That ole black horse just ain’t where he’s supposed to be…
…as Dan Powers, a livery stable operator of Jackson, Michigan, discovered after lending his horse and rig to a “Frank Cook,” who subsequently hoofed it out of town. Powers made a bee-line to the sheriff’s residence huffing and puffing about his missing property.
It wasn’t as shocking as a hatchet murder, but nonetheless, it was a crime significant enough to spur Jackson County Sheriff Chauncy S. Webster, who served one term from 1876-1878, to issue the nineteenth-century version of the all-points bulletin: reward postcards. Webster printed the cards on January 11, 1877—just three days after the crime—and his clerk addressed them to sheriffs located within a two-day’s ride of Jackson.
Webster’s APB postcards had parallels across the country as authorities routinely used the US Mail to extend the long arm of the law. These quaint mementoes provide a fascinating glimpse at crime, from the Wild West to the vast metropolises of the eastern seaboard, in an era before the “horseless carriage.”
This medium was sometimes used in an effort to stop conmen, escape artists, and other wrongdoers, but cards from the era predominantly deal with property theft. On most surviving examples, the thief is unnamed, but sometimes, an alias is attached to a specific incident. And sometimes, these cards even contain small photographs of the alleged offenders.
That same day Webster’s postcards went out, the Jackson Patriot ran an item about the theft, describing Cook as “of dark complexion, 5 feet 2 or 3 inches with black hair, mustache, and goatee.”
It would turn out to be a short hunt for authorities. On the evening of January 11, “Frank Cook” trotted back into Jackson with Powers’ rig. He explained to Sheriff Webster that, after a day of joy riding with his lady friend, the couple decided to spend a few days in Waterloo. He didn’t think it would cause a fuss as long as he paid for the rental when he returned.
The Jackson Citizen chided the young man, whose real name was John, with a scathing rebuke that illustrates the widespread stereotyping prevalent in some the era’s newspapers. “He is exonerated from all dishonest intentions, but why the Coon should give his name as Cook is a mystery, and if he does not want to have suspicion cast upon him, John must give his right name in future.”
Had John not returned the horse and buggy, he would have faced a fairly significant term in prison, where he would have likely rubbed elbows in the Detroit House of Correction with others guilty of malicious horse-play. Infamous western outlaws Sam and Belle Starr did a nine-month hitch in the Detroit House of Corrections following an 1883 conviction for horse theft in the federal court of “Hanging Judge” Parker at Fort Smith, Arkansas.
In any given year, such violators did time behind the bars of the Detroit House of Correction. In 1888, for example, a typical sentence for “unhitching a horse” was the payment of a fine (which ranged from $1 to $25) or 90 days in the facility. That same year, Gertrude Slade—who was seven months pregnant at the time—was sentenced to three months along with her husband for “larceny of horse.” Gertrude, however, didn’t spend much time behind bars. According to the parole board, she “was more sinned against than sinning,” and “as she is to become a mother before the expiration of her term of sentence it seems but the dictates of a common humanity that she should be pardoned.”
Postcards offering rewards for stolen horses, such as this one postdated 1906, would continue to appear in the first decade of the twentieth-century, although the black horse would be replaced by the black horseless carriage, as automobiles gradually reduced the number of four-legged conveyences on the streets. With the advent of the automobile came the birth of “grand theft auto,”which would cause the the numbers of reward cards to rise dramatically.
About the item: approximately the size of a 3” by 5” index card, the Jackson reward notice is postmarked January 11, 1877, and addressed to the Sheriff of Pontiac. This is a very early example of a reward postcard and the only known example issued by Jackson County (Michigan) Sheriff Chauncy S. Webster. Dark Corners is interested in hearing from anyone who knows of additional reward postcards issued by Michigan authorities in the 1870s-1890s.
