Three-fingered Jack McCall robs a train, Part 3
The last instalment of yet another desperate family story
To recap: In Part 1 I wrote about my 5xgreat uncle Hugh Percival McCall who ran away from his home in Norfolk County, Ontario, (abandoning wife and children) in 1827 and disappeared for 45 years. When he returned, the town of Vittoria gave him a parade. He was called “one of the world’s great wanderers,” although no one really knew where he had gone. It turned out that he had traveled west along the old Santa Fe Trail, become a trapper aka mountain man in the Rockies, then washed up in Santa Cruz County, California, where he married twice and fathered another brood of children before returning to Canada in 1871. In California he was known as Hugh Pablo McCall.
Part 2 details the early life of Hugh Pablo’s son Daniel McCall (my first cousin 5xremoved, aka Three-fingered Jack), the man who was shot dead trying to rob a train in 1896. I also spend some time on the intriguing background of political and economic unrest in the Central Valley and the tension between settlers and the Southern Pacific Railroad that exploded into spectacular violence in a shootout called the Mussel Slough Tragedy of 1880. Mussel Slough was followed by a series of train robberies, one committed by the famous Dalton Gang, more shootouts and prison escapes. Daniel McCall was the last of the San Joaquin Valley train robbers, inspired by the legend of the Dalton boys and a book.
How to rob a train, Plan A
At the time of Daniel McCall’s attempted robbery, March 18-19, 1896 and its aftermath — arrest of co-conspirators, burial, inquest — less than a week all told, he was front-page news in the California newspapers. I have read the accounts in the Visalia Daily Times, the Visalia Daily Delta, the Santa Cruz Daily Sentinel, and the San Francisco Examiner and pulled together a plausible version of events, but beyond plausibility, as with all things relating to the human heart, a vast mystery remains.
Contradictions abound. The McCalls in Santa Cruz are aghast, mystified that the man they knew could stoop to robbing trains. They think he was led on by Si Lovren and the Visalia underworld. There is even a theory that the Visalia sheriff and Southern Pacific train detectives set him up in a sting operation to enhance their reputations. But others are happy to impugn his character. After the shooting, an acquaintance named Joe Arana keeps buttonholing reporters with rumors of lurid earlier crimes that no one else knows about. Most accounts agree the Daniel McCall was illiterate. But one reporter finds love letters he claims Daniel wrote to women in Santa Cruz (my first question is why he finds these letters at all? why weren’t they sent in the mail?).
Almost everything we know about Daniel McCall’s last days comes from his 19-year-old accomplice Obie Britt who betrayed him to the Visalia sheriff even before the robbery took place and then continued to blab about him to reporters and anyone else who would listen clearly trying to exculpate himself and, after that, make himself the center of attention.
Taking it all in, excising the obvious eccentricities, this is the story.
The year is 1895. McCall was sawing logs for a rancher named Ben Hicks just north of Visalia. He lived on Hicks’s ranch in a one-room board-and-batten redwood shack, spending his spare time drinking at Si Lovren’s deadfall saloon in Visalia. He drank too much, but worked hard and Hicks liked him. Three weeks before the train robbery Hicks' buys him a new suit as a bonus.
McCall met Obie Britt at the end of the summer, and in October the two men signed a fresh contract with Hicks. Britt moved into the cabin and they settled into the job. McCall liked to sit with Britt in the winter evenings, regaling him with outlaw tales from Visalia’s recent past, the Mussel Slough shootout, the Evans-Sontag train robberies, and, especially, the escapades of the Dalton Gang. All this was fresh in local memory, and fueled with alcohol, it speaks to motivation. McCall’s wife was dead, things had not gone well, he was already getting old for the life of a manual laborer. It was easy enough for him to blend his personal resentments with the community resentment of the railroad and the robber barons of Sacramento. In his imagination he could see the mansions on Knob Hill and measure the distance from his shack in Tulare County. The dramatic train robberies and brilliant escapes were like a flash of lightning on the dreary plain of his anxious life.
He kept a book by his bedside — The Dalton Brothers and their Astounding Career in Crime — though he couldn’t read. Touchingly, Obie Britt offered to read it to him, McCall returning over and over to the chapter on the Alila train robbery of 1891, dwelling on the details.
