LeRoy Pennysaver & News

LE ROY PENNYSAVER & NEWS - APRIL 26, 2020 by Lynne Belluscio A couple of days ago I received a message on a post that I put up back in December. “Did you get my message?” It was sent by Joe Wheeler who I did not know. I responded: “What message? I didn’t receive a message.” I suggested that he email me and gave him my email address. Joe sent back a link to a Pennysaver article that I wrote on March 18, 2018. “Hello, I was curious if you are the one who wrote the following article?” “Yep. That’s me.” The article that I had written was about John Horgan, who was a photographer and was born north of LeRoy in 1859. He left town when he was 20 and traveled the world as a professional industrial photographer. In 1894, he returned to LeRoy and married Margaret Atchinson and they had three children. John’s grandson is Sid Horgan, former mayor of LeRoy. Johns photographs of the coal mines were featured in an exhibit at the Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1993 and a catalogue of that exhibit was published. Some of those photographs were on exhibit at LeRoy House. Archives and museums around the world have his photographs in their collection. His photographs appeared in National Geographic Magazine and McGraw-Hill textbooks as well as the Pan-American Union. The article in the Pennysaver in 2018 mentioned his LeRoy postcards which are identified by his name in red in the margins. So, this is what Joe emailed me and this is where the story of John Horgan takes an interesting twist: “I wanted to pass along some more info for you. You may or may not already know some or all of this. I grew up on a farm in Alabama that once belonged to an old Alabama Train Robber in the 1890s. His name was Rube Burrow. He robbed trains all across Texas, Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi. He was eventually killed in Alabama and his body was shipped back home to his family. It made a stop in Birmingham, Alabama and John Horgan Jr. (who happened to be working for the railroad at the time in B'Ham) took a photo of his body that was passed around the country and is one of the great "Wild West Outlaw" photos. I will include the photo here. I enjoy researching anything related to Rube Burrow and also American West and Civil War history. One of the things I like to do is research the lesser known people attached to a story. I read somewhere that Rube Burrow's death photographer was named Horgan and while trying to research him and learn his full name and more info on him I came across the article you wrote. That lead me to being able to find out even more about him and the life he led and what brought him to be in Birmingham, Alabama on October 9, 1890 to take a photo that I have looked at since I was a kid. I just thought you may be interested in this info if by some chance it was not known to you and the people of your town. “ Joe sent me a copy of the photograph of Rube Burrow in his coffin, set up in front of a train car, with his six gun and rifle packed in with him. It’s a pretty gruesome photo. But I discovered that you can buy copies of the photo on Ebay. And there were several books written about the famous bank robber. I found “Rube Burrow, Desperado” on line which features Horgan’s photograph on the front cover. Rube Burrow was one of the most infamous train robbers during the wild west and was almost as famous as Jesse James. He was pursued by hundreds of lawmen throughout the south and southwest. While on a train pulling into Nashville, Tennessee, he and his brother Jim were trapped. Jim was captured but Rube escaped and continued to rob trains even though there were posters for his arrest everywhere. On October 7, 1890, he was recognized in a store in Linden, Alabama and captured, but managed to escape. Again, he was hunted down and was cornered at the train depot. He was shot in the stomach and died in the street. Rube Burrow’s body was shipped by train back to Lamar County. I pulled up Rick Miller’s book about Burrow and discovered the paragraph that had started Joe Wagner on his quest to find out about Horgan. The book describes how Burrow’s body was embalmed in alcohol and put in a pine coffin and shipped back to his home: “Arriving at Birmingham depot around 3:30 Friday morning despite the early hour, local policemen were stationed around the express office to keep the large expectant crowd back. The coffin was taken from the baggage car on a wagon and quickly taken inside the express office. The hundreds of morbid spectators, thronged against the office window, forcing a decision to open the coffin and let the crowd file by. Once the crowed had thinned down to a few, the office was ordered cleared and the coffin was stood up in a corner so a photographer named Horgan could take some pictures. The body was posed with his rifle and pistols and with his large black slouch hat. Someone remarked that Rube could almost be seen to move from his coffin.” With that little bit of information, Joe started looking for “Horgan a photographer” in Alabama in 1890, and discovered my article in the Pennysaver two years ago. Searching the internet is a wonderful thing, and can turn up some very interesting stories. Joe sent me a photo of Rube Burrow’s gravestone as well as the coffin photo. He had also uncovered the article telling about John Horgan’s death of blood poisoning in 1926 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I have to say, this is one of the weirdest stories I have come upon while working at the Historical Society and certainly wouldn’t have been possible if the internet wasn’t available. AMost Unusual Story