The Desperate Ones: Forgotten Canadian Outlaws

by Butts, Edward

• ISBN13: 9781550026108
• ISBN10: 1550026100
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-08-30
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

They were among Canada's most desperate criminals, yet their names have been all but forgotten in the annals of history -- until now! In their day these lawless men made headline news. Author Ed Butts has rescued their stories from dusty newspaper pages and polished them up for today's readers in this fascinating volume. The Markham Gang introduced Canada West to organised crime long before anyone had heard of the Mafia. Lew Bevis took on the whole Halifax Police Department in a blazing gun battle. The wild Macdonald cousins went to Michigan, where they ended their violent careers as victims of a savage lynching. Reid and Davis, the notorious Border Bandits of the Roaring Twenties, were the nightmare of every banker from Manitoba to the state of Washington. This rogues' gallery of killers, robbers, and men of mystery shocked the nation, challenged the forces of law and order, and sometimes even got away with it.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	9	(2)
Introduction	11	(4)
Chapter One The Markham Gang: Oath of Secrecy	15	(10)
Chapter Two Charles Coghlin and Richard Oliver: Religious Feud	25	(8)
Chapter Three William Townsend: Wrong Man or Master of Deception?	33	(12)
Chapter Four Frank Meeker: A Year Plus a Day	45	(508)
Chapter Five Wild in Michigan: Lynching in the North Woods	553
Chapter Six George Garnett and the Union Jack Bandits: Stagecoach Robbers	59	(8)
Chapter Seven The Moses Brothers: Murder on Superior	67	(6)
Chapter Eight The Napanee Bank Heist: An Inside Job?	73	(16)
Chapter Nine George O'Brien: Murder on a Yukon Trail	89	(14)
Chapter Ten The Rutledge Gang: A Leap into Eternity	103	(10)
Chapter Eleven The Haney Brothers: Train Robbers	113	(12)
Chapter Twelve William Ratan: Murder in Muskoka	125	(6)
Chapter Thirteen Siberian Outlaws in Canada: Gunfight at New Hazelton	131	(8)
Chapter Fourteen The Reid-Davis Gangs: Badmen on the Western Border	139	(10)
Chapter Fifteen McFadden and Hotrum: The Only Men in the Wide, Wide World	149	(10)
Chapter Sixteen The Murrell Gang: Taught to Kill	159	(16)
Chapter Seventeen The Morel Gang of Montreal: April Fools	175	(14)
Chapter Eighteen Louis Bevis: Shootout in Halifax	189	(14)
Chapter Nineteen Orval Shaw: The Mystery Man of Skunk's Misery	203	(12)
Chapter Twenty John Dillinger: The Canadian Connection	215	(8)
Bibliography	223