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IndexAl Spencer & Gang
Part 3
As 1922 drew towards a close, the outlaws' exploits showed no sign of
diminishing.
On the night of October 20, only two days after the Dewey holdup, Jay C. Majors
and six others broke out of Craig County jail at Vinita while a revival meeting
was going on across the street, and escaped in cars hijacked from passing
motorists.
Two days later, October 24, (Al) Spencer and two recruits looted the First State
Bank at Talala in Rogers County, twenty-five miles southeast of Bartlesville.
Only cashier C. F. Bullard, his wife and his sister were present, and one of the
women recognized Spencer from schooldays. He knew her as well, reportedly
referring to her by name. They escaped with about $1,200, gave three pursuing
posses the slip in the Ramona area and were presumed to have made tracks for the
Osage.
One of the aides, later convicted of the robbery, was a young Missourian, now
resident at Nowata, named Ralph Clopton, whose only record so far was a term in
reformatory for a Nowata County burglary. The other was almost certainly Emmett
Daugherty, reputedly a nephew of Henry Starr. He also was eventually arrested in
connection with the robbery, but escaped charges because, by that time, cashier
Bullard was facing embezzlement charges and in no position to testify against
anyone.
A few days later, November 3, Jay C. Majors and another of the Vinita jail
breakers, Julius Dykes, shot it out with a four-man posse in the Dog Creek
Hills, West of Vinita. Dykes was wounded and captured; and, although Majors
escaped, a trail of bloodstains suggested that he also had been wounded in the
skirmish.
Six days later, November 9, 1922, three bandits held up the Valeda State Bank at
Valeda, Kan., a few miles north of the Oklahoma line and ten miles east of
Coffeyville. Spencer and Clarence Ward were both named as suspects; and, three
years later, Lee Clingan, a known pal of Dick Gregg, was tried for the robbery,
outcome unknown.
Two days later, November 11, officers at Dewey caught five robbers looting the
Model Clothing store. They came out shooting, killing officer Herbert Marlow.
(See; "Oklahoma Heroes" by Ron Owens p.140) The actual killer was Spencer
associate Jesse Paul, alias "Big Boy" Berry, who pleaded guilty to the murder at
Bartlesville on July 28, 1926, outcome unknown.
A few weeks later, December 2, four bandits held up the Towanda State Bank at
Towanda, Kan., about twenty miles northeast of Wichita, and quite near the El
Dorado home of Jay Majors' wife. The gang escaped into Oklahoma with $2,044 in
currency and about $20,000 worth of bonds. Jay C. Majors was one of the quartet,
and was in fact convicted of the robbery, and it was strongly suspected that the
other three included Spencer and Clopton.
Twelve days later, December 14, three bandits held up the Caddo National Bank in
Caddo, Bryan County, in southern Oklahoma, escaping with several thousand
dollars in currency and Liberty bonds. Two of the gang turned out to be Osage
Hills desperadoes Ed Shull and Earl Holman, and the getaway driver was believed
to have been Clarence Ward, all three described by at least one newspaper
article as members of "the Spencer gang."
Five days later, Tuesday evening, December 19, four bandits barged into the
Truby jewelry store at Independence, Kan., slugged proprietor M. L. Truby and
looted the place of between $15,000 and $20,000 worth of rings, watches and
other valuables. They escaped in a Hudson speedster driven by a fifth man. From
later confessions, it was more-or-less established that the bandits were
Spencer, Clopton, Emmett Daugherty and Nick Lamar, with Majors driving the
getaway car.
An so it went on; however, at least it can be said that the outlaws didn't
operate with total impunity.
On the night of December 26, Chief Gaston of Bartlesville got a tip that Majors
was spending Christmas at his wife's home at El Dorado, Kan. He passed the word
on to the Kansas authorities and a seven-strong posse surrounded the house.
Majors, in a defiant mood, managed somehow to get the drop on Sheriff Newt
Purcell and held him at gunpoint for a tense half-hour before being persuaded to
surrender. A search of the house revealed it to be richly furnished, presumably
from the proceeds of robberies, and three cars were found in the garage.
