Dakota Datebook
Sherlock and Watson Save the Day
June 9, 2022 — Today’s story is about a train robbery west of New Salem. The characters who saved the day were named Sherlock and Watson. On June 6th, 1890, two masked highwaymen stopped a Northern Pacific train after boarding it at New Salem, about 20 miles west of Mandan. They climbed over the engine, and after firing two shots, convinced the engineer and fireman to stop and detach the engine, express car and mail car. Then they pulled away, leaving the coach cars behind.
After some distance, they stopped at another spot where several partners in crime were waiting. They forced the engineer and fireman to batter down the door to the express car and unlock the safe—only to discover the clerk, who should’ve been inside was gone, and the safe was empty!
The robbers made for the mail car and fled with seven sacks of registered mail and other valuables.
Back in New Salem, Sheriff Hayes organized a posse; four days later, they caught one Charles Bailey, whose horse gave out while trying to cross the Grand River. Bailey surrendered, and upon threat of death, confessed five men hatched the plan in Clay County TX, perfected the details in Nebraska and launched the crime from Mandan.
Afterwards, they split the plunder and split up—two headed east, two headed west and Bailey struck out for the Black Hills. Bailey offered the sheriff a bribe worth more than the price on his head, but Hayes told him he was in the business of capturing criminals, not letting them go. Bailey was later convicted and sentenced to eight years in the penitentiary at Sioux Falls SD.
Getting back to that empty express car and the safe. . .when the robbers stopped the train the first time, the mail clerk, a Mr. C.D. Sherlock, heard the two gunshots and feared the worst. He emptied the safe, stowing the goods in different spots in the express car. Then he got out, locked the door and headed back toward
New Salem. The robbers figured he had escaped with the safe contents and didn’t bother to search the car. For this quick thinking, our Mr. Sherlock was hailed a hero.
Our Inspector Watkins, on the other hand, would have to wait five months for his accolades. On November 12th, the Fargo Forum reported, “United States Detective Watkins arrived here tonight with John W. Newberry*, one of the New Salem, ND, train robbers, whom he had tracked over 11,000 miles and finally located near Philadelphia.”
On this date in 1891, almost exactly a year after the robbery, Newberry went on trial in Fargo. Bailey, his partner, had just escaped from a train that was bringing him up from Sioux Falls to testify. According to the Bismarck Tribune, Inspector Watkins testified that Newberry tried to convince him help him escape by giving him a steel saw, a horse, and a blank warrant that he could use by posing as a U.S. Marshal searching for himself. Mr. Watkins refused.
* Also listed as Walter E. Newberry and William Newberry.
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