MOUNT VERNON — As often as we see the nasty side effects of rampant technology and instant communication in the modern world, it offers certain advantages.

Over 100 years ago, there weren’t many options for instant communication, and a small piece of information could get inflated out of proportion pretty easily. 

That’s what happened at one point in 1905 in Mount Vernon.

I’m always on the prowl for subjects for this weekly column. Going into my eighth year, I’ve never missed a deadline (though I’ve stretched them like rubber bands), which means I’ve written over 370 columns. 

So, I was excited when I encountered an August 1905 headline about a Mount Vernon resident being involved in a train robbery out west.

What a juicy story for my column!

Further research deflated that balloon. But, being short on time this week, this slush pile story becomes our subject, because, if nothing else, it shows what happens when assumptions skew a tiny bit of news.

According to the news report, Cashier F. W. Severns of the Mount Vernon Farmers and Merchants’ National Bank was curious when he received a telegram from local resident Leander Hays, whom Severns knew was traveling out west.

His curiosity changed to shock when he read the telegram:

Ogden, Utah, August 3, 1905
F. & M. Bank
Mt. Vernon, O.
“Stop payment on two drafts for $75 each. Train robbery”

Leander Hays

Severns had no further information to go on, but he promptly shut down any possibility of funds being drawn on the drafts for Hays’ account, and notified the press about the startling telegram.

It was known that Hays and his wife had left Mount Vernon the last week of July for Chicago, where they planned to meet up with friends and take an extensive trip through the western states.

Despite having no further details about the crime, the Democratic Banner opined, “It is probable that they were robbed on the train as well as the members of [their] party as this seems to occur frequently in the western states.”

Suddenly, we have a picture of the Wild West at its height, with a Great Train Robbery taking place. I don’t know about you, but as soon as I hear the phrase “train robbery,” 

I’m picturing bandits on horseback blowing up a bridge to stop a train, and swarming aboard with bandannas covering their faces and six-shooters drawn. At least one of them has to be wearing ammunition belts crossed in an ‘X’ on his torso.

Of course, there were probably never any train robberies like that, outside of the movies I watched in reruns on the TV as I was growing up. The reality was, shall we say, a bit less dramatic.

When Hays followed up with a letter a few days later, the scale of the incident was revealed to be small. There was no great train robbery with bandits and whatnot.

Rather, it seems that a clever pickpocket had lurked on the same train Hays and friends were traveling on, and somewhere between Chicago, Illinois, and Odgen, Utah — Hays didn’t know where — the pickpocket relieved Hays of his pocketbook, which contained the two travelers checks for $75 each, $50 in cash, and “other valuables.”

Discovering the theft in Ogden, Hays sent the telegram to the bank and alerted the police.

That’s it. The Great Train Robbery of 1905 proved to be nothing more than a sticky-fingered pickpocket. The thief was never apprehended. 

The crime was a nasty piece of business for Mr. Hays, because if you adjust the cash/check total for inflation, that’s like someone ripping off over $7000 from you today.

But Hays was able to weather the setback, later inheriting his family’s farm in Clay Township, and in 1898, being elected as a Knox County commissioner.

I’ll bet he kept checking his pocket every time he rode on a train after his western misadventure.