Although identified as one of the Independence robbers, Majors was tried for the
Towanda bank robbery. Convicted on April 18, 1923, he was sentenced to 21 years'
imprisonment. This turned out, however, to be a life term, for on May 5, 1926,
while doing some electrical work in the mineshaft at Lansing Penitentiary, he
came into contact with a live power line and was instantly and fatally
electrocuted.
Within the space of under four months, from the Centralia bank robbery of
September 1922, Spencer had become the most publicized outlaw in the Midwest, if
not the United States as a whole. Nonetheless, the biggest crime story in
Oklahoma in the early 1920's was the series of murders of oil-rich Osage Indians
instigated and planned by William K. Hale, a wealthy cattleman with extensive
holdings in the Osage Hills. Over a period of three or four years, starting in
1921, over twenty Osage men and women were murdered by explosives, gunfire and
other means by an assortment of ex-convicts and riff-raff hired by Hale. In
every case, as the authorities eventually came to realize, Hale or one of his
friends was in the position to benefit financially by way of the inherited oil "headrights",
which on the death of the owner passed to the next of kin.
Apparently, under the impression that a man who would rob banks would just as
easily murder people for profit, Hale, at different times, approached several
well-known Oklahoma outlaws with a view to hiring them as assassins. One of
these was the notorious Irvin "Blackie" Thompson, who later became a prime
witness in the Osage Murder Trials. Another was Spencer.
At the trial of Hale and his confederates in 1926, Dick Gregg, giving testimony
for the prosecution, told of a meeting that had taken place at Ike Ogg's house
in December 1922, attended by Hale, Spencer, Gregg and Max Billingsley. A bottle
was passed round and the talk was evidently friendly, but Spencer refused to be
drawn into Hale's plans; and, when a second meeting was arranged some time
later, he failed to turn up. Five months later, however, Gregg and Lee Clingan
had a meet with Hale on the Fairfax road and were offered $3,000 to murder a
wealthy Indian named W. E. Smith. Clearly less discriminating than Spencer,
Gregg considered accepting the deal and actually went to the Smith home to size
it up; but, in the end, he found that he also lacked the stomach for
cold-blooded murder. The Smith family were eventually blown up on Hale's orders
by a thug named Ace Kirby.
Towards the end of 1922, possibly working belatedly on the theory that they
should not foul their own nest, Spencer and his cronies moved their field of
operations from Oklahoma to southern Kansas, as can be seen from the robberies
at Valeda, Towanda and Independence.
On Thursday, January 11, 1923, three bandits held up the Virgil Bank at Virgil,
an oilfield village in Greenwood County, Kansas, about seventy miles north of
the Oklahoma line. They escaped with about $3,000, but six miles south of town
their car broke down and they hijacked another from two worthies named Banty
Johnson and Pike Ditty (who with such names must surely have been "good old
boys.") As they drove through Quincey, some citizens, who had been alerted to
the bank robbery, but were unaware that they now had hostages, pot-shotted at
them, three times wounding the unfortunate Pike.
Letting the wounded man go, the bandits continued southward, but had gone only a
few miles when the hijacked car broke down near Toronto. They took cover in some
woodland -- some two hundred officers and civilians now scouring the countryside
for them -- and, after dark, hijacked yet another car from posseman Billy
Peters. They continued to Coffeyville without further adventures, freed Peters
and Banty Johnson, who by this time must have been exhausted, and crossed the
line into Oklahoma.
Five days later, Tuesday, January 16, Al Spencer, Ralph Clopton, Henry Wells and
Emmett Daugherty raided the Cambridge State Bank in the village of Cambridge,
Cowley County, Kan. Cashier M. F. Hampton was busy on a balance sheet when the
bandits arrived in a Studebaker. One, probably Wells, stayed in the car,
Daugherty stationed himself at the door of the bank and the others entered,
threw guns on the cashier and a clerk and ordered them not to move. The banker,
Mr. Benjamin, returned from posting a letter and was ordered to "open up the
jug." He made such a hash of it, either deliberately or through nervousness,
that eventually Spencer told him impatiently to get out of the way and stand
against the wall.
The safe, which turned out to be already open, was looted, as was the vault.
