Author Topic: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th  (Read 1581 times)

Howard Brown

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How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« on: September 20, 2022, 06:05:54 pm »
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Howard Brown

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2022, 03:56:43 pm »
Instead of extracting all the posts in the thread's opening PDF.....I'll do this instead :

Three months ago, Yungstreet Andersen....a.k.a. M.A.Franzoi...asked this question and I replied.




This is what Yungstreet was referring to...from Edwin Borchard's 1932 'Convicting The Innocent'.




I went back over the post and reply and did a couple of things.

One of the things I did was check into this Detective Kilcauly.  His name was Michael Kilcauly.  Kilcauly died in 1902....the PDF at bottom contains his obituary.

On the one hand, he was involved in a good number of arrests ( 1891-1895) in New Jersey.  He was also suspended ( absence without leave) in 1895...making rather large busts of whorehouses, gambling dens, arrests at the Central Jersey Railroad Terminus, etc..

I checked into whether Kilcauley would have been an officer who, if the conductor's story was true, could be believed.  He seems to have been.

Here's my thought....
When Borchard wrote about Kilcauly going to the police ( NYPD ) and telling them about what the conductor had told him.....there might be an outside chance that the conductor, who would take the train the entire way to Easton (Pa), didn't mean that the man he referred to do did the same although it looks like that in the Borchard piece.

We know for certain that this conductor had not heard of the murder at the time this passenger who he was sure was the wanted man rode the train. Perhaps something about the passenger caused the conductor to remember him....there wouldn't have been a whole hell of a lot of people riding through Cranford at 3 AM ( ballpark estimate) on the 24th heading west to Pennsylvania.
It would have been terrific if more was known about when the conductor rode through Cranford on the morning of the 24th. 





« Last Edit: October 28, 2022, 04:47:17 pm by Howard Brown »

Michael Banks

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #2 on: October 30, 2022, 06:32:20 am »
Isn’t it possible, however slight, that the conductor might have known Frenchy #2 and so he reported seeing him after hearing that the police were looking for him?

Howard Brown

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2022, 07:03:53 am »
Isn’t it possible, however slight, that the conductor might have known Frenchy #2 and so he reported seeing him after hearing that the police were looking for him?

 Mike...

   I've been of the opinion that C.Kniclo/Glenmore Man/Farmhand had been in Manhattan before ( not just when he arrived by ship) for a while now.
    I think conductors would 'know' passengers in the way store clerks 'know' customers who come in frequently to their store(s).
  So, yes....I think it's possible that the conductor 'knew' C. Kniclo in that sort of way.

  Question is why he would tell Detective Kilcauley that he was certain that the wanted fugitive was this passenger.

   Again, we are left with anecdotal history that lacks just one or two crucial pieces.....in this case, the reason the conductor was so sure about that particular passenger.
 Was it the time of day and that he appeared somewhat disheveled or possibly having traces of blood on his person ?  Dropping off someone so early from the working class in a conservative town like Cranford who looked fishy would guarantee someone in a profession where facial recognition is somewhat important ( desk clerks at hotels; liquor stores, banks, waiters, etc.) to remember him..plus the question of whether this passenger was dropped of in Cranford. If not, then it wasn't C. Kniclo or the Farmhand.

 The conductor's recollections as told by Kilcauley through Borchard fail to tell us where he got off the train...
Would a conductor risk making himself look like an **** if NYPD had been alerted and asked him to give a description and most importantly, where the passenger departed if the story was just bluster on the part of choo-choo Charlie ?
« Last Edit: October 30, 2022, 07:34:56 am by Howard Brown »

Michael Banks

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2022, 02:49:43 pm »
Maybe he saw blood on his hands? It’s another intriguing dead end though How without a fuller version of what was said or even a description.

Howard Brown

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2022, 04:03:32 pm »
Maybe he saw blood on his hands? It’s another intriguing dead end though How without a fuller version of what was said or even a description.

