Harry Victor Worden (1884 - 1920)

Born 6 Sep 1884 in South Dakota

Ancestors

Husband of Louise Bertha (Rohrer) Worden — married 2 Mar 1908 in Jackson, Jackson County, Michigan

Descendants

Died 29 Jul 1920 at age 35 in Grass Lake Twp., Jackson County, Michigan

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Biography

Source 1: Harry Worden was born in 1885 to Charles R Worden and Ada Collard. He passed away in 1918 in Grass Lake, Jackson, Michigan, USA.

Source 2: Harry Victor Worden Birth: Sep. 6, 1884 South Dakota, USA Death: Jul. 29, 1920 Grass Lake Jackson County Michigan, USA

Son of Charles & Adele (Collard) Worden.

1900 MI Census Wayne Co Livonia Charles R Worden 49 Ada Worden 43 Harry Worden 15 Fred Worden 11 Albert J Worden 73 Aurilla Worden 74 Almond Fisher 23

Groom's Name: Harry Worden Groom's Age: 23 years Groom's Birth Date: 1885 Groom's Birthplace: South Dakota Bride's Name: Bertha Rohrer Bride's Age: 27 years Bride's Birth Date: 1881 Bride's Birthplace: Michigan Marriage Date: 02 Mar 1908 Marriage Place: Jackson, Jackson, Michigan Groom's Father: Chas. Worden Groom's Mother: ...da Collard Bride's Father: John Rohrer Bride's Mother: Elizabeth Film Number: 2342681 Digital Folder Number: 4209125 Image Number: 502 Reference Number: v 3 p 117 rn 2063 Collection: Michigan Marriages, 1868-1925

1910 MI Census Jackson Co Grass Lake Harry S Worden 25 Bertha Worden 29 Constance Worden 6/12 Paul Rohrer 26 Irene Rohrer 21

1920 MI Census Jackson Co Grass Lake Harry V Worden 36 Bertha L Worden 38 Constance E Worden 10 Virginia I Worden 5[3] Harry Worden 2[2 10/12]

Taken from Jackson Cit Pat 8 Jan 2011: By most accounts, Grass Lake is and always has been a peaceful country village.

But on a hot summer day in 1920, the town was "thrown into a high state of excitement" when it hosted one of Jackson County's biggest bank robberies.

The daring, daylight heist at the Farmer's State Bank on Main Street also resulted in the death of Jackson County Undersheriff Harry Worden and has led to a legend of unrecovered buried loot.

The "excitement" began a little before 11 a.m. Thursday, July 29, 1920. Four of six hoodlums, who'd been staying for a while at Wolf Lake's Mack Island Hotel under the guise of a Detroit fishing party, headed to Grass Lake in a Buick stolen the night before.

Robbing a bank there was appealing to James "Doc" Stowe, Walter Wilson, William "Tex" Harris, David Galinski, Lester Bacon and George Comfort because Jackson — and the closest police agency — was 11 miles away, and U.S. 12 was under construction.

Bank cashier Floyd Mellencamp and his assistant, Harry Knight, were conducting business with the Rev. W.A. Cutler and Grass Lake Township Supervisor Walter B. Rowe when Wilson, Harris and Stowe entered the bank with .38 revolvers drawn.

All were held at gunpoint while the robbers stuffed cash and bonds into tackle boxes. The bandits tied their hostages' wrists with green fishing line, marched them to the back of the bank and locked them in a bathroom, where bank President E.J. Foster found them a short time later.

It was the fishing line that led to the robbers' eventual undoing, though, after word of the stick-up reached Worden. Worden put together a posse of deputies Verl Kutt, Van Loomis, George Bradley and Herman Hauch and sped to the scene.

Logical thinking led some to believe the bandits had fled to Toledo or Detroit when they ditched their stolen car just outside of town and jumped into another with Bacon and Comfort.

But they were strangers in a small town where everybody knew everybody and someone recalled the visiting fishing party at Wolf Lake. Of course, Prohibition also had just begun, and there were rumors spreading that bootleggers and gangsters were using the hotel as an operations base.

Worden and his deputies raced to Mack Island. He and Kutt grabbed hotel proprietor W.K. McIntyre, who led them to a room over the clubhouse annex where the gang had been staying. When McIntyre knocked, Harris shouted, "We have some girls in here undressed." McIntyre told him to open the door anyway because the police were there.

Instead, a storm of bullets flew from the room. Two of them, fired either by Harris or Stowe, hit Worden in the chest, killing him instantly. A third grazed the scalp of Kutt.

The robbers scattered, jumping out windows and running into the lake underbrush and a swamp. Farmers and lake resorters arrived from every direction to help in the manhunt.

