The working lives of Wellington County’s bankers, normally routine and uneventful, have occasionally been enlivened by armed robberies. Accounts of some of those holdups have appeared in this column from time to time.
Most of the bank robberies in Wellington County were not successful, even in the 19th century, when policing was rudimentary at best.
Such was the case in an attempt on Scott’s Bank in Palmerston on June 9, 1886. J.W. Scott owned and operated several private banks in the area, and was a partner in several others. Such private banks operated without a charter of any kind, and had no reporting requirements.
There was no deposit insurance. Depositors relied on the reputation of the banker as their only security. Private banks proliferated in southern Ontario between about 1870 and the early years of the 20th century.
During those years, chartered banks were reluctant to open branches in small towns. Scott’s Palmerston branch was open from 1879 until 1908.
Scott employed a man named Fred Walton as manager of the Palmerston office in the spring of 1886. Also in the office was a clerk and teller, a fresh-faced youth of 18 named Harold Boomer.
When Walton arrived at the Palmerston office on the morning of June 9, he found a telegram shoved under the door, instructing him to meet his employer, J.W. Scott, at Drayton.
That meant that Harold Boomer was the sole employee in the office that morning. Soon after Boomer opened the door to the public, a coarse looking woman with a veil over her face entered the office. She identified herself as Mrs. Brown of Stirton, and inquired whether manager Walton was in the office.
Boomer told her that he was away on business. The strange woman then told him that she had $2,000 in cash to deposit, but she was very nervous she might be robbed, and requested that Walton lock the front door while she completed the transaction.
Trying his best to accommodate what seemed to be a potentially good customer, Boomer complied. He told the woman he would attend to a couple of other customers in the office first.
Then he locked the front door, and led the woman into a back room, where he said he would count the cash and give her a receipt.
The woman put her satchel on the table and opened it. But instead of pulling out a handful of cash, she extracted a large knife and lunged at Boomer with it, while ordering Boomer into a washroom.
Boomer refused. The young teller was agile and jumped out of the way as the assailant continued to menace him with the knife.
The woman began to slash furiously at the teller, who lost the end of a finger as he attempted to defend himself and gain control of the situation. Before the scuffle was over, he sustained further nicks and cuts.
Eventually Boomer was able to grab his assailant, whom he wrestled to the floor, and managed to grab the knife.
As they scuffled, Boomer tore the veil off his assailant’s face. At once he recognized his foe. It was a Palmerston man named Benjamin Riggs, who came from a respectable local family.
Realizing that he had been found out, Riggs abandoned his fisticuffs, and pleaded with Boomer not to inform the authorities of the attempted robbery until he was safely out of town after 1pm.
Boomer, who was breathless and exhausted, readily consented, and Riggs quickly left the office.
Harold Boomer had no intention of keeping his promise to Riggs. He took a few minutes to clean himself up, then locked up the bank’s cash, closed the office, and reported the attempted robbery to the Palmerston constable, who immediately consulted with one of the local magistrates.
The magistrate swore in another man, John Merrifield, as a special constable to pursue the case.
Merrifield first investigated the railway station and yard, but no one there had seen Riggs that day. Armed with a search warrant, he visited the Riggs residence, and began a thorough search of the building.
There he found Riggs, hiding in an inverted barrel in the cellar. Obviously a family member had co-operated in the failed attempt to hide him, as there was a pan of milk atop the barrel.
Merrifield grabbed Riggs by the collar and marched him to the Palmerston lock up.
Justice could move quickly in Palmerston in 1886. That afternoon Riggs appeared before a magistrate, who ruled that he be held without bail while awaiting trial.
Riggs admitted he had planned to leave town by the noon train to Guelph, and then proceed south of the border to the Land of the Free, but had become afraid that he would be discovered, and had decided instead to hide out for a few days.
Riggs was a single man, 28 years of age, but had not followed any career path, instead spending much of his time as a loafer.
By early afternoon manager Walton had returned from Drayton, furious that his trip had been a wild goose chase and a cover to facilitate a robbery. Walton telegraphed the bank’s owner, J.W. Scott, who was at his office in Listowel. His message outlined the events of the day.
Scott boarded the next train to Palmerston, and arrived about an hour later. He was most impressed by Harold Boomer’s brave actions to protect the interests of his bank.
Scott told reporters that Boomer was his best employee, and in recognition of his heroic efforts to protect the bank’s assets, he would double the young man’s salary.
Things did not turn out nearly so well for Ben Riggs. He spent five nights in the cramped Palmerston lock up before facing stern-faced Judge George Drew on the morning of June 14.
The Crown Attorney decided that he would not press charges of attempted robbery, because Riggs had never demanded money from Boomer, though that was undoubtedly his intention. Instead, the charge was one of assault.
Riggs decided that it was impossible to explain his way out of his situation. He entered a plea of guilty. Judge Drew held him over, in custody, for two weeks until he passed sentence on June 28.
At that session, Judge Drew explained he had carefully reviewed the case, and that due to “extenuating circumstances,” he would make the sentence a light one. He sent Ben Riggs to the penitentiary for two years.
The judge did not explain what those “extenuating circumstances” were, but it is probable that he took into account the good reputation of the family, and the fact that Benjamin Riggs had never been in any kind of trouble before his ill-fated attempt on Scott’s Bank.
Harold Boomer, the hero of the story, does not seem to have long remained an employee of J.W. Scott, despite the big pay increase – if indeed, Scott carried through with his promise.
Boomer seems to disappear from the local historical record after this incident.
J.W. Scott continued to operate his Palmerston office until 1908, when he sold the business to the Sterling Bank of Canada, which in turn merged with the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1925.