The Leesburg Robberies

“BOUND AND GAGGED-Three Masked Men Blow Open Abram Stamey’s Safe at Leesburg” headlined an article on page three in the November 6, 1902 issue of The Evening Sentinel newspaper.

Leesburg is a small village on Walnut Bottom Road in western Cumberland County, approximately four miles from Shippensburg. Henry Stamy relocated his family from Franklin County to Leesburg in the 1840s. His son Abram grew up in Leesburg and kept a store on its main street for many years. Abram never married and lived alone in his three-story brick residence and store.

Sometime between three and four o’clock in the morning of Thursday, November 6, Stamy awoke to find three masked men with revolvers and razors standing by his bed. After striking him in the face when he cried out, they gagged him, tied his hands behind his back and tied his feet to the bed posts. After ransacking his bedroom, they went into his store, bored a hole in his safe, crammed in some dynamite and blew the safe open. They got away with about $500 and eight watches.

When Mr. Stamy was eventually able to free himself, he went to the window and called for help. The newspaper reported that there was no clue to the identity of the robbers, but it was reported that “suspicious characters have been lurking in the neighborhood.”

Mr. Stamy’s store was robbed again in November 1907. The newspaper reported that his store had been robbed several years before and the burglars were sentenced to the penitentiary. During the current robbery, the burglars broke in through the front door and stole boots, tobacco and other items. Four men were suspected of the robbery, John Crider, Samuel Bailey, Harry Patterson and John Bailey.¹ Found guilty, Crider, Samuel Bailey and Patterson were sentenced to nine months in the county jail while John Bailey was sentenced to five years in the Eastern Penitentiary.²

On December 22, 1908 court proceedings were held in Carlisle for the appointment of a guardian for Mr. Stamy. “Dr. J. Bruce McCreary of Shippensburg, Harry Allen, who is employed by Mr. Stamy; Mr. Clever, and a son [sic] of Mr. Stamy all testified that A. C. Stamy was a man of weak mind, suffering from paresis, and a man who could easily be imposed upon. It is stated that Mr. Stamy recently sold his store to strangers for a mere song, so to speak, and that the goods were removed in short order.”³

Mr. Stamy died at The Philadelphia Hospital for the Insane on July 8, 1909.⁴ His obituary noted that he was unmarried and survived by his brother, Reverend J. F. Stamy of Leesburg. He is buried in Shippensburg’s Spring Hill Cemetery.⁵