Robber and hero: the story of the raid on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, by the James-Younger band of robbers, in 1876.Huntington, George
History
Robber and hero: the story of the raid on the First National Bank of Northfield, Minnesota, by the James-Younger band of robbers, in 1876.
Huntington, George
Bank robberies -- Minnesota -- Northfield
Henry began his education in the public school of Northfield; took the
preparatory course of study in Carleton College; graduated in medicine
from the University of Michigan in 1877, and from the College of
Physicians and Surgeons in New York in 1880. He was still a student, at
home on a summer vacation, when the robbers made their appearance in
Northfield. At the time when they were approaching the bank for the
attack, he was sitting as the reader will remember, in front of the
drug-store of Wheeler & Blackman, of which his father was one of the
proprietors. Regarding the movements of the strangers as suspicious, he
followed and watched them, and had already shouted an alarm when he was
driven from the street at the point of a pistol. How promptly he secured a
weapon, and with what deadly execution he used it, has been duly related.
Had the gun been better and the ammunition more abundant, he would no
doubt have given still more emphatic proof that a doctor may upon occasion
make himself more useful in giving wounds than in healing them. One, at
least, of those he gave that day was so far unprofessional as to leave no
chance for the surgeon’s services.
Dr. Wheeler settled in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 1881, and still
remains there in a large and successful practice.
JAMES GLISPIN was of Irish descent, but was born on American soil. He was
a man of slight physical proportions, about five feet, six inches in
height, but possessing great strength, quickness and endurance, as well as
unlimited courage. He had a magnetic influence over men, and was noted
both for the skill with which he was able to quell the unruly and the
prowess with which when necessary he could overcome larger men than
himself in a trial of strength. After a brief business career, he was
elected Sheriff of Watonwan County. He proved one of the most popular
officers in the state, and was serving his second term at the time of the
robber-raid. The promptness with which he started after the bandits on the
day of the capture, and the important part taken by him in the capture
itself has been related. It was to his care also that they were committed
after the capture, and upon him rested the responsibility of holding them
until they could be turned over to the authorities of the county in which
their crimes had been committed.
Mr. Glispin left Madelia in 1880, and went to California, where he engaged
in mercantile business. In 1883 he removed to Spokane, Washington, where
his fitness for official life was soon recognized. He was elected Sheriff
for a two-years term, and was re-elected for two years more. At the close
of his second term he went into the real-estate business, in which he
continued until his death in 1890.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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