The McKeehan’s Bound and Gagged by Four Masked Men

It was bitter cold on the evening of January 20, 1879. Farmer George McKeehan and his elderly sisters were sitting in the kitchen keeping warm when four masked men wielding clubs burst into the house and threatened to harm them if they made any noise. The men bound and gagged them with strips of sheets they tore up, and then they searched the house for valuables. When they finished turning the house upside down, they bagged up their booty and disappeared leaving McKeehan and his sisters tied up. The fire died out and the three of them spent the night in the cold. When daylight returned, Mr. McKeehan was able to chew through the cords that were binding him and release his sisters. They discovered that the masked men had also stolen the horse and sleigh.¹

The Carlisle Evening Herald’s report of the robbery added more details. Mr. McKeehan lived “about one-half mile from Kerrsville, to the north of and in sight of the C.V.R.R.” His twin sisters were living with him; Miss Mary Jane Myers and Mrs. Rebecca E. McKeehan. The robbers gagged them and bound their hands and feet and “placed them in an adjoining room where there was no fire.” The paper reported that “towards daylight Mr. McKeehan managed to unloosen his cords with his teeth,” [and] he liberated his sisters. Their wrists and ankles were considerably cut where they were bound.” A $200 reward was offered for the arrest and conviction of the parties.²

In February, Robert Brown of Perry County, formerly of Carlisle, was arrested for being implicated in the robbery. Harrisburg detectives Anderson and Rote also arrested George Henry Ulrich and Charles Heller both described as “well dressed tramps and supposed to be members of an organized gang of housebreakers.”³

The case came to court in April against George Henry Ulrich, alias “George the Bavarian,” Charles Heller, alias “Frankford the butcher,” and Charles Wilkins, alias “Olenberger, alias Holstein.” District Attorney Emig read the lengthy bill of indictment, charging them with stealing more than $1000 in money and goods.” Ulrich and Heller pleaded guilty, while Wilkins pleaded not guilty. Four other men were implicated but were still at large. The newspaper described Ulrich and Heller as both “fine-looking, well-dressed young men, and said to be splendid German scholars. Heller, the smaller of the two, is said to be a ‘bad man.’ He is wanted in Lebanon county having been concerned in the ‘Logan robbery.’ ” The men, who hadn’t been in this country for very long were probably involved in the Eckert robbery in Silver Spring Township. “They are members of one of the worst gangs of villains that ever cursed our county.” They would be headed for Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, but the newspaper thought that it was a “pity we hadn’t a whipping post for men of this description.”⁴

These men were not going to prison if they could help it, and they attempted to break out of jail. Several newspapers reported the attempted jail break on April ninth. The Carlisle Weekly Herald reported that the men, “considered desperadoes were placed in cell No. 19, in the upper corridor, on the west side of the prison. This cell was regarded as doubly secure, as it was lined with heavy oak plank…Word was received from Lancaster, “that a certain party known as Charley Wilkins, (a Carlisle brush maker) with a half-dozen aliases, intended to furnish these men with tools with which to make their escape.” The District Attorney was informed and went to the jail with several officials, and a search of the cell revealed the means by which they planned to escape. They discovered that one of the chaff bags was filled with plaster and stone. They had converted a table knife into a saw and with it had sawed through the three-inch oak plank and removed the plaster and stone mortar and loosed the outside stones. They also found a rope in the cell that they had made out of ticking. The men said that they “dug out their cell three weeks ago,” and if they were found guilty, they could escape before they were sent to the penitentiary in Philadelphia.⁵ The April 11, 1879, edition of The Valley Sentinel gives a more detailed description of the cell.

Ulrich and Heller were sentenced to eight years in the Eastern State Penitentiary.⁶ They were determined not to go to prison, and they made one last attempt to escape. “As deputy Sheriff Shrom was conducting the McKeehan robbers to the eastern penitentiary they became obstreperous and declared they would go no further. When the deputy objected to their leaving the cars [train] they both jumped to their feet, but when informed that any further movement would be at the risk of their lives, they resumed their seats and gave no more trouble.”⁷