A Tale of Two Brothers: Catch Him if you Can

by Susan Zehnder, Education Director

This is a story about two brothers who made a name for themselves. One became a well-regarded member of the local community, while the other went on to make national headlines for fraud, larceny, and deception.

J. Bernard and J. Francis Toomey were born three years apart and grew up in Elmira around the turn of the 20^th century. Their parents were Margaret and John Toomey and their father worked as a trainman for the railroad. The family lived at East Fifth Street in Elmira. In 1906, another brother, J. Florence, was born.

The oldest son, Bernard, was full of ambition. When he graduated from Elmira Free Academy in 1915 his senior yearbook declared him to be one of the school’s most popular boys. In addition to his studies, he participated in class entertainments also known as school productions;

managed the baseball team for three years; and dated many girls one of whom was Marjorie Shaffer. 

Bernard attended the University of Buffalo to study dentistry. It was World War I and when the United States joined the war effort, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy. After the war, he returned to Elmira and opened his own dental practice at 243 Lake Street. A year later, Bernard married Marjorie Shaffer and the couple had a daughter, Judith.

For the next 38 years, Bernard was an active member of the community. He was president of the City Club, founding member of the Elmira Area University of Buffalo Alumni Association, a member of the Chemung County Dental Society and of the Torch Club, and director of the Chemung Valley Savings and Loan Association. Bernard promoted conservation through his work with Fur, Fin, and Feathers, Inc. He belonged to the Elmira Elks Lodge, the Harry B. Bentley Post of the American Legion. He was also an active congregant of Our Lady of Lourdes Church. In addition to his private dental practice, he was a dental consultant for the County Welfare Department.

In 1959, when he was 64, Bernard suffered an acute heart attack and died. Newspaper obituaries listed among the survivors his mother, his wife, his daughter, and only one brother, Florence.

Why wasn’t his middle brother mentioned? Apparently, Francis had been leading a very different life. The earliest mentions of him in local newspapers are positive, citing various elementary school achievements, like good attendance, or moving on to next grade. A few years later, his name appears as a participant in a public discussion “The Social Club as an Agency of Moral Uplift.” But soon after, Francis’s name started showing up in less flattering ways.

Apparently one evening, he and a couple of buddies broke into George Ells’ Machine and Bicycle Repair Shop on Lake Street, not far from where he lived. The boys ransacked the shop and took a number of electric flashlights, cigar packet lighters and other small items. Their identity must have been known --a year later, the police revealed their names when Francis was caught for another crime. This time he and a buddy had broken into Dr. F.B. Greene’s garage. After rifling through the garage, they stole a motorcar and went on a joyride. When it got stuck on West Church Street, they abandoned it, leaving $50 worth of damage--over $1,500 in today’s dollars. The boys were told to make amends.

That same year, 1912, Francis disappeared for three months. He had been involved in an accidental shooting and feared being arrested. According to the paper, the victim, only identified as an Armenian, “was not seriously hurt.” Regardless, Francis made his way to New York City and took a job with the railroad. He was injured on the job and in order to receive full pay, he was required to get his parents’ signature. Instead he listed J.P. Sullivan in Elmira as his guardian and misaddressed the envelope hoping it would never be delivered. A postal worker caught the “mistake” and the letter made its way to his folks. His father went and collected him.

A year later, he was working at Sullivan’s furniture store on East Water Street in Elmira, when a suspicious fire broke out. The fire was contained on the third floor of the Grand Theater Block and a larger crisis was averted. Damage to the building was estimated to be $15,000. While he was questioned, Francis was never charged.

In 1917, his name showed up more dramatically. Trying to follow in his brother’s footsteps and join the war effort, Francis headed to Fort Niagara Training School to enlist. He was denied because he was underage. Undaunted, he returned to Elmira wearing a military uniform and was greeted like a hero. But when people start to question details of his enlistment, he took off for Cleveland. For a while he passed as a lieutenant and was treated well. He was wined and dined and made himself popular with the ladies. He also cashed fraudulent checks. Again, before he was discovered, he left for Chicago and repeated his impersonation. This time it didn’t end well. When he was caught, nineteen-year-old Francis received a sentence of two-years and eleven months to be served at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This was eventually reduced to 13 months when a judge felt the sentence was too harsh.

