story commented, “Mrs. White had recently aired and cleaned the bed and remade it with fresh sheets and blankets.  She told the robbers, ‘You won’t get much there!’ Thinking to herself, ‘Not even dust.’”  

When the phone began ringing, the nervous men tied Mr. and Mrs. White to chairs in the bedroom. While the ringleader sat down and smoked a cigarette, the three of them discussed what to do next, threatening to burn the house with the old couple in it. At this point the newspaper recounted: “Mrs. White attempted to engage him in conversation, asking him where he expected to go after he died.” Although the robber might not have had an idea of where he might go at the time of his death, it’s probable that Belle had some idea where he would end up.

Though a frightening experience, the Whites emerged unscathed from their ordeal.  After the robbers at last decided to leave the house, Mr. and Mrs. White managed to extricate themselves from their bonds just as a worried neighbor showed up. The three thieves were never caught.

A Sad Ending

Joanne Lynn, daughter of Reggie and Irene, lived with her family on Hemlock’s Main Street, in a house near the entrance to the park. Every school day she walked nearly two miles to school with her older brother. On Monday morning September 19, 1949, she was running late and set off by herself. Along the way she was seen by one or two neighbor women, but Joanne never made it to school.

It was not until the end of the day that anyone was aware the girl was missing. Her parents contacted the authorities, and without delay Livingston County Sheriff Donald McColl organized a search. Four days later Joanne’s body was found along Route 15A, north of Hemlock. She’d been shot twice and evidence of sexual assault was present. Her panties and her red sweater were missing.

A Mount Morris newspaper reported on October 4, 1950: “A year has passed since the slaying of 11-year-old Joanne Lynn, but the shadow of the tragedy still hangs over the little community of Hemlock where she lived. On the farms and in the general store, in churches and in the tiny post office – wherever persons meet – the talk often as not is of the brutal murder of the brown-haired schoolgirl.”

The crime went unsolved for decades until nearly forty years later when a man was jailed in Pennsylvania, charged with the 1951 murder of seven-year-old Jane Althoff. In Nebraska in the winter of 1988 William Henry Redmond was stopped for a traffic violation and arrested. It was discovered that his fingerprints matched prints left in the truck where Jane’s body had been found. When police searched his home, they found a collection of little girls’ used panties. While in jail in Pennsylvania, Redmond admitted to killing Jane and “other girls.”  

Redmond was born in Ohio in 1922. At age thirteen he spent some months in the Boys Industrial School in Lancaster, Ohio. Three years later he was committed to a lengthy stretch in the Ohio State Reformatory, charged with assault and attempted rape. He was released from prison just at the end of WWII. He found work as a truck driver and ride operator for a carnival. At the time of Joanne’s disappearance, the Hemlock Fair was due to open in two days. Redmond, operator of the Ferris wheel, was in town with his crew setting up the midway.  

William Henry Redmond emerged as the principal suspect in six cold cases where a young girl had disappeared.  Joanne Lynn was in all probability his first victim. At the time of her murder Redmond was one of two dozen men questioned in regard to the crime, but the evidence was insufficient to indict him.

His second victim was seven-year-old Jane Althoff of Trainer, Pennsylvania, raped and suffocated April 25, 1951 in the cab of a pick-up truck. She had attended the local carnival earlier in the day; Redmond had been questioned at the time, but released.  

Beverly Potts was ten years old in August 1951 when she disappeared from her home in Cleveland, Ohio. Her body was never found. Nor was the body of Connie Smith, ten, who disappeared a year later from Lakeville, Connecticut.  Connie had expressed a wish to attend the local carnival where Redmond was working.  

Seven-year-old Barbara Gaca was raped and strangled on March 24, 1955, after being abducted from a playground near her home in Detroit, Michigan. And on December 3, 1957, the body of another seven-year-old, Maria Ridulph, was found raped and stabbed near Sycamore, Illinois.

Redmond, the culprit in all these cases, died of emphysema January 2, 1992 in the hospital in Grand Island, Nebraska, before he could be tried.