On December 3, 2008, a masked bandit rushed into Sharon’s First Citizens Bank, leaped over the teller’s counter, forced employees into the vault, and filled his bags with money. As quickly as he came, the robber dashed out of the door, coming face-to-face with a town citizen who had no idea that he was playing a role in the most exciting thing that happened since the last robbery in 1959. Bidding the man ado, the crook straddled his motorcycle and sped away toward York. The bandit must have been unnerved when he saw another town resident come outside brandishing a gun, for the clumsy robber dropped his knapsack just two blocks away, in front of Mary’s Place, a local restaurant. Though clumsy, he must have been an experienced rider since he quickly wheeled around and snatched up the bag and continued his getaway. Someone said that they thought he was riding a moped. Now that would have made this story even better.
Typical of a small town, the report of the robbery spread over Sharon like a whirlwind. Any details of the theft, however, weren’t made public. This kind of thing will aggravate the people of a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business and is certainly expected to know. And the newspapers didn’t help a bit. It was speculated that maybe the police had gagged them, or they just didn’t know anything. Questions were still unanswered that Friday evening as the town celebrated its annual Christmas in Olde Sharon. Friends and neighbors met during the various tours and paused to inquire about any word or rumor about the robbery and then continued with their merrymaking.
At last, it was rumored that there were two rascals involved. While one was committing the robbery, the other supposedly waited with a U-Haul truck on Sutton Springs Road, ready to receive and conceal the bike and its rider. And the following Monday it was told that one had been caught in a hotel in Columbia, and the second soon felt the long arm of the law on his shoulder as well as on the money. One week after the robbery, a news article finally appeared, but it really offered no answers to the questions at large, and curiosity remained unsatisfied. It seemed that word-of-mouth and rumors would be our only relief.
Bad times often spawn crime, and the December 2008 robbery was not the first time that the Sharon bank had been robbed during hard times. By the spring of 1934, the Great Depression had a stranglehold on York County, and by late summer, nearly 8,000 people would find themselves on relief rolls. Everyone in the county had cut their home and business budgets to the bone, and many were finding it nearly impossible to keep body and soul together. Most people stayed within the sanctions of the law, but a few sought out crime to make life better.
Around midnight one night in April 1934, two would-be robbers entered the Sharon bank through a back window and in the darkness unlocked both the front and back doors for a hasty get-away. In preparation to blow the bank’s giant vault, they stuffed nitroglycerin into the door jams. With that accomplished, they draped the vault door with heavy oilcloth to deaden the explosion and prevent flying shrapnel. About this time, Hardy Jones passed by the window of the bank and thought that he saw some movement. He rushed to the home of Dr. Joseph Saye, president of the bank. By the time Hardy and the doctor got to the bank, the thieves were speeding away in a car. The York police were called to investigate the scene, but they found no fingerprints or any other evidence that could track the robbers. The would-be robbers had no idea how lucky they were when Hardy interrupted them. The vault door was loaded with self-exploding canisters of tear gas and mustard gas, and any disturbance would have released the deadly gases.
A more successful robbery took place three years later, in November 1937. When manager John S. Hartness opened the door on November 2, he found that the vault door had been cut into with an acetylene torch. (We have to assume that the gas canisters had been removed after the 1934 attempt.) Mr. Hartness estimated that the robbers took something around $5,500 to $5,700. The newspaper doesn’t tell us how Sheriff Moss came up with the knowledge that the robbery was committed by several men, but he was right. That evening, three ex-cons were arrested and charged with the robbery and other safe-cracking jobs in the southeast. [Editor’s Note: A 1921 article in the New York Times reported about three robbers who attempted to break into a bank vault but were thwarted by canisters of gas. Not only were the robbers driven off without the cash, but it took several hours before the police and bank officials could even enter the building.]
The most exciting bank robbery in Sharon occurred April 28, 1959, on an election day. Assistants Irvin Chason and Ellen Plexico were home for dinner. (Back then we didn’t do lunch.). Bank president Charles Bankhead and vice-president Theola Street were minding the store. Fred “Buck” Youngblood was sitting at the windows of his store across the street from the bank and noticed that an out-of-town car with two men had parked at the curb near the bank. Just as Ellen Plexico was coming down the street from her home, Buck saw the men get out of the car, put on blue rubber gloves, and pull masks over their faces before entering the bank. Buck called to Ellen, telling her to come to his store, and he told her that he suspected the bank was being robbed. She called James J. Hill at his store while Buck loaded his .410 gauge shotgun.
Across the street and a few doors down from the bank, Guy Ramsey was going into Cobb’s Grocery, where he ran into county policeman Dickey Stevenson. He told Stevenson that he believed the bank was being robbed. Stevenson rushed out in the direction of the bank just as Buck fired his gun at the fleeing robbers. The policeman turned the corner at the bank and got off several shots, shattering the rear window of the get-away car.
By this time Hill had gotten the phone call from Ellen Plexico, and as he was dashing out of the store, a confused Mr. Baldwin asked what was happening, because the fire trucks were out and two men were running into the bank with stockings covering their face. (The fire trucks had been pulled out because the firehouse was being used as a voting poll.) Hill ducked into his parked car and got off a shot as the car sped past his store and up Sutton Springs Road. For a few minutes, the town of Sharon resembled Dodge City. The two Clover boys didn’t get very far up Sutton Springs when they ran out of gas. Apparently, James J. had shot a hole in the gas tank. That evening, the failed bandits were securely bedded in the county jail, and their $6,000 in loot rested peacefully in the bank vault.
The last robbery before the December 2008 one occurred in 1967. Not only was this a robbery but a case of vandalism as well. During the night the robbers-vandals came in through a back door and headed straight to the safety deposit room. They broke into every box and rifled through the contents, piling the empty boxes and papers in the middle of the floor. It took months to repair the damages and sort through the remains.
As Christmas 2008 neared, the town of Sharon returned to its normally quiet state. Thoughts of church parties and dinners, shopping, and gift giving pushed aside any reflections of the most recent excitement. Here’s hoping your Christmas and New Year’s were as peaceful as they were in Olde Sharon.
J.L. West – Author
This article and many others found on the pages of Roots and Recall, were written by author J.L. West, for the YC Magazine and have been reprinted on R&R, with full permission – not for distribution or reprint!
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