One passage explains how to stop a train.
Stopping the train had been easy work. A red light had been procured from the frightened station agent; the wires, both ways, cut down to prevent any communication ahead or behind, and by waving the light in front of the incoming train, in accordance with the railway regulations, the engineer had reduced speed and finally stopped. A second later, two men, wearing long black masks, had jumped on board the engine and covered both its occupants with their Colt revolvers.
Later McCall adapted the red lantern tactic, or intended to. After his attempted robbery, deputies found a lamp and a length of red cheesecloth in his cabin. Much was made of this. They were able to find a matching cheesecloth at Si Lovren’s saloon and the store where a Lovren confederate had bought the cheesecloth — thus linking Lovren to McCall and the robbery.
By January, 1896, McCall was beginning to talk about a robbery of his own. He was talking about it to Britt while they worked in the woods and he was talking about down at the saloon where he encountered an eager audience in Si Lovren and his bartender Charles Ardell (other Lovren retainers later implicated or called as witnesses include a roustabout known only as Frenchy and a “former pugilist,” professional runner, and “all round sport” Billy Ross). In the end, it is not clear who thought up the robbery. Did Lovren plan the whole thing in advance, or did he just encourage and abet McCall. Undoubtedly, he supplied the guns McCall used. And, though he was never convicted in earlier crimes, he was suspected of supplying guns and acting as a fence and money launderer for Evans and Sontag and the Daltons.
Britt and McCall hatched their plans. They targeted Train #20, northbound, on the night of March 18, planning an ambush with that red lantern at 1:09 a.m. two miles south of Goshen near Mill Creek Bridge, six miles west of Visalia. Another logger joined the strike force, a man named John Haynes, a Salvation Army man with a family nearby. Again, this is according to Britt, who claimed he only knew about Haynes through McCall; the three conspirators never actually met in person to finalize their plan.
According to the Visalia Daily Delta (channeling Britt):
As soon as the train stopped Britt was to fire two charges out of his double-barreled shotgun, charged with buckshot, and McCall to fire two shots from his Colt's pistol. This shooting was to terrify the passengers and prevent the curious from getting out of the cars to ascertain the cause of the stoppage of the train. Haynes was to order the engineer to march to the express car door and tell the express messenger to open it, and if he refused McCall intended to blow it open with giant powder. The fireman's hands were to be bound behind him with baling wire. It was intended that McCall should enter the express car, secure the valuables and if necessary to blow open the safe with giant powder. After placing the money in sacks, the engine was to be derailed with giant powder. The engineer and fireman would then have been directed to carry the booty to considerable distance and then told to return to their train. The robbers were then to place rawhide moccasins over their boots and walk home, carrying their booty with them. They were to bury their treasury in the ground, also their arms, ammunition and anything incriminating.
The express car on these trains was a special car owned by Wells Fargo (another Leland Stanford company) for carrying valuables and cash. The “giant powder” mentioned in the newspaper is a version of dynamite manufactured under license from Alfred Nobel in San Francisco by the Giant Powder Company. The tactic of shooting off warnings shots is mentioned in the Dalton Gang book, as is the use of the engineer and fireman to get the express car guard to open the door. McCall was, so to speak, working from a script but improving on the original — the Daltons had failed to bring dynamite and had no way of opening the express car safe without the combination.
How much Lovren and Ardell involved themselves in the planning is difficult to say. Britt hardly mentions them. But the sheriff and his deputies are able to piece together how Lovren supplied the guns after the fact. A few days before the robbery, Lovren sent a Marlin rifle and a Colt six-shooter to a repair shop in Visalia. Then a little later witnesses reported seeing the former pugilist Billy Ross walking back through town with the rifle and pistol. These were identified as the guns in McCall’s possession when he was killed. Lovren also supplied a Parker shotgun and another six-shooter for Britt.
March 18th was a Wednesday. On the Sunday before, McCall and Britt drove out in McCall’s rig to scout the crime scene. Everything was set for the climactic adventure.
