by Laurel | December 11th, 2011
11 Dec 1889
C. C. Moulton, a former well-known carpenter and builder of Springfield, but now living in South Dakota, was returning for a week’s stay here last evening, when he was unpleasantly impressed with the welcome given him. He had stopped in Washington, D. C. with many other citizens of the new state to impress on the minds of the newly-elected senators and congressmen what was their duty to their constituents, and having finished this duty had taken the train to Springfield. Stopping for a short time at Windsor Locks, CT, he boarded the train, arriving here at 5:40 o’clock. Leaving his grip-sack in the seat just across the aisle, Mr. Moulton, overcome with the fatigue of the journey, nodded himself to sleep. He was awakened by the call of “Springfield” and reaching for the grip-sack, found it was gone. Interviewing the conductor on the subject, Mr. Moulton leaned that a young man, partly drunk, and having a ticket for Holyoke, had occupied the seat with the missing articles. Making further inquiries Mr. Moulton learned from the “sweeper” at the depot that a man with a grip-sack like the missing one had just boarded the train for Holyoke. By lively sprinting, Mr. Moulton was able to get on the back platform of the train, and speaking to conductor Miller the thief was easily detected and the grip-sack recovered. His names is James Miller and he has lived in Holyoke where he was a blacksmith. He was handed over to the police at Holyoke, but was afterward brought to Springfield. When arrested he remarked that there was nothing inside; nevertheless there was an article labeled “worth $75,000,” it being a model of Abraham Lincoln, made from the pulp of discarded bank notes of the treasury department at Washington.
From The Springfield Republican.
