July 15, 1863
A Heavy Robbery:Nine Hundred and Fifty Dollars Stolen.:A heavy robbery was committed at the McLure House on Saturday afternoon last, under the following circumstances: Major Doddridge, U. S. Paymaster, who is stopping at the McLure House, went out of his room upon some business intending to be absent only a few moments, leaving his key in the safe. His movements must have been watched, for during his brief absence some person or persons entered the room and unlocking the safe took out nine hundred dollars in "greenbacks." Major Doddridge did not discover the loss until towards evening, when the police were place in possession of the facts. There was a sum of money exceeding four hundred dollars, in postal currency, in the bottom of the safe which the thieves did not discover. One of the chamber-maids saw a strange man sneaking about the room during the afternoon
Nothing was discovered about the robbery until Monday afternoon, when one of the bell boys, employed in the house, found a package of money:some forty dollars:concealed in the gentlemens' water closet. Around this package of money there was a pass, reading about as follows: "Pass Sergeant _____ and privates Farley, and Omens and Golden throughout the city. They will not be interrupted by the Provost Guard." This pass was signed by Capt. W. C. Thorpe, Military Commander. Supposing that this package of money was a portion of that lost by Major Doddridge, officer Pender at once arrested the Sergeant who was taken before Ald. Dulty. Capt. Thorpe, who was present at the examination, asked the Sergeant to produce the pass which he had given him, but the latter said he did know where it was. The chamber-maid said that the Sergeant was not the man whom she had seen lurking about Major Doddridge's room. The Sergeant was committed to the Atheneum.
P. S.:Since writing the above we learn that Farley, Omens and Golden have also been arrested. All of the parties protest their innocence of any knowledge of the transaction, and we are not aware of any further evidence against them than the pass above alluded to.
We have been in possession of the above facts since Saturday, but at the request of the parties more immediately interested we consented to withhold the facts in the hope that the efforts of the police to arrest the guilty parties might be facilitated.
Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: July 1863