Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Early Robbery in Fairfield

In the fall of 1842, E. S. Gage, who had opened a dry goods store in Fairfield three years previous, started to St. Louis to replenish his stock, taking with him about $600 in cash. In those days, there were no public conveyances and it was rarely that private teams made the trip to Fort Madison, the nearest point on the Mississippi River to the new settlement. Mr. Gage decided to make the journey on foot. Scarcely had he left town, when three men, strangers to the place, appeared at the hotel, and stating that they were about to start for the river, asked if any one from Fairfield was going, as they desired company. They were informed that Mr. Gage, the merchant, had just started to St. Louis to buy goods, and was but a short distance on the road. They followed on, overtook Mr. Gage some seven or eight miles from town, represented that they were going to Fort Madison and the four proceeded in company. The newcomers seemed sociable, clever fellows and Mr. Gage was not averse to their companionship. In the evening of the second day, just after nightfall, they had approached within two miles of their destination, and while passing through a stretch of woods, Mr. Gage, entirely unconscious of the contemplated attack, was suddenly struck by a powerful blow from behind by one of the men and he fell senseless to the earth. Hastily dragging him to the bottom of a ravine near the road, they robbed him of his money by cutting off the tail of his coat, in the pocket of which it was deposited, leaving untouched his silver watch, and covering his body with some underbrush and casting aside the heavy cane with which he had been felled, the robbers passed on into town with the belief, no doubt, that their victim would never come to life.

Mr. Gage recovered consiousness in about an hour afterward, and a farmer passing by with his team, he was able to make himself and his condition known. This good Samaritan brought him to town, where friends of the Masonic fraternity cared for him with such good results that after a delay of a few days he was able to continue his journey to St. Louis. Mr. Gage was ever on the lookout for the parties who committed the dastardly outrage, and shortly after his arrival in that city, he recognized one of the robbers while passing along the street. Calling an officer, the fellow was taken into custody and by a systematic course of questioning and playing upon his fears, the whereabouts of his comrades in crime was revealed and they, too, were soon in the hands of the law. A considerable portion of the money was recovered. The three were returned to Fort Madison, tried, convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for five, eleven and twenty-one years, in accordance with their several degrees of guilt. At that time the State's prison at Fort Madison was not completed, and convicts confined by ball and chain sometimes escaped. The subject of the twenty-one-year sentence sojourned with the Warden just twenty-one days, when, without leave of absence, he took his departure. The eleven-year man followed soon after, and the third, who was believed to be the tool of more hardened criminals, was pardoned before the expiration of his sentence.

Mrs. Gage, now living in Fairfield, still has in her possession the heavy cane which felled her husband to the earth, the effects of which he felt to the day of his death, which occurred in 1859.