1921 Car Theft Ring Foiled

Brunswick police chief protecting the public

by Brian Swartz

Asharp-eyed Brunswick police officer shut down a daring, but slightly incompetent gang of car thieves working across the Northeast in autumn 1921. On Tuesday, October 18, John Adams of Potsdam, New York noticed that his Ford touring car had gone missing. He certainly had not lent the expensive automobile to anyone, so he reported it stolen, and the Potsdam Police Department issued an APB. Brunswick Police Chief William B. Edwards was on duty on Tuesday morning, October 15, when Topsham selectman E. W. Mallett reported that someone had entered his garage overnight and stolen a blanket, a can con- taining five gallons of oil, and two inner tubes. Edwards realized that based on the theft, someone’s automobile had suffered two flat tires and a major oil leak. Now where would such a damaged vehicle be located?

Edwards soon stopped by the Eagle Garage in Brunswick. Inside was a badly damaged Ford with “a broken mud guard, [a] bent forward axle, [and a] damaged running guard and radiator.” The Vermont license plate attached to the Ford’s rear read “30-146,” and someone had written “the same number” on the “pasteboard card” attached to the front of the touring car. Its lights were illegal in Maine.

Edwards queried the mechanics, who reported that about 11 p.m., Monday a man had called the garage to send a tow truck to bring in the Ford, badly damaged after colliding with another vehicle “near the cement bridge on the Federal highway in Topsham.” Edwards decided to wait.

A short while later “three young men” entered the Eagle Garage and asked the mechanics how the Ford repairs were coming along. Edwards approached the men and asked their names. William James Tyro was from Cornwall, Ontario and William Kennedy McGatrey was from somewhere in New Jersey. William E. Kersey was from Rumford.

Let’s see your drivers’ licenses, please, Edwards asked.

The three men apparently patted their pockets and checked their wallets before admitting they could not produce one single license. Edwards promptly ran them to the Brunswick police station and locked ’em up that early afternoon.

A message brought Selectman Mallett to the Eagle Garage. Searching the Ford, he found his two missing inner tubes. Thieves the trio definitely were.

Edwards questioned the suspects, who admitted they had picked up Kersey in Rumford, where the two outof-staters had arrived and conned the locals out of money. A strike was under way at the Rumford paper mill; claiming they were strike-breakers, Tyro and McGatrey told F. E. Kenney, the strike committee’s treasurer, that they would leave town if given money to buy gas and oil.

Promised a free ride to Boston, where he hoped to find work, Kersey collected $8 from unsuspecting Rumford residents. He climbed into the Ford touring car, and Tyro and McGatrey headed south. Edwards contacted the Rumford police, who “gave Kersey an excellent recommendation,” so the Brunswick chief let him go.

As for that Ford: We paid a guy named Kenney $100 for that car in Barre, Vermont, Tyro and McGatrey claimed. Nah, that doesn’t fly, Edwards figured. He called the Barre police chief, “who had never heard of any of the trio.” Edwards then called the Vermont secretary of state’s office and learned that the license plates had been issued to Harry F. McLain, who lived in Topsham, Vermont.

Summoning witnesses to the Brunswick police station on Wednesday, Edwards individually questioned Tyro and

McGatrey. Their stories switched back and forth until they realized the jig was up.

I confess, each perp admitted. They claimed that they and Kenney (a madeup person, his name based on F. E. Kenney’s) had stolen Adams’ Ford. Kenney (who had a license) supposedly drove them to Burlington, Vermont, where they substituted the stolen Vermont plates for the New York plates. Angry that Kenney would not let them drive, Tyro and McGatrey again “stole” the Ford after their companion stepped into a local store.

The perps meandered south to Boston, then north to “Lewiston, Rumford and other places” and hoped to sell the Ford for $150. After selling the car, Tyro and McGatrey intended to steal a Maine-licensed car, attach the Vermont plates to it, and sell that stolen car in New York State.

Edwards telegraphed the Potsdam (cont. on page 18)

(cont. from page 17) police on Wednesday, the two perps waived extradition, and accompanied by the angry John Adams, Officer Stone of Potsdam arrived in Brunswick by train on Thursday to take Tyro and McGatrey to the Empire State. Meanwhile, Edwards found two suitcases belonging to the perps; inside were new suits, “about two dozen pair of men’s silk hose[,] and a number of fine handkerchiefs in their original wrappers.” Tyro and McGatrey were also clothing thieves!

Adams was driving when the repaired Ford rolled out of Brunswick on Sunday, October 30. Officer Stone handcuffed together the adjoining hands of Tyro and McGatrey and then handcuffed their outboard hands “to the sides of the automobile.”

The quartet stopped that night in St. Johnsbury, Vermont (the local police tossed the perps in the local jail) and paused briefly in Topsham, Vermont on Monday to return McLain’s stolen license plates. Then Adams and Stone delivered Tyro and McGatrey into the