Image: A likeness of kidnapped Charles Brewster Ross. (Public Domain)

On this day in history, December 14, 1874, a failed burglary attempt further confuses one of the first kidnap-for-ransom occurrences. As he was about to go to bed, rich New Yorker Holmes Van Brunt heard thieves breaking into his brother’s house next door. After gathering up three other men to assist him in interrupting the crooks, Van Brunt involved the bandits in a scattergun battle that mortally injured the intruders. As one of the outlaws lay dying, they confessed that they had been guilty of kidnapping four-year-old Charley Ross earlier that year. The burglar then indicated that the child would be brought back alive.

The Charley Ross abduction was the year’s most famous story. Two men had grabbed the four-year-old son of wealthy Philadelphia grocer Christian Ross from the front yard of his home on July 1, 1874. On July 4, the abductors provided Ross’s first of 23 terribly spelled ransom notes. Several days later, they demanded $20,000. After some waffling, Ross arranged to pay the ransom, but no one ever picked the money up.

On July 1, 1874, four-year-old Charley Ross and his five-year-old brother Walter Ross, were enjoying themselves in the front yard of the Ross family’s home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A horse-drawn carriage drew up to the residence, and the boys were contacted by two men who gave them candy and fireworks in exchange for leaving with them. These two men were acquainted with the boys, as they had paid a visit with candy in the days preceding July 1. The boys agreed and were driven through Philadelphia to a store where Walter was told to buy fireworks inside with 25 cents given to him. Walter did this, but the carriage left minus him. Charley Ross was driven away and never seen again.

Christian Ross, the boys’ father, began getting ransom demands from the abductors. They appeared as notes mailed from post offices in Philadelphia and other places, all written in a coarse, semi-literate style with many straightforward words misspelled. The messages typically asked for a ransom of $20,000 ($400,000 today). The communications advised against involving the police and threatened Charley’s life if Christian did not collaborate. While the kidnappers presumed the family was rich because they had a big house and Christian owned a small dry goods store, the fact was that the family was deeply in debt because of the stock market crash of 1873. Not able to pay the ransom, Christian involved the police. The kidnapping soon became national news.

In addition to the intense press reporting, some wealthy Philadelphians hired the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which had millions of flyers and posters printed with Charley Ross’s likeness. Several attempts were made to give the abductors the ransom money as ordered in the notes, but every time the hostage takers never showed up. In time, interaction ceased.

On the night of December 14, 1874, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, the home owned by Judge Charles Van Brunt was robbed. Holmes Van Brunt, Charles’ brother, who lived next door, assembled armed members of his household to stop the burglars in the act. Holmes’s group entered Charles’s house and brought down both burglars with gunfire. The thieves, Bill Mosher and Joe Douglas, were career criminals recently freed from jail. Mosher was killed instantly in the shooting. Douglas was mortally wounded, but lived two more hours and was able to speak with Holmes.

There is no clear agreement regarding what Douglas spoke as he was nearing death, as all who were there that night were too disturbed by events to give precise statements. It is thought that Douglas may have admitted that he and Mosher had snatched Charley Ross. Douglas is believed to have stated that Ross was killed, or that Mosher knew where the boy was located, perhaps adding that he would be restored unharmed to his family within days. Douglas never indicated Ross’s location or other details of the crime and died soon afterward.

Charley’s brother Walter went to New York City to see Mosher and Douglas’s bodies to establish if they were the men who abducted them in 1874. Walter reinforced that they were the same men who had taken the boys from their home the preceding summer.

Former Philadelphia policeman William Westervelt, an established associate of Mosher (and his wife’s brother), was detained and held concerning the case. He was tried in 1875 for kidnapping. Even though Westervelt had been a friend and a confidant of Mosher (while in prison awaiting trial, he had informed Christian that his son had been alive when Mosher died), there was practically no proof to tie him to the offense itself. Walter asserted that Westervelt was not one of the men in the carriage that kidnapped them. Westervelt was declared not guilty of the kidnapping. However, he was found guilty of conspiracy and imprisoned for six years. He always claimed he was innocent and swore he did not know where Charley Ross was.

Two years after the abduction, Christian published The Father’s Story of Charley Ross, the Kidnapped Child, to raise money to continue looking for his son. By 1878, newspaper interest in the case began to falter. To rekindle interest, Ross reprinted the book and started lecturing in Boston.

Christian and his wife continued searching for their son until their deaths (Christian died in 1897 and his wife in 1912). They followed leads and interviewed close to 600 boys, teenagers, and eventually grown men from around the world who maintained they were Charley. All proved to be pretenders. The Rosses would spend over $60,000 searching for their son.

In 1924, newspapers reported about the case to correspond with the 50^th anniversary of Ross’s kidnapping. By that time, Walter was an adult and worked as a stockbroker. During interviews, he stated that he and his three sisters still received letters from middle-aged men claiming to be his brother.

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