The inevitable necessity of a Plan B
McCall’s plan depended on secrecy, but he seems to have told plenty of people what he was up to, especially the denizens of Si Lovren’s deadfall. By Wednesday, if not earlier, Sheriff Merritt of Visalia knew about the robbery. One newspaper reported that “a boy” got wind of the plan and told the sheriff. But mostly Obie Britt took credit, saying that he never liked the plan and didn’t want to participate and so went to the sheriff up to ten days before the robbery (or just before the robbery, depending on his story). The fact that the sheriff knew so far ahead of time and didn’t move to stop the robbery is one of the reasons for suspecting that McCall was set up.
You need to look at the San Francisco Examiner map of March 20, 1896, to get a better picture of what was going on.
The Southern Pacific main line ran down the Central Valley traveling through Fresno and Bakersfield. Visalia is about six miles east of the line. Originally, Visalia was meant to be a main line station, but the town fathers refused a Southern Pacific demand for free land to sweeten the deal; in revenge, the railroad moved the line west hanging Visalia out to dry — another reason why people around Visalia had no love for the railroad.
Goshen and Tulare are on the main line and form a tight triangle with Visalia. Train #20 was traveling up from the south; McCall's original plan, Plan A, was to walk over and ambush the train between Tulare and Goshen. When Sheriff Merritt learned of the plan, he devised a counter plan. His deputies were to sneak out of Visalia in discreet ones and twos as if going about their normal business and rendezvous at Tulare where they would board train #20 and surprise McCall in the act.
But Sheriff Merritt’s security was lousy. The deadfall lowlifes were watching the deputies and clocked the unusual activity. Someone, maybe Lovren, got word to McCall about the sheriff’s trap. A wiser man would have dropped his plans and settled back into the wood chopping business until the coast was clear, but McCall was in a fever. The ambiguous and reluctant Obie Britt counselled deferral, but McCall opted for a dazzling new plan. He would rob a different train.
He, Britt and Haynes would walk from Ben Hicks's ranch the easy 5-6 miles to Goshen and wait for the southbound Train #19 due at about 11pm. He reasoned that the sheriff's entire manpower would be focused on Train #20 leaving all other trains uncovered. Britt described McCall as "jubilant" as they waited at the Goshen station, high on adrenalin for sure. It was a daring riposte. He was on the big board for the first time, acting instead of being acted upon — a seductive feeling for the downtrodden, men at the end of their tether, rebels, and train robbers.
They left Hicks’s ranch on foot at 5 p.m. leaving their red lantern behind. They were missing co-conspirator John Haynes who skipped the robbery to attend a Salvation Army meeting in Tulare with his family. Afterward, he claimed never to have been involved; he said Britt was “off his chunk.”
Fate, ever devious, let me count the ways
Actually, it was a great plan but doomed to failure on account of Fate or bad luck, that shadow that had dogged McCall all his life. While McCall and Britt were skulking at the train station, two of Sheriff Merritt's deputies, Earl Daggett and Vic Reed, young men in their early twenties, met Train #19 as it arrived and caged a free ride to Tulare. They had been alerted to join the posse there and the quickest way was to jump on the next southbound train. They found places to sit behind the engine at the front of the coal tender expecting a peaceful trip.
McCall and Britt were hiding just ahead of the train near the coal depot. McCall was armed with a Colt six-shooter revolver, a Marlin rifle, and baking powder tin full of Giant Powder dynamite; Britt carried a six-shooter, a Parker shotgun, and a sack of extra ammunition, weapons all supplied by Si Lovren. McCall was wearing a canvas coat, blue overalls, and a woolen shirt. Both men had black masks with cutout eyes and red bandanas covering their faces.
As the train started out of Goshen, just as the engine passed, both men jumped out of their hiding places and ran for the cars. McCall leaped for the back of the tender and dragged himself up. What happened next is a bit unclear in detail. Either Britt jumped for the front of the blind baggage car (just behind the tender), then jumped back down, or he didn't jump at all. One of his guns went off — later he said (one of his stories) that he had tried to shoot McCall. But McCall thought it was an accident and yelled at him to be careful. (Alternatively, Britt may have taken a shot at McCall on another occasion altogether. In any case, he was a man not be trusted around guns.)
Putting the conflicting details aside, the upshot was that Britt did not get on the train; he ran straight to the stationmaster and had him telegraph Sheriff Merritt that McCall was on Train #19 and intending to rob it. Not that Merritt now could do anything about it because he was in Tulare waiting for Train #20.