A few years later, he was connected to larcenies committed in Princeton, New Haven, and New York City. Then in 1923, Francis tried to pass himself off as the son of E. M. Statler, a man who had made millions in the hotel business. For a while he was living in luxury until once again he was caught this time in Boston. When arrested, he was wearing a tuxedo, and pennants from various colleges were found in his room. He was fined $25 and sentenced to a year.

In 1935, he was arrested when he tried to enroll in graduate school at the University of Tennessee using a bad check. Things quickly unraveled for him. Authorities discovered he had not received a degree from Tulane University, as he claimed. He admitted to using various aliases including Archie G. Glenn, Justin F. Toomey, Floyd Stranhan, Richard Forgan, Francis Sullivan, Jack Allen, Millard Jones, and F. J. Sullivan. He also admitted to committing felonies in California, Pennsylvania, and Georgia and to having spent time in jail in each of these states including San Quentin. He was sent off to prison again. He was thirty-two.

J. Francis Toomey Photo courtesy of National Archives of Kansas City

Little is known of his whereabouts between 1935 and 1960. In 1960, the newspaper published a notice in the newspaper that he had violated parole and was being held without bail, but no indication of what parole he had violated.

Francis outlived his younger and older brothers by more than a decade. On November 15, 1970, the Star-Gazette printed a death notice for him. He had died in New York City four days earlier. A High Mass was held for him at St. Cecelia’s and he was buried at St. Peter and Paul’s Cemetery. No survivors were listed.

When Crime Doesn’t Pay

by Erin Doane, Curator

Officer John Hurley had come up against some hardened criminals before, but nothing like the gang he encountered in 1903. He had been a member of the Elmira Police Department for five years, arresting people for vagrancy and public intoxication, petit larceny and burglary, and even riding a bicycle on the sidewalk without a permit, but, on June 12, he came upon a type of misbehavior he had never encountered before – a six-year-old boy and his buddies on a wild spending spree.

Officer John Hurley, c. 1900

Little Johnnie Presnel of 103 Bloomer Avenue told all his buddies about the $20 bill in his pocket and led them through downtown Elmira looking for ways to spend the cash. None of his pals bothered to ask where he had gotten the money and none of them cared. Arriving at a store on Water Street, Johnnie entered alone. When he stepped outside again, he showed off the brand new air gun he had purchased for $1. His companions were rightly impressed. All they had were pretend guns whittled out of pine branches.

And not only did Johnnie have a new gun, now he suddenly had more bills than before. As a six-year-old, he likely didn’t have a good grasp on the value of the paper bills. He just knew that he had walked into the store with just one bill and came out with multiple. So, he and the boys went on their way, anxious to spend more.

Johnnie led the procession up Railroad Avenue and they went on a “peanut spree,” buying and eating all the roasted legumes they could, much to the delight of the peanut vendor. The indulgence was a bit much for a few of the boys whose stomachs began to ache. Some went home but there was still a good number in the gaggle when they encountered Officer Hurley. He bravely stopped them in their tracks and demanded to know what they were up to. After listening to several unsatisfactory explanations, he pinned Johnnie as the ringleader and took him into custody.

Detective Charles Gradwell, c. 1900

At the police station in City Hall, Officer Hurley was still unable to get the truth out of Little Johnnie. He had to bring in the big guns, Detective Charles Gradwell. The detective had joined the Elmira Police Department a year before Officer Hurley and had a reputation as a friendly soul who always got his man. Under his questioning, the boy first said he received the money in a letter from an uncle and that his mamma had insisted that he spend every cent in any way he saw fit. Detective Gradwell did not see any truth in his answer so they called Johnnie’s father, John Presnel, into the station. John questioned his son and got no better answers. They did find out that the child had $16 left of the original $20 and that one of his companions had borrowed a few bills from him when he wasn’t looking.

Finally, the detective turned oh his “bad cop” persona and suggested that they hang the boy up with a rope tied around his neck unless he told the truth. At this threat, the six-year-old finally broke. With tears streaming down his little cheeks, he confessed that he had taken the money out of his mother’s pocketbook. With the mystery solved, the police turned Johnnie over to his father who promised that he had a slipper with an extra thick sole waiting at home to be properly brought into use on his wayward son.

