Train Holdup 1907

 

George Speake, Who Obstructed the Track and Fired Upon a Freight Engine Near Providence Forge, is in Jail Here. 

 -George Speake, of Baltimore, was arrested yesterday morning at 9 o’clock at Providence Forge and brought to RICHMOND and lodged In the county jail.

 Speake attempted to hold up a Chesapeake and Ohio east-bound freight train yesterday morning as the train was nearing Providence Forge. The engineer noticed some obstructions on the track and later saw, after whistling for the brakes, that a man was standing in the middle of the track. As the engine approached the man raised his hand and began firing. Conductor Cobb and Brakeman Brenan caught the man and transferred him to a passenger train bound for RICHMOND.

-News Leader, May 6, 1907

The last "major" American train robbery was attempted on November 25, 1937, outside El Paso Texas against a passenger train of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The two would be robbers were overcome by passengers and badly beaten for their effort.

Edmund Pendleton Turner- From Harvard to Texas by Way of the Peninsula Pt. I

Death of Captain E. P. Turner 

Captain Edmund Pendleton Turner, for a long time of Houston Texas, died last Wednesday in Sewanee, Tenn., from the effects of a severe stroke of paralysis which he suffered more than a year ago. His remains were brought to Virginia by his son Pendleton Turner, and interred in the family burying ground at Oropaz*(sic), New Kent county.  

Captain Turner was born in New Kent County, Virginia, 71 years ago, was therefore, of the right age to serve the South in her great struggle of which found him the captain of his company.  

He attended the University of Virginia for several sessions as an academic student, and later graduated in law from one of the Northern institutions. Like many others of his time he went South, and practiced his profession in the city of Houston, Texas, for many years. He is survived by a widow, two children, one brother, Dr. John D. Turner, of Lenexa(sic), Virginia and one sister, Mrs. L.T. Huflman, of the same place.

-Virginia Gazette, 10 August 1907

Edmund Pendleton Turner the son of John Pendleton Turner (1801-1870 buried in New Kent).

His educational career was rather more varied than mentioned here. He attended first Richmond College, than later the University of Virginia receiving his AB from that institution in 1859. The "Northern institution," is Harvard Law where he received his LLB in 1861.

He returned to Virginia in the summer of 1861 and enlisted at Brick House in Captain Melville Vaiden's company of New Kent cavalry.

*Orapax plantation which is now essentially Chickahominy Shores subdivision

More to come . . .