how evidence to convict an anonymous letter writer
was obtained.—tragic death of two brothers
after their arrest and after breaking jail.
early in the 1870s, sam ackert called at my office one cold winter morning in the month of february. i was then chief of police of oil city, pa. mr. ackert was known to me as the owner of a large oil lease, on what was known as the towles farm, on the plummer road, about eight miles north, and a little east of oil city, and in venango county. mr. ackert was considered at that time, one of the largest oil operators in that district. he was operating twelve or fifteen oil wells, all of which were producing large quantities[pg 286] of oil. some were being pumped, while others were flowing wells. my recollection is that one of these flowing wells was producing four hundred barrels per day. crude oil was selling at that time for about eight dollars per barrel at the well. ackert employed quite a large number of men to attend to the wells and look after his interests in general. some of these men were employed as engineers, which were commonly known in the oil country as pumpers. two of these engineers, or pumpers, were required to operate each well, each man usually working from 12:00 noon until 12:00 midnight. these watches were morning and noon watches, and men so employed usually lived adjacent to the well upon which they were employed.
mr. ackert had a superintendent who had charge of the employes and who lived on the lease. his name was joseph sullivan. he also had two engineers whose names were george and henry book. george book was a young man, married and lived in a cottage on the lease. his brother henry was single and lived with george. george was the eldest. they were both employed on the same well as pumpers. george was on the noon watch each day and was considered a very good engineer. he was sober, competent and attentive to his business; while his brother henry had also been considered competent and energetic, but not as reliable as george. he had been found asleep while on duty by supt. sullivan, on various occasions, for which he was reprimanded and finally discharged from the service.
some months after henry's dismissal, mr. ackert received an anonymous letter through the mail. this letter threatened dire destruction to his property by fire, or other methods unless he (ackert) would discharge sullivan, his superintendent. this letter was followed by three other threatening letters, also anonymous, which were received at intervals of four[pg 287] or five days by ackert. sullivan being a very competent and reliable man of good character, mr. ackert at first did not pay any attention to the threatening letters, but laid them away in his desk.
a short time after the receipt of the last anonymous letter, one of his oil tanks, which at the time contained about four or five hundred barrels of crude oil, was emptied one night, between dark and daylight, by some person who had gone to the tank and opened what was known as the lower faucet. this faucet, two inches in diameter, entered the tank about one-half foot above the bottom of the tank, and was placed there so that by opening it the salt water could be drawn out of the tank. all oil wells in that particular locality, which had to be pumped, produced a percentage of salt water, this water coming up with the oil. salt water being heavier than the oil, immediately settled to the bottom of the tank, and for that reason, as the tank would become nearly filled to its top, it was the duty of the pumpers to open this salt water faucet and let the salt water escape from the bottom of the tank, in order to make room for more oil above.
on the night that this tank was emptied in the manner above described, there was about three feet of snow on the ground. the weather was cold, and the snow had drifted around the tank so that it was about four feet deep above the faucet in question. i will state here that the constant drawing off of the salt water had thoroughly saturated the ground for a space of two or three feet square under the faucet, and for this reason, the ground was soft and a little muddy. the saturated earth would not freeze in cold weather on account of the large quantities of salt which had become impregnated with the dirt. at the time this tank was emptied by means of the opening of the faucet, the oil, which was very inflammable, ran down into a ravine, which was thickly dotted with oil wells[pg 288] and tanks for a mile or more. but, fortunately, the flowing oil did not happen to reach any of the fires that were under the boilers of the pumping stations. if it had, it would have instantly burned everything within reach along the side of the ravine, thereby destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of property and in all probability many lives.
mr. ackert called upon me the morning after the occurrence above related and told me of what had occurred, stating at the same time, that he had no idea who was dastardly enough to perpetrate this malicious act. he knew of no enemy on earth and was more than anxious that i investigate the matter and locate the party, or parties guilty of the crime. he also told me of having received and retained the anonymous letters before mentioned. i instructed him to bring the letters to me at once, which he did. i noticed that the letters were written on the same brand of paper and in a legible and penmanlike manner and evidently by the same hand and pen. by the end of the third day of my investigation i had learned of the dismissal of henry book, and the difficulties he had had with supt. sullivan. i had also learned that his brother, george book, was a good scholar, had been a country school teacher some years before in his native county, which was crawford county, pa. i had also found out that he was considered an extra good penman, and during my investigation was informed that there had been other loots of oil well tools and other valuable property on the ackert and adjacent leases.
i decided to locate the writer of the anonymous letters. being familiar with the manner of operating oil wells, i donned the suit of an oil driller, which usually consists of overalls. these overalls become spattered over with sand pumpings, giving the wearer the general appearance of a bill-poster. the weather was very cold, the thermometer standing below zero the night that i left oil city to visit the ackert lease[pg 289] and the pumping houses where i knew george book would be on duty until midnight.
