RSS
Home
Grey Cliff Train Robbery
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
The Northern Pacific Railroad Passenger Express #4 departed Helena, Montana heading east on a hot afternoon of 26 August 1893. By evening it was east of Livingston heading to Billings when the train stopped in Big Timber to take on passengers, including two cowboys. The two cowboys walked forward through the cars, climbed over the coal car and with handkerchiefs over their faces took command of the locomotive at gunpoint. http://www.ci.helena.mt.us/ http://helenacvb.visitmt.com/
East of Grey Cliff they made the train stop 8 miles east of Big Timber and 14 miles west of Reedpoint. Two more masked gunmen boarded and they all went to the baggage car. They had brought dynamite to blow the through-safe but the gang decided it would take to long (there was about $60,000 in the safe) so they settled with robbing a little over $1,000 in cash and all the watches and jewelry from the passengers. They didn't rob the train crew but they did rob the conductor, John M. Rapelje, who was somewhat belligerent to the thieves. Then before they left the train the robbers went to the dining car and got four sack lunches "to go." http://www.travelmt.com/mt-cities-Rapelje.html
The train robbers were Charlie Jones, a red-headed cowboy from Texas, Jack White, a cowboy who knew Jones because they both worked for the 79 Outfit in Custer County in 1891, Sam Shermer, a sheepherder from Fergus County, and Jack Chipman, a tall, thin Englishman who arrived in Montana in 1890 and worked as a cowboy in the Upper Shields River Valley. Chipman wore wire rimmed spectacles and was a fancy dresser and around Red Lodge where he stayed for a while he was called "The Dude Cowboy." The robbers had extra horses and they headed into the Little Belt Mountains. http://www.littlebelt.com/
Yellowstone County Sheriff John M. Ramsey led a posse of over 30 men after the gang but they gave up the chase on 3 September. But Deputy Sam Jackson from Livingston continued to pursue the gang to Blackfoot, a town on the Blackfoot Reservation, 11 miles east of Browning. Montana. With 10 members of the Blackfoot Indian Police and others totaling a posse of 18 men they surrounded the gang in a cabin 2 miles east of Midvale on 3 October. They ran off the gangs' horses and a gunfight ensued. One posse member was killed, an Indian Policeman was wounded, and the gang dug a hole and escaped out of the back of the cabin into the woods and headed for Marias Pass. http://www.blackfoot.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Indian_Police http://www.browningmontana.com/
25 more men, Indian Police and whites, plus 18 men from Kalispell continued the pursuit. Jack White approached a friend, homesteader G. P. Gensman, at Lake Five near Columbia Falls to ask for help and Gensman (interested in the $500 reward which he got) shot him twice point blank and killed him. There was heavy, deep snow and the tracking was easy. The posse caught up with the gang in the dark in high country east of Java Station where the over six foot tall Englishman proved to be too big a target. He was shot and killed and Sam Shermer was fatally wounded and died the next day, 8 October in Kalispell. http://www.lakefiveresort.com/history.html http://www.visitmt.com/categories/moreinfo.asp?IDRRecordID=301&SiteID=1
The soul surviving member of the original gang, Charlie Jones, turned himself in the next day saying to Kalispell Sheriff Joe Gangner, "Say, Joe, won't you fellows ever stop following a man?" Jones got a $100 fine and time in the Deer Lodge prison finally being released on 15 March 1906. http://www.deerlodge-montana.com/ http://www.powellcountymontana.com/ http://www.pcmaf.org/prison.htm
Gregan Wortmann
More Montana Campfire Tales by Dave Walter; Farcountry Press, Helena (2002); ISBN: 1-56037-236-2.
Related Articles:
Add a Comment