During proceedings, an elderly customer entered the bank and refused Daugherty's
order to hand over his cash. Daugherty hit him on the head with his revolver,
which accidentally went off, sending a slug into the ceiling. Spencer ran over
yelling "Who done that?", and when he learned what had happened promptly hit the
old man again.
The loot, as given later by the Tulsa Daily World, came to $175 in silver,
$8,000 in currency and $9,350 worth of bonds.
As the gang dashed from the bank, aware that the gunshot would have aroused the
area, a local man named Van Hamilton was standing and gawking on the sidewalk.
He was quickly bundled into the car, presumably as a hostage, and the bandits
roared off. Their flight back to Oklahoma, however, became a gauntlet of
gunfire. Alert officers let fly at them as they drove through Dexter and Cedar
Vale, and again as they approached the Oklahoma line. According to Wells'
account, in which he referred to Cambridge only as "a little town up in the edge
of Kansas," they allowed nothing to stop them, crashing through gates and fences
as the need arose. At an area of pastureland known as the Big Green, just inside
Oklahoma, some fences wire became tangled in the car wheels. Clopton jumped out
to free it just as another posse arrived on the scene.
The possemen brought their car to a halt and jumped out shooting, and Clopton
went down with wounds in his arm and shoulder and a bullet through the lung. His
companions hauled him back into the car and somehow they managed to get away,
the Studebaker now badly shot up, with one wheel in ribbons. By now, according
to later accounts, only Spencer and Wells remained unhurt. Daugherty had been
wounded in both legs and the hostage, Hamilton, semi-conscious from a head wound
received in the shooting at Dexter. It was decided that Clopton and Hamilton
were too badly hurt to travel any further. Clopton was left at the Henry Mayes
farm, eight miles north of Pawhuska, the understanding being that Mayes would
fetch a doctor to see to him, while the unfortunate Hamilton was left in a barn
nearer the city.
On the outskirts of Pawhuska, the remaining three bandits finally ditched the
wrecked Studebaker, and at about 9 p.m. held up a local florist named C. C.
Martin, who was out in his yard preparing his own car for a trip next day.
Without allowing him to tell his wife what was up, they announced that they were
moonshiners escaping from the law, and ordered him to drive them to
Bartlesville. Whey they got there, they quickly stole a new Buick that was
parked on the street, gave Martin $10 for his trouble and ordered him to get
himself back to Pawhuska.
The Buick was later found abandoned in a wooded area south of Bartlesville,
close to a little-used route into the Osage Hills, which ties in with Henry
Wells' claim that they made their way, finally, to a hideout near Okesa.
When Van Hamilton was discovered, by now delirious from his wound, it was
assumed that he was one of the bandits; and, even after the full story of the
holdup was revealed, it was some time before he was finally cleared.
Martin, the florist, made his way back to Pawhuska, but by a roundabout routs,
and without stopping on the way to notify the police or anyone else of his
experience, which might suggest that the $10 he was given was an incentive to
"keep quiet" for a while. Some of the press milked the story for its
entertainment value - - the Osage County News hinted (obviously as a joke) that
he had made up the story just so that he could have a late night out.
"However," concluded the article, "Mr. Martin denies the charges and says that
he never wants another such experience. Likewise, Mrs. Martin says she does not
want him to pull any more bank robbery stuff like that for an excuse to get
away. All he has to do now is to tell her that he's going up town for a while."
Ralph Clopton, meanwhile, had been turned in to Sheriff C. A. Cook by the farmer
Henry Mayes, and in jail at Pawhuska readily confessed to his part in the
robbery. He named Spencer as the boss, but said that he didn't know the other
two robbers. According to some reports, he confessed to two Oklahoma and three
Kansas bank robberies; however, according to Arthur Lamb, he only confessed to
that at Cambridge and the earlier one at Talala, Okla., tried at Claremore on
March 3, 1923, convicted of the Talala robbery and imprisoned for fifteen years.
