Robbery and Fire at Inventor Daniel Drawbaugh's House

"Daring Robbers Visit Daniel Drawbaugh's Residence at Eberly's Mills" ran the headline in the newspaper. Daniel Drawbaugh, known as "The Edison of Cumberland County," for his invention of the electrical telephone in the 1860s, was 76 years-old at the time of this incident.

It was a little after one o'clock in the morning on May 5, 1903, when Mrs. Drawbaugh heard a noise in her bedroom. She woke up and saw a man standing by her husband's bed with a gun pointed at him. She screamed, and the gunman said, "Be quiet woman, or I'll blow your brains out." The yelling woke Mr. Drawbaugh, and when Mrs. Drawbaugh ran to the window and yelled for help, the gunman rushed downstairs and out into the garden. Roy Drawbaugh, their grandson, ran to the door and fired a gun at the man, but he and his accomplice got away. Chisel marks on several doors and windows showed where thieves had tried to get into the house. They finally broke open the kitchen door, and once in the house they ransacked several bureaus and desks.

This was not the first time thieves had tried to steal Drawbaugh's plans. "To protect himself he built a safe in the workshop which he erected some distance from the hamlet along the Yellow Breeches creek so that he could work undisturbed."¹ The newspaper reported "That the little village was excited by the affair yesterday and there were guns loaded in many houses last night. Mr. Drawbaugh is highly esteemed by his neighbors, and they showed a keen interest in the discussion of the attempt to rob the inventor, whom they affectionately call 'Pop' Drawbaugh."²

The thieves, determined to get Drawbaugh's plans, were thought to have set fire to his house the next day. Although Daniel Drawbaugh's owned the house, his son Charles was living there. Early in the morning Drawbaugh's grandnephew, William saw smoke coming from the house. He raised the alarm, and when he broke open the door, flames shot out. Daniel and his wife were away at the time and when Mrs. Drawbaugh learned of this she was "Completely prostrated."³ "The house is of stone," stated Mr. Drawbaugh in an interview, "and until a month ago was occupied by my Charles who is now in Waynesboro. The furniture and furnishings were still in the house, and I believe it was set fire in the cellar. The front part of the house was burned out pretty well, the front steps being completely burned out. I don't know what the loss is. It isn't that that bother me."⁴ Other parts of the house that were damaged were the beams in the center of the cellar, the stairway was burned up to the second floor and also the walls and in the hall at the top of the stairway.

The newspaper reported the Mr. Drawbaugh went to Harrisburg to get insurance for his houses, his machine shop and "the little frame building in which he has perfected so many inventions," but no one would risk insuring them.⁵ Mr. Drawbaugh told the reporter "I can only think that they entered my home to look for the plans of a wireless telephone which I am now perfecting... I've been working on the wireless for months."

Drawbugh was well known in his own time. The Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper dedicated a whole page to him their Sunday, February 0, 1902 edition with photos of him and some of his inventions.⁶ He continued to work and died in Camp Hill at the age of 84. Much has been written about Daniel Drawbaugh and can be found online. The Society's museum houses several of his inventions.