I am the absolute queen of rabbit holes, and this story is no exception. I grew up in Kansas City and vividly remember a bank called Boatmen’s Bank. The bank had a big steamboat as its logo, and I was recently reminded of it when I saw the logo on some memorial bricks outside the City Market in Kansas City. Being a tour guide at the Arabia Steamboat Museum, I naturally wondered if the bank had any real association with steamboats, or if it was just a name. That search led to this story. It turns out that, yes, the bank really was associated with steamboats. Boatmen’s was founded in St. Louis in 1847 as a bank that catered to boatmen and other laborers. It allowed them to make small deposits and earn interest at a time when most banks primarily served merchants and wealthy businessmen. According to Wikipedia, it was the oldest bank established west of the Mississippi River. The bank no longer exists as Boatmen’s. In 1996 it was purchased by NationsBank, which later merged with Bank of America and took on that name. Unfortunately, that means the official Boatmen’s website, and its fascinating “Our History” section, is gone. I was still able to glean a few interesting nuggets from other sources. One of those nuggets? According to the company’s official history (though I have not been able to substantiate it anywhere else), there was a run on the bank in 1855. Supposedly, the panic was halted only after a local madam deposited $4,500 in gold from her bordello. The other story I found has much more evidence behind it. It took a lot of searching through Newspapers.com, but I think I pieced together most of what happened. This story begins on April 5, 1854. That evening, the employees closed the bank as normal. They locked the money in the safe, secured the keys, and left for the night. Most of the employees left around the same time, but one, Joseph Thornton, stayed behind. The next morning, they arrived to find that the front door was not locked. It had swung shut, but opened as soon as they pushed on it. It wasn’t long before they realized the safe had also been opened. Nearly $19,000 had disappeared from the bank’s vault overnight. Some of it was gold and silver, but most of it consisted of Missouri State Bank notes. From the very beginning, it looked like an inside job. There was no sign of forced entry, and the safe itself showed no evidence of being tampered with. It was secured by an intricate system involving two safes and five different keys, yet experts determined it had been opened normally and not forced open. To add insult to injury, April 5 had been “discount day” at the bank. During a discount day, people could exchange bank notes from regional banks for gold and silver. Naturally, that meant there was an unusually large amount of paper currency sitting in the vault that evening. The bank offered a reward for the return of the money, but the biggest clues eventually came from one of its own tellers. Much of what follows comes from Thornton’s trial in May 1858. During the trial, teller Samuel Gaylord testified that Joseph Thornton had opened an account at Boatmen’s shortly after the robbery and kept it open for about a year. Oddly enough, the total amount he deposited during that year came to almost exactly $19,000. That wasn’t the only thing that raised suspicions. Gaylord testified that Thornton frequently deposited Missouri State Bank notes that were dirty, wet, and appeared to have been buried. Concerned, Gaylord brought the matter to the attention of his superiors, and they began watching Thornton more closely. He also noted another strange habit. Thornton would sometimes make a withdrawal one day, only to deposit the exact same bills back into his account the next day, often mixed in with more of the muddy, worn notes. The mystery deepened with the testimony of Joseph Charless. Charless was one of the most respected men in St. Louis. He served as President of the State Bank of Missouri, was one of the founders of Washington University, and sat on the Board of Westminster College. During his testimony, Charless said that Thornton had once brought him a bundle of Missouri State Bank notes that were dirty, damp, and stuck together. When Charless asked where they had come from, Thornton claimed they had been given to him by a steamboat man. When pressed, Thornton explained that the steamboat had been pulling tree stumps from the riverbank. When one stump was pulled free, a bundle of money was discovered underneath it. Rather than deposit the money, he told Thornton that if the story were true, he should advertise the discovery in the newspaper so the rightful owner could be found. He returned the bundle to Thornton and that was the end of it. Eventually, Thornton was asked to resign from Boatmen’s and was later put on trial for the robbery. After hearing the testimony, however, the jury deliberated only briefly before returning a verdict of not guilty. But the damage had already been done. Thornton had lost his position at Boatmen’s. His reputation was ruined, and he struggled to find work. He blamed Joseph Charless. On the morning of June 4, 1859, everything came to a head. Joseph Charless was walking along Market Street when Thornton, who had apparently been waiting for him, stepped out and confronted him. According to witnesses, Thornton exchanged a few words with Charless before pulling a pistol and shooting him twice. Thornton was captured almost immediately and was nearly hung by an angry mob before police intervened. Charless died the following day from his wounds. Thornton went to trial that September and was found guilty of murder. He attempted to plead insanity, appealed his conviction, and even sought a stay of execution from the governor. None of those efforts succeeded. On November 11, 1859, Joseph Thornton was hanged for the murder of Joseph Charless. Whether Thornton actually stole the money from Boatmen’s Bank will probably never be known with absolute certainty. The jury said the evidence wasn’t enough to convict him, and history has to leave room for that possibility. Still, it’s hard to ignore the remarkable chain of events: a mysterious robbery, nearly $19,000 in muddy bank notes, an unbelievable story involving a steamboat and a tree stump, an acquittal, and finally a murder committed in broad daylight. And all of this because I wondered about an old bank logo… Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boatmen%27s_Bancshares https://news.wcmo.edu/westeryears-the-trustee-tragedy/ https://banks.data.fdic.gov/bankfind-suite/bankfind/details/4587?bankfindLevelThreeView=History https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/23596 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis, Missouri, Fri, May 5, 1848 · Page 3 The St Louis Republic, St. Louis, Missouri, Mon, Apr 10, 1854 · Page 2 Hannibal Daily Messenger, Hannibal, Missouri, Tue, Apr 11, 1854 · Page 2 Columbia Herald-Statesman, Columbia, Missouri, Fri, Apr 14, 1854 · Page 2 St. Louis Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, Missouri, Mon, Jun 6, 1859 · Page 2 The St Louis Republic, St. Louis, Missouri, Mon, Jun 6, 1859 · Page 2 Hannibal Weekly Messenger, Hannibal, Missouri, Thu, Jun 9, 1859 · Page 3 The Charleston Courier, Charleston, Missouri, Fri, Jun 10, 1859 · Page 2 The St Louis Republic, St. Louis, Missouri, Sun, May 23, 1858 · Page 3 Glasgow Weekly Times, Glasgow, Missouri, Thu, Nov 10, 1859 · Page 3 The St Louis Republic, St. Louis, Missouri, Sat, Nov 12, 1859 · Page 3 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fantasticfootnotes.substack.com