that evening, preparatory to my departure, i visited a meat market kept by a mr. steele, on center street, where i purchased five cents' worth of liver, telling mr. steele that i wanted it for a pet cat that stayed around my office. i dressed myself in heavy, warm clothing, which i wore under the overalls before described. taking a small slice of the liver, i placed it in the hollow of my right hand. i then placed another piece of the liver on top of the same hand and tightly bandaged the hand with a piece of white muslin. the liver placed on my hand as described, soiled the tightly drawn bandage, which gave the hand the appearance of being very swollen and inflamed. i then improvised a sling around my neck by tying two handkerchiefs together so that i could place my right hand in the sling at the proper time. i started from oil city, unidentified by reason of my costume, at about 7:00 o'clock in the evening, arriving at the ackert lease a few minutes after nine. i went direct to the engine house in which george book was employed, found him sitting alone there in a large easy chair, in front of the boiler, which was being fired with natural gas and well lighted by the same, was warm and neatly kept. book was reading a novel when i entered, and as the engine house was located but a few feet off the main road from oil city to the town of plummer, it was not an unusual thing for oil well men to stop at the engine house, while passing that way for the purpose of getting warm or getting a drink. so book was not at all surprised when i appeared at that hour of the evening. i asked his permission to stand by the boiler to get warm. he replied that it was cold, and that he would be glad of my company. he eyed me closely for a while and finally said, "where do you work?" i replied that i had been working on the foster[pg 290] farm, which was about fifteen miles southwest of oil city and on the allegheny river. he then remarked, "how did you get hurt?" as he noticed that i was carrying my right hand in a sling. i replied, "you have been kind in allowing me to get warm in your engine house, and you look to me like you would not get a fellow into trouble by giving him away, and i will tell you all about it." i began by saying, "you see, i am a driller and i was working under a superintendent. we had trouble over a girl and he had a gun. he shot me through the hand." i pulled my hand out of the sling and he exclaimed, "gracious! you have an awful hand there and you should have medical attention at once." to which i replied, "i am going to have it attended to when i reach petroleum center. you should see the other fellow. i shot him, but i don't know whether he is dead or not, as i left immediately and have walked the entire distance, only stopping long enough to get a cup of coffee at the eating-house in the depot at oil city." he said, "you must be hungry." his sympathy was now fully aroused and he was really a good-hearted fellow. i then said to him, "i have some friends at petroleum center who will keep me under cover and get me a doctor, but what is worrying me most now is that i cannot write with my left hand, and my folks live at ft. erie, canada, which is just across the niagara river opposite buffalo, n. y. i have been saving my money and sending it to my people at fort erie, and they have it deposited in a bank at buffalo to my credit. i have a few hundred dollars there and if i could only write a letter to-night, and mail it on the early train to-morrow morning it would reach fort erie to-morrow night. my friends could then send me all the money that i need, which i would receive the day after to-morrow at petroleum." to this he replied, "i am a pretty good penman, and would be glad to write the letter for you." on saying this, he excused himself and went[pg 291] to his house, which was close by, and returned in a few minutes with letter paper, envelopes, and a nice big lunch for two and a pot of hot coffee. we ate the lunch, and i had some cigars in my pocket. then he started to write the letter at my dictation. in dictating the letter i used as many of the words as i could intelligently get in which had been used in the anonymous letters, the contents of which i had familiarized myself with. this letter of mine was not necessarily very long, as i discovered that he was using the same quality of paper upon which the anonymous letters were written. i also noticed before he had written three lines, that it was the same handwriting, and that he was using the same ink, and no doubt, the same pen, that he had used in writing the anonymous letters. he addressed the envelope, sealed and stamped it. i thanked him and departed for petroleum center, apparently, but in reality for oil city, where i arrived about six o'clock in the morning.
during the forenoon i submitted my dictated letter, together with the anonymous letters, to an expert who was connected with the first national bank of oil city. he unhesitatingly stated that the letters were all written by the same person. i then went back in the afternoon to the lease, knowing as i did that george, whom i had met the night before, would be off duty and probably in bed. i carefully shoveled the snow from around the faucet of the tank, and when i got down to the ground, i found two very distinct tracks of a no. 8 boot. the boots had been recently half-soled, the shoemaker who had made the repairs having placed three nails in a row across the center of the half-soles. this was his trade-mark. i soon located the shoemaker who had done this work. he remembered having repaired the boots for henry book a couple of days before the emptying of the tank.
i then returned to oil city, procured a warrant for the[pg 292] arrest of the book brothers, and that night about eleven o'clock i arrived at the ackert lease, where i found george on duty, as he had been the night before, and i found henry in bed at george's house. on this occasion i was accompanied by two of my officers. we drove out in a sleigh. after making the arrest, we searched the house which was a one-story building with an attic. in the attic we found wagon loads of loot, from the ackert lease and adjacent leases, that was afterwards identified by the owners, as having been stolen from time to time, as before mentioned.
the book brothers in due time, had a preliminary hearing and were committed to the county jail in default of bail.
in the meantime henry book had confessed to having emptied the oil tank and george admitted the writing of the anonymous letters. about a week before their trial was to take place, there was a general jail delivery at franklin, pa., effected one very stormy night. there were fifteen or more prisoners who escaped. the book brothers were among them. they boarded a north bound freight on the a. & g. w. r. r. which is now known as the "erie." when at a point about twenty miles north of franklin this freight train collided with another train. in the wreck henry book was killed instantly and george was so badly hurt that he died the following day. thus ended the ackert case.
i consumed in all not to exceed six days in connection with this case, unassisted except upon the night of the arrests, when i was accompanied by two of my officers, whose names were george w. frye and max fulton.