Crucially, McCall did not know of Britt's betrayal. As events shortly proved, he still thought Britt was on the train with him though behind him and out of sight. As the train gained speed, McCall started climbing over the tender. I can't quite envision this process. In general, a coal tender was a rectangular car attached at the back of the engine. It consisted of a U-shaped water jacket or tank and, in the middle, a coal bunker sloped down toward the engine to make it easier for the fireman who shovel out the coal.
I imagine that McCall came over the top of the car, appearing suddenly out of the darkness directly above Daggett and Reed with the engineer and fireman just ahead inside the open cab of the engine. Perhaps he didn't even notice the deputies at first. He yelled out, "Throw up your hands." Daggett and Reed had shotguns but were not ready. Reed tried to swing round and got off a shot that went over McCall's shoulder. McCall shot him once with his Colt in the fleshy part of the upper arm; he was so close that there were powder burns on Reed's hand.
McCall then shot Daggett, a second shot with his revolver. He shouted, "Why don't you shoot?" which has always been taken as a sign that he thought Britt was standing right behind him backing him up. Daggett was badly wounded; McCall’s bullet hit him in the abdomen, went through his lung and ended up lodged just under the skin of his back. But he was able to bring his shotgun up and blast McCall with a full load of buckshot at close range. The shot lifted McCall and threw him off the train.
Meanwhile the engineer and the fireman had scrambled out of the cab and along the engine till they were standing on the cowcatcher with the train racing along at 45 miles an hour. Reed called them back and started attending to Daggett. They decided not to stop the train and look for McCall but to head straight for Tulare where they could get medical help and find the sheriff.
At Tulare, Sheriff Merritt reorganized his posse, sending several men along with the wounded Reed north on Train #20, which slowed and stopped at the robbery site. There they found McCall stretched on his side with one arm flung out above his head. He was still alive but his entrails were hanging out of a hole in his groin. He died shortly after and was brought back to Visalia on the morning local from Goshen. The undertakers Locey, Dungan & Company put his body, "dishonored and horribly lacerated," according the Visalia Daily Times, on display for public viewing. A photograph was taken and exhibited in a merchant’s front window.
A reader misled by books
Deputies pulled in Si Lovren and Charles Ardell as accomplices. Public opinion ran against them, and, fearing that he was about to be lynched, Lovren cut his own throat the next morning. (He was allowed to bring his straight razor, even hand it around for other prisoners to shave, as long as he agreed not to hand it over to one particular man who was not to be trusted.) He was saved to stand trial.
Deputies also arrested Haynes who had the perfect alibi.
They turned over McCall’s cabin, finding the lantern and red cheese cloth, also the black material from which the masks were cut. McCall had dug a hole in the floor and placed a large box therein, a hidey-hole it was theorized for the loot and the guns.
Two of McCall’s brothers, Francisco and Santiago (Frank and James) came up from Soquel for the burial. The only person to drive out to the cemetery with them was Joe Arana, an old acquaintance of Daniel McCall, or so he said, who subsequently gave an interview to the Visalia Delta Times during which he told the story about McCall having shot a man to death “on the coast” only to get off on a plea of self-defense and another about how McCall had originally arrived in Visalia with a notorious gunman named John Keener who was subsequently shot to death robbing a stage in Calaveras.
I don’t know if any of that is true.
I keep thinking about all the stories. What’s missing is the voice of Daniel McCall who could set me straight. I can’t tell if he was a bad man, a desperado like the Dalton brothers in his book, or a romantic working class hero, or a weak man who drank too much and was easily led. When his first plan fell apart, he invented a new and better plan on the spot. He was “jubilant” waiting for the target train. He didn’t know Obie Britt had betrayed him or that two deputies were waiting on the coal tender. When the deputies appeared out of the darkness, he shot them both with his Colt, spectacular shooting with a six-shooter on a moving train.
But he wasn’t famous for more than a week. Train robbing was going out of fashion. No one wrote a book about him, which is maybe what he wanted.
I keep thinking of those long evenings on Hicks’s ranch with the book in Obie Britt’s hands and Obie Britt’s voice droning on about desperate training-robbing men.
If nothing else, Daniel McCall was a reader led astray by books.