a crooked yardmaster's crime—bold attempt to throw
his captor overboard from a steamer.—his
conviction, sentence and a later escapade.
lawrence poyneer was a young man about twenty-eight years of age in 1881. he was a railroad man and was employed as yardmaster by the texas & pacific railroad company at new orleans, la., where he had performed the duties of his position in a satisfactory manner for about two years. he finally went crooked and formed a conspiracy with the proprietor of a cotton pickery in new orleans to defraud his employers. there are a large number of cotton pickeries in that city. their business is to buy up damaged cotton, such as has been through a fire and has been water-soaked, or otherwise damaged. they pick this cotton over very carefully, eliminating the parts that have been damaged by fire, or some like cause, and sell the salvage for a good price. in other words, these cotton pickeries conduct a business similar to that of junk dealers in other cities.
poyneer ran a car load of cotton into one of these pickeries and sold it much below its market value. it was promptly unloaded by the pickery men, who destroyed the marks on the bales. the empty car was located after some time and trouble, by me, but it took a long time to locate the cotton.
after i had ascertained what had become of the cotton and who had bought it, i set about to find poyneer, who had stolen it. i learned that he had left the service of the company of his own accord, about three weeks after the cotton in question was missed. i tracked him from new orleans to palmyra, new york, where his parents resided. in palmyra i succeeded in obtaining a good photograph and a good description of him. he was almost a giant in stature, being nearly six feet, six inches in height, splendidly built, weighed two hundred twenty-five pounds, and wore a number eight shoe. he was a fine looking fellow and an expert railroad train service man.
from palmyra i traced him to buffalo, new york, from there to st. paul, minn., from st. paul i traced him to portland, oregon, and from portland to wallah-wallah, washington. from wallah-wallah back to ladales, washington, which is about midway between portland and wallah-wallah, and on the columbia river. here i found him in the service of the northern pacific railroad co., engaged in painting box cars. i obtained the necessary requisition papers from the governors of louisiana and oregon, and arrested him at ladales, took him to portland (the head of navigation on the willamette river), where i took passage for myself and prisoner on the steamship columbia for san francisco.
there was no one on the steamer, not even the officers, who knew that poyneer was a prisoner. he had promised me that he would go with me quietly and i did not place him in irons. i could not have hand-cuffed him with any ordinary hand-cuffs for the reason of the enormous size of his wrists.
lawrence poyneer
lawrence poyneer.
the giant switchman who attempted to hurl furlong from
the deck of an ocean steamer.
after we had left astoria and were out several miles on the pacific, we were taking a walk for exercise on the [pg 192]upper deck, and when we were nearing the stern end of the vessel, and there were no other passengers, or even any sailors, poyneer suddenly seized me by the neck and body and attempted to throw me over the rail into the sea. i grabbed him tightly around his neck and under one of his arms so tightly that he could not shake me off. i lustily called for help and one of the cabin boys heard me, gave the alarm, and the captain and officer on the lookout in front of the vessel came rushing to my assistance. when[pg 193] he heard them coming, he let go and tried, in vain, to make it appear that he had been joking. i explained the situation to the captain, who promptly placed poyneer in irons and placed him below in what is called the brig in a ship, where he remained until we arrived in san francisco. there i had him taken to the city jail, where i kept him for two or three days until i had gotten thoroughly rested. i borrowed a set of irons from chief of police crowley, placed these irons on poyneer, and took him on board a southern pacific railroad train, and in due time lodged him safely in the old parish prison in new orleans.
he was tried, convicted and sentenced to four years in prison in baton rouge, where he served his term out. after this i lost track of him until about ten years ago, just before the olive street cable was changed to an electric street car line, in st. louis. i boarded a grip car on olive street one morning, and to my surprise, i recognized lawrence poyneer, acting as gripman on the car i had boarded. poyneer recognized me on sight, but he did not speak and seemed to be very much confused. i left the car near the turning point. later i was informed that "jones" had left his grip car at the foot of olive street that morning. "jones" was the name that poyneer had given when he had secured the position from the company as gripman about three weeks prior to my having recognized him. he left st. louis and has not been heard from since, to my knowledge.