One of them was George Holton, a World War I veteran who was running the Mack Island Hotel's bowling alley until he found a better job with the Sparks-Withington Corp.

"He heard all the ruckus and poked his head out and a deputy grabbed him and said ‘We need you,'" said his son, Bob Holton of Napoleon Township. "He stepped over that dead officer and said he saw more money on the bed in that room than he'd ever seen in all his life."

Galinski jumped out a window but was captured about a half-mile away running down the road. Comfort and Bacon were also arrested without a fight. Harris was captured and turned over to Henry Hague, a bystander. He escaped but was captured again by posse member Percy Taylor, another World War I vet who was working as a prison guard.

Wilson's gun misfired as he aimed at the deputy Loomis. Loomis shot him in the leg and groin five times.

Stowe also jumped out a window but broke his leg in the fall. He crawled into the underbrush where he was captured by Jackson County Sheriff Edwin Larrabee and spun a yarn about being out fishing, falling and breaking his leg as he got out of the boat and crawling into the underbrush to rest.

More than $12,000 in currency and $25,000 in Liberty bonds were recovered at the scene. Some claim up to $400 in gold might still be buried somewhere on Mack Island.

"I don't know about hidden treasure," Holton said. "If there is any, it's in the swamp and things sink in the swamp and keep going."

Tidbits

James "Doc" Stowe, William "Tex" Harris, Walter Wilson, David Galinski, Lester Bacon and George Comfort robbed the Farmer's State Bank in Grass Lake on July 29, 1920. Jackson County Undersheriff Harry Worden was shot to death during their capture.

Stowe was originally from Flint and �had recently served time in the old Jackson Prison.

Harris was burly, muscular and had 24 prior arrests and time served in an Ohio Workhouse and Pennsylvania and Virginia prisons.

Galinski was a smart, sarcastic Iowan with a disorderly conduct account.

Wilson had been arrested for burglary in Chicago and served five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary.

Bacon was a former Jackson prisoner turned barber with a sleek Columbia touring car that seated six and was used in the get-away.

Comfort was a Jacksonian who had served two sentences in the Jackson Prison and was rumored to be trafficking liquor around Wolf Lake.

Stowe, Harris, Wilson and Galinski were given double life sentences by Circuit Judge J.A. Parkinson. Their appeals for parole were repeatedly denied, with one sentencing judge reported to have said, "As far as I know, Harry Worden is still dead."

Stowe and Wilson were sent to the Marquette prison.

Galinski became assistant to the Southern Michigan Prison photographer.

Harris died in his Southern Michigan Prison cell in August 1952 at age 72. He had worked as a prison elevator operator and utility man.

Comfort and Bacon were tried as aides. Comfort was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison, while Bacon received 10 to 20. Bacon was the only one ever paroled. �Comfort died in the asylum at the Ionia prison.

Prior to their trial, the convicts were jailed in Jackson with heavy guard to prevent lynching because of Worden's popularity.

A native of Grass Lake, Worden, 35, �was the former proprietor of an ice cream parlor in town. He was survived by a wife and three young children.

Mary E. Snyder gained distinction at the trial as the first woman ever to serve on a criminal jury in Jackson County.

Elmer F. Klump was a member of the sheriff's posse that cornered the bandits. He was a car dealer in Jackson and Detroit in the 1920s and '30s, while also serving as a part-time deputy sheriff. When he died in 1981 at 87, he was recognized as one of the oldest active law enforcement officers in the nation.

An account of the robbery was published in the October 1939 issue of "True Detective" magazine. Called "Smashing Michigan's Bank Robbing Mobsters," it took up seven pages with photos.

The Union Bank of Jackson dispatched R.A. Packard and George Paul to Grass Lake with funds for immediate use. The bank, which had been robbed about 11 a.m., was back up and running by 1 p.m.

The original Farmer's State Bank building, 115 E. Michigan Ave., currently houses a Comerica Bank branch.

Family links: Spouse: L Bertha Rohrer Worden (1880 - 1941)*

Children: Harry V Worden (1917 - 1987)*

• Calculated relationship

Burial: Grass Lake East Cemetery Grass Lake Jackson County Michigan, USA

Created by: Deb Hayes-Wolfe Record added: Aug 19, 2007 Find A Grave Memorial# 21028731

Sources

1. http://records.ancestry.ca/harry_worden_records.ashx?pid=146961840

2. https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Worden&GSfn=Harry&GSmn=V&GSby=1884&GSbyrel=in&GSdyrel=all&GSob=n&GRid=21028731&df=all&