This time over a month passed before the next strike, at Chautauqua, Kan., just
over the state line from the Osage. About 3 p.m. on Monday, February 19, two
bandits strode into the Chautauqua State Bank, and while the younger one --
judged to be in his early twenties -- set about collecting the loot, the older
one held cashier R. A. Burns and his wife at pistol point, drawing from Burns a
later comment to a reporter of the Bartlesville Morning Examiner (2/2/1923):
"That fellow knew his business for he was as cool a man as I ever seen. He joked
me about a gun I had under the money till, about what a poor town this is, and
many other things. Twice he cautioned the younger fellow to go slow and not get
scared."
The pair escaped with about $1,000, driving south in a Hudson speedster stolen
the previous week from an Osage Indian in Pawhuska. Burns and several citizens
piled into a car and set off in pursuit, following them into Oklahoma. Cresting
a summit on the road, they suddenly came upon the bandits' car halted ahead of
them, the younger bandit working on a flat tire while the older one stood with
his rifle at the ready. Losing their nerve at the confrontation, they drove on
past and didn't stop until they had put a couple of corners between themselves
and the bandits.
While the others went off to fetch reinforcements, Burns left the car and made
his way back on his own through the trees, in time to see the bandits abandon
their car and take to the woods. As word of the holdup spread, other posses
joined the hunt, and an Osage Indian named Matt Bowhan took off to help the
searchers in his oil-rich son's airplane, purchased the previous week. He found
where they had left their car, and actually spotted them in the woods, trying to
burrow out of sight among fallen leaves; but, by the time he had directed other
searchers to the scene, they had vanished.
At first, cashier Burns identified the bandits as Al Spencer and Dick Gregg, but
this came into doubt when it was recognized that the descriptions given of the
bandits fitted neither man. Eight days after the holdup the Bartlesville Daily
Enterprise reported that "investigation has shown that Spencer was not present
when the robbery took place," and on April 25 the same newspaper said that "at
the time it was thought that the robbery was committed by Spencer and Dick
Gregg; but, with the evidence uncovered by the police, Wells and Vince are known
to be the guilty persons." The "Wells" referred to was, of course, Henry Wells,
and the "Vince" was Scott Vince, son of a grocery-store owner on the
Pawhuska-Bartlesville road, who protested vehemently that his boy had never been
in trouble before in his life.
All that being said, Wells in his memoirs actually admitted that he was one of
the Chautauqua robbers, revealing that they had escaped from the searching
possemen in the woods by stealing a car from a local rancher and driving to
Bartlesville, whence the obliging Stanley Snyder drove them back to the Osage
the same night. He also mentioned that, while they were escaping from the
robbery, the gear lever of the getaway car had got stuck in second -- a fact
which had been commented on by press reports of the robbery after the abandoned
car was examined.
Both men were arrested on April 24: Wells at his brother Sol's home near Okesa,
Vince at his father's store. Neither Burns nor his wife was able to identify
them, however, despite Wells' later assertion that he was guilty, and after
three days in the jug, they were set free.
By early 1923, Al Spencer's name cropped up in one newspaper or another
virtually every day. Sometimes these reports were speculative or anecdotal, and
frequently tinged with humor, such as the snippet about 11-year old Arthur Bales
of Bartlesville who ran off to Okesa armed with a box of chocolates with which
he intended to lure Spencer out of the Osage. The press took delight in
reporting his father's reaction when he telephoned asking his pa to come and
collect him: since the whippersnapper had got to Okesa under his own steam, let
him make his own darn way home!
Maybe young Arthur's plan would have worked at that, for only a couple of days
earlier, another report had Dick Gregg sitting in a car parked near the City
Hall in Bartlesville, engine running, while Spencer bought a pile of chocolate
bars in an adjacent store.
On April 4, 1923, the Bartlesville Morning Examiner printed the following
letter, presumably largely tongue-in-cheek:
"If the editor will be kind enough to print this, I wish to correct a very
mistaken opinion you seem to have of these two prominent men, Al Spencer and
Dick Gregg. Everyone supposed to have seen them describes them as roughly
dressed and rough speaking. On the contrary, Al speaks very soft and slow, and
Dick, while speaking swiftly, speaks each word distinctly. As to their manner of
dress, I will tell you how they were dressed as I walked down the street between
them a week ago. Gregg wore a brown tailor-made suit of the latest style, soft
brown hat, brown shoes, hose and gloves; a tank silf shirt and black tie. He
wore tortoise-shell glasses and carried a slender cane. Spencer was dressed
likewise except his attire was grey and he wore nose-glasses.