Stough It!

by Rachel Dworkin, archivist

On New Year’s Eve 1912, a new preacher rolled into town and he was looking to stir things up. Dr. Reverend H.W. Stough was a traveling revivalist with a serious beef against the alcohol industry. He settled into a specially-built tabernacle on the corner of William and Clinton Streets and got to work. Right away Stough made his goals clear.  “I am here,” he said at a dinner held in his honor by the Elmira Businessmen’s Association, “to awaken the moral conscience in your city.”   Almost at once he got down to the business of antagonizing the brewing industry and its allies.  “I want to serve briefs on the brewery, the stockholders, the saloon, the bartender, the thieves and the liars,” he announced in his first sermon. “The fight is on.”  

Dr. Rev. H.W. Stough

 In the early 1910s, the City of Elmira was awash with sin and alcohol. In a city with a population of 37,176 there were 93 saloons, or one for every 400 residents.  People could also drink at any one of the 33 hotels or 9 billiard halls with a liquor license and even buy hard liquor for ‘medicinal’ purposes at one of the city’s 27 drug stores.  The alcohol trade was highly profitable.  One hotel manager estimated in 1913 that he sold $37,620 worth of beer and liquor annually which amounts to approximately $887,315 in today’s dollars.  In addition to monies made from alcohol, saloons and billiard halls often made additional revenue from illegal card games or making book on baseball games while hotels cashed in on prostitution.  Despite the widespread criminal activity, there were rarely any arrests made.  In fact, Briggs Brewery would frequently send a car around to warn saloon owners in advance of a police raid.    

 

Stough was having none of it. Throughout the month of January, Stough claimed the saloons were violating the statewide ban on Sunday liquor sales; accused the police of rampant corruption and called for the resignation of Police Chief Frank Cassada; called Mayor Daniel Sheehan a lackey of the brewers; and promised to personally root out evidence of criminal behavior.  On the night of Saturday, January 25^th, he led a parade of followers through the red light district around Railroad Avenue at midnight to make sure saloons were closing for Sunday during. Stough’s antics made him more popular by the day.  At the start of the month there were only several hundred in attendance but on the 25^th there were so many people packed into the tabernacle they had to turn over 2,000 people away.  

 

Stough's specially built tabernacle

Stough was, in short, a threat to the city’s breweries and their allies in the saloons, police station and mayor’s office.  Forced to actually close on Sunday, January 26^th, the saloons and the breweries which supplied them lost money.  Stough managed to collect and publically preach about evidence of illegal doings by one Railroad Avenue saloonkeeper and the man was forced to flee the city to avoid arrest. During the 1880s, two muckraking preachers had been murdered by saloon owners in Sioux City, Iowa and Jackson, Mississippi for doing exactly the same thing as Stough. The Reverend himself had been threatened and was nearly assaulted during the January 25^th parade. His followers were harassed by the police, his lodgings were broken into and a lawsuit for slander was filed by Briggs Brewery, but none of it was enough to make him stop.

The city’s alcohol interests did the only thing they could do: frame two of the Stough campaign members for adultery. Yes, adultery. It was literally a crime in those days. On the night of February 10, they arrested Hester Cartwright, a choir singer, in the room of Duncan Spooner, the campaign’s music director, and, by February 19, the case was in court. The city’s brewing interests hoped the case would drag Stough’s name through the mud and drive him from town, but they were sadly mistaken.  

Hester Cartwright

 

Duncan Spooner

The following morning over 6,000 supporters showed up at the tabernacle to protest the arrests and raise a legal defense fund.  Throughout February, local pastors including those from First Baptist Church, Park Church and the Episcopalian churches threw their support behind Stough.  Both the Elmira Star-Gazette and the Elmira Advertiser came out in favor of real reform.  The trial was over and the couple acquitted by mid-April, but it didn’t stop the formation of several civic improvement leagues, a police commission investigation into Police Chief Frank Cassada or Mayor Sheehan being voted out of office in November.  During the trial, Briggs Brewery manager J. John Hassett said that the frame up was a matter of good business policy but clearly it was anything but. Briggs Brewery’s efforts to silence Dr. Stough in the winter of 1913 ultimately cost them hundreds of dollars in lost revenue, their ally in the mayor’s office and their good name.  Public sentiment had turned against them and in April 1916 the city voted itself bone dry, shutting down the saloons and hotels Briggs had fought so hard to keep open.

