100 years ago in The Record
Saturday, July 28, 1917
A robbery attempt tonight in the North Central section of Troy puts an elderly grocer in the hospital in serious condition.
As tomorrow’s Sunday Budget goes to press, the Troy police continue to hunt for the two men responsible for the “dastardly attack” on William Windsor, the “aged and respected” proprietor of a market at the corner of River Street and Ingalls Avenue. The Budget reporter estimates Windsor’s age at “between 75 and 80 years of age.”
The two men, both considered strangers in the neighborhood, enter Windsor’s store around 10:30 p.m., just before closing time. Before the advent of self-service markets, customers must place their orders at the counter to be filled by the grocer or his clerks.
Asked for a dozen eggs, Windsor goes to a rear storeroom to fetch them, followed by the strangers.
“As he bent over to get the eggs, one of the ruffians quickly drew a blackjack from his back trousers’ pocket and struck him over the head,” the Budget reports, “The blow was a heavy one, so sharp in fact that the leaden slug with which the end of the weapon was loaded was knocked out.
“Despite this fact Mr. Windsor was not rendered unconscious, but grappled with his assailants in a manner which would have done credit to a much younger man. Handicapped by his years, however, and by the fact that the odds in numbers were two to one, the grocer was finally clubbed into submission, though not until five wicked blows had been planted on his skull.”
Windsor’s sister, who lives upstairs, hears the “rumpus” and finds the culprits rifling her brother’s pockets.
“It had been Mr. Windsor’s custom to carry his wallet, containing the store money, in the rear pocket of his trousers, a fact which the pair of thugs undoubtedly knew,” the reporter notes. Luckily, Windsor isn’t carrying his wallet tonight, and the robbers flee the scene empty-handed.
WANTED TO ARREST COP
Thomas Murphy of Watervliet “may be able to arrest policemen in his respected city, but he learned to his own satisfaction that he has absolutely no chance of doing it in Troy,” the Budget reports.
In Troy, Murphy encounters Sergeant Pilsworth of the Second Precinct on Third Street. He asks the uniformed officer to direct him to a policeman, and takes Pilsworth’s confused silence for insolence. Declaring Pilsworth under arrest, Murphy attempts to commandeer a passing automobile to take the man to headquarters.
“Somebody was finally locked up,” a reporter writes, “and it wasn’t the policeman.” A chastened Murphy vows to “spend the remainder of his life in Watervliet.”