That it is, boss. 
You might be right about the conductor spotting blood on the passenger if in fact is was our man.

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #6 on: November 07, 2022, 12:58:51 am »
I know you discount R Michael Gordon's work but, that being said, he quotes some source (the original report possibly) as saying the conductor thought the passenger was "up to no good". Gordon also says that the passenger was not covered in blood so it was probably a false lead (his words). (The American Murders of Jack the Ripper, p. 58)

Since he ultimately dismisses this New Jersey Line train suspect and the whole Danish Farmhand and Damon with the Key, even going so far as to say that the hotel key was never located, he might be reporting accurately from a credible source about what the conductor reported. Well maybe not the not covered in blood part but the in-quotations "up to no good" part which appears to be a direct quote from somewhere presumably said by the conductor.

Howard Brown

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #7 on: November 07, 2022, 03:03:21 pm »
I know you discount R Michael Gordon's work but, that being said, he quotes some source (the original report possibly) as saying the conductor thought the passenger was "up to no good". Gordon also says that the passenger was not covered in blood so it was probably a false lead (his words). (The American Murders of Jack the Ripper, p. 58)

That's sort of putting it mildly.

He isn't actually quoting anyone other than what he read in Edwin Borchard's book. If he had read it in another source, he'd have mentioned the source. He just added the 'up to no good' part because the brief paragraph in Borchard's book makes no mention whatsoever to how the man was behaving.

Of course he would dismiss the hotel key and suggest that the conductor's story was a false lead. He was trying to convince people that his suspect, George Chapman, was the murderer of women in NJ and Carrie Brown...and being Jack The Ripper.  Another wasted effort in a field full of financially minded hack theorists

I, personally, don't know what to make of the story the conductor told Det. Kilcauley. It might be true and then again it might be the conductor's reaction to someone out of his typical daily experience.

Since he ultimately dismisses this New Jersey Line train suspect and the whole Danish Farmhand and Damon with the Key, even going so far as to say that the hotel key was never located, he might be reporting accurately from a credible source about what the conductor reported. Well maybe not the not covered in blood part but the in-quotations "up to no good" part which appears to be a direct quote from somewhere presumably said by the conductor.


"Up to no good" is his invention. Again, if he had read it in a real source, he'd have shared the source. He's trying to push Chapman as the killer, so why not share the source to deflate the conductor's story ?


Read this review in Publisher's Weekly
He's like Melvin Harris with three books of essentially the same **** ( emphasis on ****) and out for a dollar.

Gordon's third book on the Ripper in four years (after, most recently, The Thames Torso Murders of Victorian London) is long on speculation and assertion, but short on evidence. He again points an accusing finger at Severin Klosowski, a murderer who used the metal antimony to kill three women. Klosowski was first identified as the legendary serial killer by Inspector Abberline, who had headed the investigation on the ground, and who told the colleague who arrested Klosowski,""Congratulations--you got Jack the Ripper at last."" Abberline never offered any direct evidence that Klosowski was the Ripper, though, and the theory has long been discounted by many, mainly on the grounds that it was highly unlikely that the same killer would have switched from savage mutilations to slow-acting poison. Gordon is unable to offer anything substantive to bolster his case, and, in this volume, his effort to find some proof becomes even more of a stretch, as he expands on references in his earlier works to accuse Klosowski of four murders in New York and New Jersey in the early 1890s. The author's habit of making definitive statements without identifying his sources weakens his case; one suspects he is simply attributing to Klosowski the unsolved murders that occurred when he was in the U.S. Gordon's own chronology has Klosowski committing his first American murder within hours of arriving in a strange city for the first time, an impulsive act at odds with the Ripper's careful use of his familiarity with the East End to elude detection. General readers interested either in objective overviews of the known facts or carefully reasoned armchair solutions would be better served elsewhere.


https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-275-98155-6









« Last Edit: November 07, 2022, 03:05:08 pm by Howard Brown »

guest5

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #8 on: November 07, 2022, 04:50:14 pm »
I see now in the above passage that Gordon says that the conductor "seemed to feel" that the passenger was up to no good. That would eliminate a written source like the actual report and any legitimate quotation of the conductor's words, spoken or written. Gordon was just speculating on why he reported on the passenger. It's kind of a weak speculation which you would expect from someone who doesn't believe the lead.

