The Manitowoc Pilot

ROBBERY AT THE UNITED STATES TREASURY.

Pursuit and Arrest of the Robber.

From the National Intelligencer, Washington, of July 26.

Yesterday Wallace W. Whittlesey, was brought to this city from New York, under arrest, and is now in confinement. He is charged with the robbery of nearly $200,000 worth of bonds from the treasury department. Seven months ago he was a clerk in the loan branch, secretary's office. In December, 1864, he obtained a leave of absence, but resigned his position prior to the expiration of his leave. In July, 1864, bonds with coupons attached, were found missing and suspicion that they had been taken by Whittlesey shortly attached to him. In his last report secretary Fessenden referred to the robbery thus:

On the 5th day of June last, Mr. C. P. Bailey, chief clerk and superintendent of the loan branch, connected with the secretary's office, addressed a letter to the secretary, stating that one hundred bonds partially prepared for issue under the acts of July 17 and August 5, 1861, of $1,000 each, were missing, and no trace of them could be found. The bonds numbered from 34,401 to 34,509 inclusive, and were a part of one thousand transmitted by the national bank note company on the 26th of September, 1863. In his letter to the secretary, Mr. Bailey states: "I have examined all the resources at my command in endeavoring to find them, and nothing is left for me but to report the facts."

A strict inquiry as to all the facts connected with the affair was immediately instituted, but no light was obtained, further than to show, that on the 29th of September, previous, Mr. Bailey sent the bonds in an open basket, with a weight placed on them, by two messengers, one of whom was an old clerk of established character, in the register's office and there offered them to the clerk who usually received the coupon bonds in the register's room, who objected to taking charge of them, on the ground that there was no place in the office where they could be safely kept, and requested that they might be taken back to the loan branch, where there were good safes.

Mr. Bailey was sent for, and, after some consultation as to the proper place of deposit, consented that they should be taken back and deposited in the safe in his office and they were accordingly carried back by the same messengers, taken out of the basket, laid on the table, and in the day placed in the safe, where they remained, as supposed, until called for by the register. They were called for and delivered from time to time, from March 17 to June 5, 1864, when the loss was discovered. The character of all the parties concerned is reported as above suspicion, and nothing has since transpired to elucidate the matter or to furnish any indication as to what had become of the missing bonds.

As they had not been signed by the register, or sealed, they cannot be negotiated. The coupons, however, were sealed and complete, and payable to the bearer on January and July 1, in each year. A careful examination was made of the January coupons paid on bonds of that issue, but it does not appear that any of them had been paid. These should be known by their numbers. Instructions were given to the assistant treasurers to watch carefully for the coupons, but nothing further has been elicited. No other steps have been taken, and none appeared likely to be attended with any effect. With this exception, I am not aware that any loss has occurred in the department.

The bonds being as (stated above) incomplete, they could not, of course, be negotiated, but the coupons could be sold anywhere. As soon as the loss was discovered secretary Fessenden directed solicitor Jordan to take such measures as he deemed necessary to discover the perpetrator of the robbery, and to recover, if possible, the bonds and coupons. He accordingly sent for Messrs. Clarvoe and McDevitt, of the metropolitan police force, and committed the investigation to their hands. A better selection could not have been made, for these gentlemen are well known as among the most acute and energetic detectives in the country, and their industry and persistence in pursuit of any case given them for investigation is proverbial. All the information in possession of the department was given these detectives.

The detectives at once set to work diligently, and although suspicion rested upon Whittlesey as the guilty party, yet so respectable were his connections (he being a grandson of the late Hon. Elisha Whittlesey, than whom no man ever bore a more respectable name and character.) and so high did his own personal character stand, and so impossible did it seem that he could be implicated in such a fraud, that it was not deemed advisable to make the arrest until more conclusive evidence could be obtained. The detectives kept an eye on him, however, and their suspicions against him were strengthened by the fact of his resigning his position in the treasury, and by his living extravagantly without ostensible means. He gave out as a reason for resigning that he had inherited a large amount of property from his grandfather, but it was ascertained that the property he had inherited was in the shape of wild and unavailable land. Whittlesey sold out his furniture here and turned up missing, leaving his wife. The detectives, not inclined to lose trace of his whereabouts, resorted to an ingenious device to regain the thread.

Clarvoe and McDevitt, entered for the time being into the express business, and one day a wagon appeared in front the lodgings occupied by Mr. Whittlesey bearing a nicely bound-up package (composed of waste paper.) and directed to W. W. Whittlesey. The expressman (McDevitt) package in hand, inquired if Mr. Whittlesey was in. He was not, Mrs. Whittlesey said, but she would receive the package for him. But the expressman demurred. It was necessary that Mr. Whittlesey should receipt for it in person, and if he were not in the city it must be returned to the office, and perhaps returned to New York, as it might be of importance. Mrs. Whittlesey then said that if returned to New York, it had better be sent to him in that city, where he was, and she proceeded to mention the name of the hotel where he was stopping.