Neither had guns strapped on. They seldom do now. But, in their coat pocket,
each carried a tiny pearl-handled gun. I know, for when we got in their black
low-swung high-powered roadster, I sat between them and Gregg took his gun, it
being in the way, and dropped in in my lap saying I would have to keep "bogies"
away while he drove. The roadster is their favorite car.
But, how can they be so well-dressed in a camp? Well, their camp would be taken
for a millionaire sportsman's camp. They carry a dynamo on one car and have the
camp lit with electric lights. They even carry a portable bathtub and each has a
personal servant. Gregg said they did not even have to oil their own guns, but
preferred to, though his man, a fello0w whose life he saved, took better care of
them than he did.
They always stop at the best hotels when traveling and have a good many
different disguises. Spencer in one disguise is known as a good friend of a
certain officer. You can see how mistaken the fellow was who thought he
overheard Gregg say he wanted pip corn (sic). They never call each other by name
but have nicknames; and Gregg don't like popcorn.
Gregg, when among friends, is a dreamy-eyed boy. He was just a fun-loving kid at
home, but every theft and bad deed in the neighborhood was wrongly laid to him.
He resented it, but when his boyhood sweetheart believed the tales, he swore he
would show her he could be a real "bad man", not a sneak thief. And he always
keeps his word. And once in, you know there is no way out of the spider's web.
As for Spencer, there are many stories as to why he became an outlaw, but no
one, not even his best friend, Gregg, knows the real reason."
It was not all fun and games, however. On the night of March 7, two men in a
Ford car sped past Chief of Police Gaston's home in Bartlesville, firing several
shots at the house. One bullet passed through the spot were Gaston's 14-year old
daughter had been sitting shortly before. Although it was speculated that
Spencer might have been involved, it went no further than that until much later
when the widow of Stanley Snyder stated that her husband had twice helped
Spencer in unsuccessful attempts to murder Gaston.
On March 27, 1923, the Bartlesville Daily Enterprise reported in wonderfully
dramatic style:
"Al Spencer, hunted chief of a desperate band of bank robbers, was reported
wounded but still at the head of five survivors of his band now engaged in a
pitched battle with a big posse in the wooded hills three and one-half miles
south of Terlton, Okla....The bandits are already surrounded by a cordon of
steel dealing death-fire at every point. Crawling slowly up the wooded hillside,
grim-faced possemen are inch by inch closing in on the desperado and his four
pals, raking the top with steel jacketed bullets as they draw to death grips
with the dangerous outlaws."
All very colorful, but not particularly accurate.
On Monday afternoon, March 26, 1923, in a Buick touring car stolen shortly
before in Cherokee, four men drove into Mannford, twenty miles west of Tulsa,
Okla...and pulled up outside the State Bank, occupied only by sisters Cornelia
and Juanita Coonrod. One bandit took a stance by the door; two others entered
the bank. As Juanita Coonrod later told the Bartlesville Daily Enterprise:
"I walked to the cashier's window and asked the men what they wanted while my
sister continued working on the books. 'Where is the cashier?' one of the men
asked me. I told him I was the cashier. 'Well, aren't there any men here?' was
his next question. I explained that father was the head of the bank but had gone
to the country for the morning. At that both men pulled revolvers and said
'Stick up your hands, girls.' Then, one of them kept a gun on me while the other
ran around and confronted sister, who had screamed as the guns were drawn.
Sister's screams attracted Harry Zeickafoose, who works in the store next door.
As he rushed in to see what was the matter, the robbers backed him up against
the wall. Then, one of them lined us up all three together with our hands in the
air while the other went through the tills, taking about six hundred dollars."
Cornelia's scream had evidently alerted more than Harry Zeickafoose, for as the
gang jumped into their car and sped away, several shots were fired after them. A
posse was quickly organized under Deputy Sheriff Rider Bruner and the chase
began. About five miles out, near Terlton, the bandit car was found, one man
trying in vain to mend a punctured tire, but the other three nowwhere in sight.
