THIS DAY IN 1918 IN THERECORD

Thursday, March 21, 1918. When a Johnsonville shoe repairman was found dead in a coal shed adjoining his shop yesterday, local reports initially described his death as a suicide. When Rensselaer County district attorney John P. Taylor inspects the scene today, he draws a different conclusion. Charles B. Quackenbush lived above his shop in a twoframe building. “As far as can be learned he never had any disputes with his neighbors, being content to take care of his own affairs,” The Record reports. Quackenbush was last seen alive last Monday morning. His body was found after two girls went to pick up shoes yesterday morning and found the door locked. Finding it locked again later, they looked through a window and “were horrified to see the shop in disorder and blood all over the floor.” A policeman opened the shop with a pass key and followed the trail of blood to the shed. How anyone could describe what the officer found as a suicide may be the biggest mystery of the case, but it’s more likely that someone called it suicide solely on the evidence of the blood on the floor. Taylor learns that Quackenbush was found on the floor of the shed, with his feet resting on the ledge of a coal bin. “A club or some blunt instrument had been used to render Quackenbush unconscious, while in order to complete his work the assailant had thrust a large file, such as is used by cobblers, through the man’s neck, onequarter of it protruding from the back of the neck.”

Whoever killed Quackenbush most likely entered his shop through a rear door and first beat and then killed him there. “Fearing to be seen from the street, he then dragged the body to the shed in the rear where he proceeded to turn all the pockets of Quackenbush’s clothing inside out. Not alone were the pockets emptied of whatever money they held, but the victim’s shirt was torn open and his trousers ripped in many places.”

Quackenbush was known to carry large amounts of money in his clothes. “It was an open secret that the man had accumulated quite a sum of money,” our reporter notes, “One of his characteristics was to exhibit large sums of money, while his ‘ hobby’ was to obtain ‘gold-backs’ or bills of large denominations, there being times when he carried from $1,000 to $1,500.”

Johnsonville residents tell Taylor that “within the past few weeks a number of strangers, shabbily dressed, have visited” the area. They believe that one of these tramps most likely killed Quackenbush.

- Kevin Gilbert