Page:The Black Cat v01no07 (1896-04).pdf/36

34 He expressed a lack of confidence in banks and bankers, saying that he had once lost a large sum by the failure of a bank in which he deposited, and for the future should be his own banker.

"Shortly after he began business he took up his residence on Sheafe Street in the North End of the city, and attended regularly the Baldwin Place Baptist Church. No subscription paper or contribution box ever passed him without a fairly liberal donation.

"In disposition he was quiet and retiring, and rarely spoke except in response to some inquiry. His earlier life he never referred to except in reply to one or two persons who ventured the question, when he briefly stated that he was the second son of a well-to-do English squire, that at an early age he found that there was no future for him in the old country, and that when little more than a boy he came to New York where he acquired a knowledge of business, and by diligence and economy saved enough to start in business.

"Within a year after his arrival in Boston Mr. Williamson sought the hand of the eldest daughter of a respectable merchant, a deacon in the church which he attended, producing at the same time letters from New York indorsing his worth and character. Having thus satisfied her parents, he was accepted and with little delay married. Very soon after he was received, on profession of his faith, into the church, and by his quiet, correct life, liberality, and honest dealing, secured the confidence and respect of all who knew him.

"About this time a strange epidemic of crime swept over the Puritanic city of Boston. The houses of the wealthy were entered and robbed of their valuable contents. Packages of money were boldly seized within the very enclosures of the bank, the thief escaping through some passageway or by fastening behind him the door through which he escaped; the satchels of bank messengers, filled with valuable contents, were suddenly snatched, and the robber eluded pursuit. At night persons were garroted and robbed on the public street. The police force was small and, although they exercised unusual diligence, every few days some new and startling crime, committed with wonderful skill and boldness, was announced. It wils thought that a gang of ex-