He surrendered without a fight, saying that his name was Harry Roher, but later
identifying himself as Leo Sturtz, a motor mechanic from Tulsa.
The rest of the gang were spotted making their way up a wooded hillside, and as
evening drew in a small army of officers and civilians from Pawnee, Creek and
Tulsa Counties got set to storm the hill. Several shots were exchanged, one of
them knocking Deputy Bruner's pistol from his hand, but none of the possemen
were wounded. Eventually, one of the bandits was seen to fall; and, shortly
afterwards, his body was found by the advancing officers, carefully laid out by
his companions. During the night the remaining pair managed to slip through the
cordon, and at about 3 a.m. begged a drink of water from a farmer just outside
Mannford, after which nothing more was heard of them.
The following day, with scores of officers and civilians continuing to search
the area, a trigger-happy posseman fired at what he thought was a bandit
skulking through the trees, and mortally wounded fellow searcher Jackson Ringer.
The slain bandit -- middle aged, short and heavily built, with prominent
cheekbones, sallow complexion, grey-streaked hair and several gold teeth --
turned out to be A. G. "Bud" Maxfield, one of Henry Starr's team in the Stroud
raid of 1915, and a badman since as far back as the late 1880's. As befitting
his status, he was given a fine send-off in the Second Presbyterian Church at
Tulsa, and the Tulsa Daily World later wrote:
"Bud Maxfield is dead. Another of these picturesque characters of the old
territorial days when men were measured not by their prowess in business but by
their prowess with the six-pistol, has crossed the Great Divide...His journey
into eternity started not at the bid of sickness or the call of old age, but by
the spatting of guns handled by officers of the law...Although Maxfield was
never regarded as one of the dangerous gunmen of territorial days, his close
associates and pals were always those who were quick on the draw and possessed
exceedingly nervous trigger fingers."
A couple of days after the robbery, Leo Sturtz confessed to Tom Wallace, County
Attorney of Creek County, saying that the gang -- himself, Maxfield, Al Spencer
and "a tall man they called Flinn" -- had congregated at Sandy McMillan's
roadhouse about four miles north of Tulsa prior to driving to Mannford. His own
role, he said, had been to drive the others to and from the robbery, for a fee
of $300. He also claimed that he had not even been in Mannford, having been
dropped off outside town on the way in and picked up again on the way out. This
seems a bit unlikely, the primary function of the getaway driver being to
provide quick escape from the scene of the crime. If he was indeed dropped off
outside town, the reason would have had to have been, as they say, that he
"chickened out."
Although he named Spencer as one of the gang, and the Coonrod sisters picked out
Spencer from photographs as one of the bandits who entered the bank, there is
some doubt that Spencer was actually present. Deputy U.S. Marshal John Moran,
who apparently kept extensive files on Spencer and Bud Maxfield, said that he
had never come across any connection between the two, and doubted that they
would work together. The Mannford robbery, he suggested, was purely the work of
Tulsa men with no assistance from Spencer.
This is substantiated to some extent by the report that the day after the
robbery, Spencer and a couple of others drove openly around the streets of
Bartlesville, waving and shouting to acquaintances. Had he been hunted nearly to
his death only hours before, it is unlikely that he would have had the appetite
or the stamina for such antics.
Two other names subsequently mentioned in connection with Mannford were Clarence
"Pat" Ward and H. E. "Big Boy" Berry, alias Jesse Paul, either of whom might
have been the mysterious "Flinn." Whatever the case, no proceedings appear to
have been taken against them.
Leo Sturtz made the newspapers again on the night of May 23 when he and ten
other small time criminals, among them Jack Starr, another alleged nephew of the
famous, Henry Starr, broke jail at Sapulpa. If he was later recaptured it would
appear that the press didn't consider the fact worth reporting.
The Gentry, Ark., bank robbery -- possibly the only bank holdup that Spencer
pulled in that state -- appears to have been the brainchild of one Carl Reasor,
a veteran of the Spanish-American War who lived with his wife and four children
at Rowe in northeastern Oklahoma, fairly close to the Arkansas line.