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.
Last week’s column described a brutal assault on Frank Vickers that took place on Oct. 21, 1878, on Colborne Street in Elora.
The accused were Thomas Richardson, also known as “Yorkshire Tom,” and Joe Bentley. These men were living in Elora as itinerant labourers working at the time for Elora teamster Tom Everitt.
Two other labourers, Charles Maricet and Charles Vinness, who had been seen with Richardson the morning after the attack, were also suspected to have been involved. Following the first day of the hearing, Elora Constable John MacDonald escorted the accused and handcuffed men to the Guelph jail, because there was no lockup in Elora.
Outraged at the assault on Vickers, and under public pressure, Elora council took the unusual step of hiring, for a $25 fee, Elora lawyer John Jacob to act as a special prosecutor.
With considerable courtroom experience, Jacob was well equipped to put a case together. He had several days to consider the evidence from the first hearing, and some of the testimony troubled him. The case against Richardson was circumstantial, though convincing.
But at least one other person was involved in the attack. Bentley, the second arrested man, protested his innocence, and there was no evidence to link him to the crime other than that he was regarded as Richardson’s sidekick. Jacob was convinced that Everitt, Maricet and Vinness knew a lot more than they had revealed, and one or more may have participated in the attack.
The magistrates had called the adjourned hearing to resume on Oct. 30. Frank Vickers, on the advice of Dr. William Savage, stated that he was not sufficiently recovered to leave his house. Rather than postpone again, the magistrates decided to reconvene the hearing in the Vickers’ parlour.
Originally, the intention was to hear only from Vickers. But Jacob had a list of questions, and he recalled almost a dozen of the witnesses who had already testified. Frank Vickers could offer little in the way of useful testimony. He had been knocked out by the strike of a stone to the back of his head, and when he started to regain his senses, he had been kicked back into unconsciousness.
Jacob attempted to reconstruct all the movements of Everitt and his four associates as they wandered around the town, drifting from bar to store and occasionally home, until well past midnight.
He had two purposes: he wanted to determine the whereabouts of all five men at the time of the crime, and he hoped to catch them in some inconsistencies with their previous testimony.
One of the unexpected revelations came from Elizabeth Everitt, Tom’s wife. She admitted that they were not married (though they had five young children at that point) and that her name was Elizabeth Garland. Jacob quizzed her, Tom and their eldest son at length, and became suspicious that they were hiding something.
Vickers believed that one of his attackers wore a slouch hat and another a plain cap, but Jacob got nowhere in determining who was wearing what and when. The bartenders and other witnesses who testified could not agree.
The magistrates concluded the hearing by binding over Richardson and Bentley for trial at Guelph in mid-December. In the meantime, they would be the guests of the crown at the Guelph jail. There was no mention of bail.
Very early the following morning, Frank Vickers’ brother, Tom, swore out a complaint against Tom Everitt, accusing him of making the first blow against Frank and knocking him out of his buggy. Constable MacDonald hauled Everitt out of bed and took him into custody. Ashen and shaking, he refused breakfast, and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Several witnesses offered brief testimony, but Everitt declined the offer to question them, or to resume the hearing to cross examine those who had already testified. Constable MacDonald spent Halloween escorting Richardson, Bentley and Everitt to the Royal City hoosegow. They lingered there until their trial, scheduled for Dec. 10.
The three had barely settled into their cells when news of a second highway robbery shocked the area. Violent crimes such as these had been unheard of in recent years. Now there were two in as many weeks.
Bob Young, a 60-year-old resident of Aboyne, had been working during the fall as a labourer at Robertson’s flour mill in downtown Fergus. On Nov. 5, with his supply of wheat dwindling, Robertson decided to shut down the mill for a few weeks. He paid off his men in cash. Young was on the evening shift, and left the mill at midnight, as was usual, leaving only the night watchman on the premises.
According to Young’s story, he began walking home to Aboyne in a light snow. When he was near the gates to Wellington Place, he stated, two men approached him, demanding “his money or his life.”
One of them hit him on the side of the head with a stick, and when he was on the ground, they rifled his pockets, then rolled him into the mud at the side of the road. He claimed he regained consciousness, but was groggy, and started walking. When he came to the Fergus railway station, he realized he was walking the wrong direction. He eventually arrived home at about 5am, woke his wife and family, and told them the story.
Many people found the tale suspicious from the beginning, and over the following days it started to unravel. Young’s wife believed him at first, but she should have known better. He smelled of liquor when he stumbled into the house, dazed and bewildered.
And later that day, she discovered the roll of bills he had received from his employer, totalling $31, in a pocket of his jacket.
Soon, the real details emerged. Young had run into a neighbour, James Allan, who worked at the lime kiln at Aboyne. They decided on a nightcap at one of the Fergus hotels. They had tossed back several by closing time. Allan had a buggy, and the two set out for home in it. On the way, they began quarrelling. Young said something to enrage Allan, who pushed him out of the buggy and carried on alone.
Disoriented from the fall, Young started wandering, and soon fell into the gravel pit that then existed beside the railway tracks west of Fergus. He seems to have knocked himself out briefly.
On his way home, he concocted the highway robbery tale, based on the Elora incident. More than anything he feared the reception he would receive from his wife for coming home very late and very intoxicated. Bob Young had no appetite for a late supper of hot tongue.
Nevertheless, for a week or so, Young’s original story further alarmed the area, which had been plagued by a series of serious crimes during the previous year.
A few weeks later, the trial of Richardson, Bentley and Everitt got underway in Guelph. The file prepared by Elora lawyer John Jacob made the prosecution a simple one for crown attorney Henry Peterson. He called a total of 21 witnesses. All had appeared at the magistrates’ hearing in Elora, and they offered nothing new in the way of testimony, other than Tom Everitt, who told the court about his suspicions of Richardson as the chief culprit. Richardson could offer no satisfactory explanation to Everitt for the blood on his clothes.
There was no evidence to link either Bentley or Everitt to the assault and they were acquitted. The jury found “Yorkshire Tom” Richardson guilty of assault and attempted robbery. Many observers expected the sentence to be a jail term of three years or so.
But when the judge pronounced the sentence, it was seven years of hard labour in the provincial penitentiary at Kingston. Richardson had consistently, through the whole affair, denied any involvement. When he heard the judge’s words, he muttered, “Hard lines for me.”
It was a high price to pay for the meagre proceeds of the crime: a couple of coins and a common watch chain. In Elora he found no sympathy. There he was universally regarded as an uncouth and ill-tempered rough.
As for Bentley and Everitt, they had every reason to be more careful about the company they kept.
*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on Nov. 28, 2003.
