Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

I don’t worry about running out of ideas much. I’ve been writing for the Record since about 2010, which adds up to somewhere over six hundred columns, but there’s always something else. Some historical incident, a new discovery, something fresh to write about.

A lot of people like the old crimes, which somehow seem to have been committed in a more brazen and interesting way in the past. And I’ve recently stumbled upon a new one of those, pulled from the Clinton Republican on October 3, 1894. The headline was “A Daylight Robbery.”

Charles Boyer of Centre County was a lumberman, going where the work took him. In the fall of 1894, it took him to North Bend, way up in Chapman Township. One Saturday morning, he got his pay of eighty-four dollars, which is thirteen thousand by today’s standards, and decided to head home to Centre County.

He began hiking down to Lock Haven, a less problematic proposition back before the Renovo Road became a highway. Along the way, he encountered James McKenzie, who joined him for the rest of the trip.

They reached Lock Haven in the afternoon, and walked down Willard’s Alley to the east end. Boyer had planned to get on a train and head back to Centre County, and McKenzie offered him a drink of whiskey from a flask first. Then, while Boyer was drinking the whiskey, McKenzie punched him, grabbed his money, and ran away.

Boyer shouted for help, and several people ran to help. Among them was Constable Ellis Myers, who pursued McKenzie but failed to catch him. This may have been the only documented time Myers ever failed; he had the reputation for being some sort of super-constable, always catching the bad guys. To be fair to Myers, McKenzie escaped by running across the river on the wooden dam, and disappearing into Woodward Township.

Very early the next morning, Officer John Brendel just happened to see a man acting suspiciously near the Lock Haven passenger depot near Henderson Street. The man seemed to fit the description of the thief from the day before, so Brendel approached him to ask a few questions. It was indeed McKenzie, who turned and ran.

Brendel responded a little dramatically, by pulling out his gun and opening fire. He blew three shots past McKenzie’s head, and I’m not going to get into the advisability of firing off your gun downtown, but it worked. McKenzie froze.

He was taken to the old jail on Church Street, where he denied all knowledge of the robbery. Before the morning was over, however, he confessed (There may have been some more gun-waving involved here) and told the cops where he’d hidden the money. The police went to the hiding spot and recovered eighty dollars, which delighted Boyer when he was informed. McKenzie had spent four dollars, which could buy a neighborhood back in those days.

The wheels of justice rolled faster back then, and Monday morning there was a hearing. McKenzie was charged with assault and battery, robbery, and larceny. It also came out that he was something of a desperado, having pulled similar stunts across roughly a five-county area over time. So he was returned to jail, and Brendel was praised for having captured him at gunpoint in those early hours of the day.

Boyer got on a train and made it home, only four dollars poorer, and Brendel was respected for his capture. Myers went on to do other amazing things in the police department, so everyone lived happily ever after, except presumably McKenzie. Crime doesn’t pay.