Briggs Brewery: The Last Raid

By Rachel Dworkin, Archivist

On April 12, 1933, New Jersey mobster Waxey Gordon, aka Irving Wexel, received troubling phone call at his office in Elizabeth, New Jersey and left. Minutes later, a business rival murdered his two lieutenants, Max Hassell and Max Greenburg, who were waiting in his office for his return. The investigation into their murders kicked off the biggest Prohibition bust in New York State and shown a spotlight onto the corruption which ran deep in Elmira.

 

Irving Wexel, aka Waxey Gordon, aka George Pierson

In 1932, Gordon, operating under the alias “George Pierson,” purchased the old Briggs Brewery in Elmira on the corner of State and Second Street from Frank Teitelbaum. Founded in 1868 by brew master Thomas Briggs and his financial backer John Arnot, Jr., T. Briggs & Co. was owned by the Rathbone Corporation at the start of Prohibition in 1920. Although officially closed for business, it was raided several times for illegal production of alcohol from 1925 to 1931. See The Cereal Beverage and “High-Powered Beer” Scandal for details of a raid in 1927.

Those other raids would be nothing compared to what was coming. During the course of their murder investigation, New Jersey police uncovered a safe full of documents relating to Gordon’s operation in Elmira. On April 22, 1933, federal agents from Bureau of Prohibition raided the Briggs Brewery. They discovered that the brewery was connected to several adjacent buildings by a series of rubber pipelines which ran through the sewers. One line ran mash from the Rice Storage Warehouse on Canal Street to the distillery at Briggs. A second line ran the finished product back to the warehouse. A third line ran fuel oil. Divers from the New York City Police Department were brought in to help search the sewers for additional evidence. They discovered a stone chamber under the Acme Products Company, located in the old Lehigh Valley Railroad Station at the corner of 5^th and Baldwin which was being used as some sort of workroom too. There was also a dedicated railroad spur from the station which the bootleggers were using to transport the alcohol down to New York City.

Raid on Briggs Brewery, April 22, 1933

The raid netted the largest haul in New York State since the start of prohibition. Agents seized 10,000 gallons finished alcohol; 500,000 gallons of alcohol mash; tank-car of molasses; two 20,000-gallon stills which the federal government had seized in an earlier raid but where forced to return; and a train car’s worth of assorted equipment.  Twelve men were arrested at the scene including 11 people who were working the still.  Supposedly the foreman said “We’re too busy now to monkey with a raid.  Can’t you see we’ve got a big shipment to get out?”

Inspecting the sewers for additional evidence

Sewer inspection

 A review of Gordon’s books showed just how profitable the Elmira operation was, or rather wasn’t. They produced 5,000 gallons of alcohol a day. Between October 1932 and March 1933, they sold 124,935 gallons of black market booze. It should have been insanely profitable, and yet, Gordon was $55,860.50 in the hole. Why? Graft. He paid approximately $6,700 a month in protection money to keep law enforcement off his back. The Elmira police were almost certainly on the take. They detained federal officer Raymond Keith when he attempted to investigate a delivery of molasses on December 8, 1932.  In another instance, an Elmira Police flashed its lights into the brewery office just before a raid was set to occur. 

On August 15^th, federal agents complied a report for the U.S. District Attorney in Buffalo with evidence against 37 individuals and 5 corporations. Seven of those 37 individuals were Elmirans. Of those, three were well-known Elmira businessmen. They were able to arrange a plea deal which kept their names out of the papers.

Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933. In 1934, the Supreme Court ruled that all pending cases related to prohibition violations which had not yet been brought to trial should be dropped. Gordon eventually ended up going down for tax evasion, but,
in the end, no one served any jail time related to the final Briggs Brewery raid.