Mr. Clarvoe at once proceeded to New York, and that same night he was seated at Whittlesey's elbow, making himself very agreeable, and as a feeler, Clarvoe brought up the subject of the oil land, and made some propositions to Whittlesey, when the latter said he was then engrossed in more important speculations in Wall street.

About a month since some of the missing coupons turned up, having been paid by the assistant treasurer at Philadelphia, and a few days after the department was informed that several had been paid by the assistant treasurer of New York. The detectives were informed of this, and were again dispatched to New York and Philadelphia to make inquiries as to the parties who had sold the coupons, and to keep surveillance over Whittlesey.

On Saturday last the department received a telegram from Saratoga, to the effect that Whittlesey had been there under suspicious circumstances, having offered to pawn his watch, and having at the time $8,000 worth of coupons in his possession. The solicitor immediately telegraphed to the New York police to arrest Whittlesey, and to take measures to prevent him leaving for any foreign steamer, and at the same time he directed Messrs. Clarvoe and McDevitt to go to New York and arrest him. He also telegraphed that Whittlesey might have gone to his home in Ohio.

Messrs. Clarvoe and McDevitt immediately proceeded to New York, where they found the town "on fire," so to speak, the police of that city being on the keenest lookout for Whittlesey, but without success.

Our Washington detectives were more fortunate, and came upon their prize near Western Hotel, in Courtlandt street. Clarvoe managed to take a drink by his elbow at the same bar, and then, as if recognizing an old acquaintance, exclaimed: "Why! is not your name Whittlesey?" Whittlesey, thinking he recognized the face of the questioner, exclaimed in turn, "Is not your name Holland?" Clarvoe answered affirmatively, and thereupon they had a very cordial time together, during which Clarvoe managed to get possession of some missing links in his chain of evidence, and when Whittlesey announced that he thought he would go home to his wife, his friend "Holland" astonished him by an invitation to the police headquarters, No. 300 Mulberry street.

Shortly after arriving there Whittlesey, in detective parlance; "squealed," or made a clean breast of it, and informed Clarvoe and McDevitt where the coupons were concealed, stating that the bonds had been destroyed, the detective got a note from him to his wife, and proceeded to his residence, which is a brown stone front, very finely furnished, at the corner of Forty-eight street and Second avenue.

On entering the parlor and presenting the note to his wife, who is a young and beautiful woman, she asked, "What does this mean?" Mr. Clarvoe answered that the note referred to something concealed in the chandelier, and he got on a chair and unscrewed a portion of the fixture, where he found a money belt rolled up, from which he took some of the coupons. On seeing these, Mrs. Whittlesey asked what they were, when he replied that each of these little slips were worth $30 in gold, whereupon she exclaimed, "My God! Oh my children and my husband!"

Her appearance and manner gave indication that she had no direct knowledge of her husband's guilt, but had feared something was wrong with him.

On recovering this property the detectives proceeded to take the earliest train to Washington, and arrived here yesterday morning, having previously telegraphed the fact of the arrest of the party and the recovery of the money to superintendent Richards.

Whittlesey quietly took a seat in the car, but shortly after the train had got its full speed he made a break for the door no doubt with the intention of jumping off, but was pulled back. He made other attempts to escape before arriving at his journey's end. Finding himself foiled, he endeavored to get up sympathy from the passengers by accusing the officers of kidnapping him.

The accused had been a clerk in the loan branch of the treasury since 1862, and last year employed as the registering clerk of certificates of indebtedness, and had nothing whatever to do with the bonds except to deposit what certificates remained in his hands at the close of the day in the same safe in which the bonds were kept; and it is thought that the missing bonds were taken by him from this safe.

The accused is well known in this city, and is very respectably connected, being a grandson of the late Elisha Whittlesey of Ohio, who for a long series of years was the efficient comptroller of the treasury. He was formerly in business in St. Louis, Mo., where, we believe, he married, and came here in 1861 and got a position in the treasury. He is about five feet six inches in height, rather stout, wears black whiskers, and has a full suit of jet black hair, weighs about 150 pounds, stoops a little, and has a swaggering walk.

Whittlesey has acknowledged his criminality to the detectives, and says he has been a most miserable man since the commission of the robbery; and that the money thus realized, being ill gotten, has not done him a particle of good. He was held in custody at the central guard house all last night, and will have a hearing at 10 o'clock this morning.