Nice Catch!

It was 2:30 in the morning, October 27, 1915. Somewhere in Chicago, a Winton Six from the Ashland Motor Livery Co. was being piloted along the dark streets by a company driver. Crowded into the seats behind him were the seven young people who'd hired the car — five men and two women.

One of the passengers called out to the driver that a tire seemed to be going flat. The driver stopped the car and jumped out to check the tires. Once out on the pavement, he found himself looking down the barrel of a revolver held by one of his young passengers. The man holding the gun relieved him of eight dollars and pair of gloves. Another passenger climbed into the driver's seat and gunned the engine. The car took off down the street. The driver was left on the pavement, dumbfounded, watching his car and the band of thieves disappear into the night.

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Four hours later, a car carrying four Ross Township farmers was heading out of Merrillville, just starting a trip to Chicago. John Miller was at the wheel — it was his car — and his passengers were Charles Chester, Henry Batterman and Lef Walters. They were on Broadway, northbound, when they spotted a curious sight: a Winton Six standing by the road, in flames. They stopped to investigate. Then they noticed another curious sight: a small group of young people on foot, leaving the area with suspicious haste — five men and two women. The farmers jumped out of the car and ran after them.

They caught the two young women and three of the young men quickly enough. John Miller, Henry Batterman and Lef Walters escorted the captives back to where John's car stood, intending to hold them until the law showed up.

But the other two young men were still running. Now Charles Chester threw off his coat and kept up the pursuit alone. Somehow he got hold of a shotgun, and as the chase moved north over open fields, one of the fugitives proved himself armed as well by taking a potshot at the engineer of the passing Grand Trunk milk train. And still Charles kept after them! And what is more surprising, he caught them, too — he, 45 years old — when the armed man either ran out of ammunition or decided his revolver was no match for a shotgun, and the two young fugitives surrendered. Charles turned them over to Ross Township Trustee A.M. Boyd, who took them to the county jail at Crown Point.

Meanwhile, back at the car, John, Henry and Lef were guarding the five young prisoners as they waited for the sheriff to show up and take charge. But they had made an amateur's mistake — they had neglected to search their prisoners for weapons. Suddenly one of the young men pulled out a revolver. The unarmed farmers could only stand back helplessly as the car thieves climbed into John's car and took off north on Broadway. And that was the condition Charles found his friends in when he returned.

The alarm had spread. The sheriff and deputies came on the scene. Someone called to alert the Gary police, since the stolen car seemed to be heading in that direction. Our four farmers got a lift from law enforcement, and once again the chase was on.

At 48th and Broadway in Gary, they came upon John's car abandoned by the side of the road, one of its tires sliced open. Evidently the thieves had bailed and taken off on foot. The area was less built up then, and there were wooded areas around for the fugitives to hide in.

But there were plenty of people to look for them, too. By now dozens of local farmers had shown up, many of them armed. They spread out through the woods, searching.

According to Charles Chester, credit for the ultimate capture belonged to a small dog that had joined the searchers. The fugitives had hidden themselves in a brush pile, invisible to human eyes but not undetectable to a canine nose. Once the little dog pointed them out, it was all over. Hopeless outnumbered by armed men, the thieves gave up and went meekly to the jail in Gary.


Sources:
♦ "Farmers Catch Auto Thieves." Hobart Gazette 29 Oct. 1915.
♦ "Personal and Local Mention." Hobart News 28 Oct. 1915.