I have to go with Mike's speculation and suggest that the passenger had blood on his clothes. Didn't he have a cutaway coat and wouldn't that expose any blood on his pants? And this is the same train line the "Danish Farmhand" would have taken, isn't it? I don't know that anything about the rest of his appearance or behavior would elicit suspicion in retrospect unless the conductor was extremely good at reading people.


Howard Brown

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #9 on: November 07, 2022, 05:08:46 pm »
I have to go with Mike's speculation and suggest that the passenger had blood on his clothes. Didn't he have a cutaway coat and wouldn't that expose any blood on his pants? And this is the same train line the "Danish Farmhand" would have taken, isn't it? I don't know that anything about the rest of his appearance or behavior would elicit suspicion in retrospect unless the conductor was extremely good at reading people.

 Mike's suggestion may well be correct assuming the story has some meat to it and, again, not an over-active imagination on the conductor's part..
Yes, he had a cutaway coat.
The train would have been the CJR...Central Jersey Railroad...also referred to as the CJRR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Railroad_of_New_Jersey_Terminal



Yes, it is the railroad the Farmhand would have taken as it would drop him off 1.4 miles from 3 Madison Avenue in Cranford...where Damon lived.

I asked my friend Bernie Wagenblast the following just now to see, once and for all, if that train which stopped in Cranford went on to Easton Pa.

...Did the Central Jersey rail line which landed on Union Street in Cranford....continue on to Easton, Pa in 1891 ?  Sorry for such an off the wall question, but as per usual, the gang are trying to determine if a story from 1932 in which a conductor on the CJR claimed the 'farmhand' who worked for George Damon was on his train and that he reported it to Jersey City detective Michael Kilcauley...







Central Railroad of New Jersey's Liberty Street Ferry Terminal in New York City, ca. 1900







« Last Edit: November 07, 2022, 05:21:26 pm by Howard Brown »

Howard Brown

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #10 on: November 07, 2022, 05:38:01 pm »
Bernie comes through again....hell of a railroad historian and a really decent fellow.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Wagenblast

"Hi, How. Not a problem. Yes, this map from 1878 shows that the central railroad of New Jersey went all the way out beyond Scranton( Pa.)".

This means the train passing through Cranford did have a stop in Easton, Pa.


guest5

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #11 on: November 10, 2022, 01:22:21 pm »
If the train arrives in Cranford at 3:30, doesn’t this put it well within the time-range of suspect Glenmore Man, even if he was at the Glenmore Hotel as late as 2 am?

I’d put the departure of the train from Jersey City at around 3am.

Howard Brown

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Re: How The Farmhand Returned To Cranford On April 24th
« Reply #12 on: November 10, 2022, 02:55:54 pm »
If the train arrives in Cranford at 3:30, doesn’t this put it well within the time-range of suspect Glenmore Man, even if he was at the Glenmore Hotel as late as 2 am?

I’d put the departure of the train from Jersey City at around 3am.


Yes indeed it does, Yung.  Bernie Wagenblast told me that trains arrived at Cranford in the 3:30ish time frame.  Some of what we're discussing is on the original thread or in a PDF that I made.

It was and is only a mile from Chatham Square ( where the Glenmore was) to Liberty Street ( ferry)...plus he didn't have to run or make himself conspicuous since the corpse wouldn't be
discovered for another 8 hours after he left the Glenmore en route to the ferry.

I'm also with you on the time the choo choo left the station in Jersey City.