The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
One of the consequences of the widespread popularity of motor cars and improved roads in the 1920s was the appearance of a new type of criminal: the thief who used a getaway car.
Wellington County suffered a rash of break-ins and robberies in the 1920s by organized gangs who sped away and out of the area before authorities knew what happened.
For a while this class of criminals enjoyed considerable success. Most local police forces did not have motor cars in the early 1920s. But by the 1930s the police had closed the odds.
Local councils began supplying their police with cars, or with an allowance for one. And communications improved. Police realized what a resource the long-distance telephone could be, and many dreamed of acquiring two-way radio systems like their big-city cousins used.
One of the more daring gangs of robbers honoured Fergus with their presence in November of 1924. Using a glass cutter, they cut a circle in the glass front door of the dry goods and clothing store of James Russell. They used the hole to reach in and unlock the front door.
The thieves then strolled through the store, making a selection of merchandise, including several fur coats. Brazenly they turned on some of the lights to make their shopping spree easier. They obviously had good taste. Only top-of-the-line merchandise seem to interest them.
The thieves drove off and disappeared into the night. Fergus police turned up no leads, and the Provincial Police were unsuccessful as well. Russell estimated his loss at about $3,000.
Early on the morning of April 8, 1925, sometime after midnight, the gang returned, or so everyone assumed. Their methods were identical to those used at the burglary five months earlier. They entered Russell’s store in the same way, and took similar merchandise. This time they even took Russell’s own overcoat. The proprietor put his loss, after a quick evaluation, at between $1,500 and $2,000, a considerable sum in the era of 40-cents-per-hour wages.
Having made their selection from Russell’s merchandise, they moved down the street to Steele’s store, which was then the largest in Fergus, with both grocery and dry goods sections. Here they had no luck with the glass cutter. Instead, they broke a pane in the lower half of the door to the grocery department.
That action almost resulted in their identification and possible capture. J.G. Tweddle lived nearby, and he was having trouble drifting off to sleep. Tweddle heard the noise and got up to investigate. He noticed a big sedan in front of Steele’s store with the engine running. But Tweddle thought the car was the big Dodge belonging to the proprietor.
From his angle it looked as though the car had hit a lamp post, breaking a headlight. Tweddle went back to bed. He reported that he heard the engine running for about 15 minutes before the car drove off. That was at about 3am, he remembered.
The thieves had little interest in the grocery department. They went next door to the clothing section, and picked up a carton of boys clothing that had not yet been unpacked. As well, they picked out several pairs of good shoes, and a roll of expensive cloth. Satisfied with their merchandise, they unlocked the door to the dry good section and loaded the merchandise into their sedan.
Clerks in Steele’s store estimated the value of the haul at close to $2,000. As with James Russell, this was the second burglary of Steele’s store, which had been hit in 1923. Both burglaries had gone unsolved.
At about 3:30am, a young resident of Fergus, Borden Boynton, drove down the main street with a friend. They were returning home from a dance in Belwood. Though sleepy, the men noticed a light burning in Russell’s store, and thought it strange. They found the Fergus night policeman, Constable Davidson, farther down the street.
A quick glance told Davidson that there had been a break-in at Russell’s store. A quick inspection of the downtown revealed the broken glass at Steele’s store. Davidson at once telephoned the proprietors of the stores. They rushed out their doors as they pulled on their trousers, and were on the scene in a few minutes.
Both Steele and Russell confirmed that there had been burglaries, and that their losses were considerable. With that information, Davidson telephoned municipal police forces in the area to watch for suspicious characters with a car full of clothing. He also informed the Provincial Police office in Guelph. By 1925 the OPP offices were taking the lead in conducting investigations into cases such as this one. Earlier in the decade they had been obsessed with cracking down on the illegal liquor trade, to the neglect of other matters.
At 5am two OPP constables roared in from Guelph to investigate. They carefully examined the stores, but found no solid evidence that would identify the thieves or indicate the path of their flight.
By then the excitement had moved to Orangeville. Constable Davidson of Fergus had telephoned the Orangeville chief, William Marshall, at about 4:40am. Groggy with sleep, Marshall assumed that there was solid evidence that the bandits were headed his way.
Quickly he assembled a welcoming committee that included his night constable, along with H.R. Dodson of the OPP, licence inspector Tom Robinson, and a handful of volunteers. Armed with rifles, pistols and shotguns, they took up positions at the west end of Orangeville.
By then it was past 5am. With no sign of the thieves, Chief Marshall decided to drive toward Fergus to look for them, accompanied by his sidekicks, and with rifle barrels sticking out the car windows. The trip took them all the way to downtown Fergus without sighting the criminals. On reflection, the chief must have felt foolish. If the thieves had indeed gone to Orangeville, which was not at all certain, they would have passed through a couple of hours earlier. And Marshall had neither a description of them nor a positive identification of their car.
Inept police work like that of Chief Marshall certainly aided the escape of the Fergus burglars. But the police were learning, particularly the provincial force, which soon developed the skills and communication networks to aid in dropping a net on fleeing motor cars.
It appears that the bandits were never apprehended – or if they were, it was for some other crime.
As for James Russell and the Steele Brothers, both decided to take out special insurance policies specifically to cover break-ins. Neither mentioned installing a burglar alarm – or if they did, they preferred not to publish the details of their protection systems.
A peculiarity of the Fergus burglaries in the 1920s is the role of the night constable. In those days he was assigned to foot patrol, concentrating in the downtown area, and checking doors and windows for signs of entry or hints of fire. It is remarkable that, given such an assignment, a gang of burglars could spend at least a half hour robbing two stores without being noticed.
In any case, the burglaries of April 8, 1925 were the last major ones in Fergus in that decade.
It is a peculiarity of history that crimes such as these were more common, in Wellington and elsewhere, in the prosperous 1920s than they were during the Depression years a decade later. Crime and hard times do not necessarily go together.
*This column was originally published in the Advertiser on Nov. 23, 2007.
