When Robbers Pretended to Be United States Counterfeit Officers - 1875

On February 4th 1875,  Four burglars representing themselves at United States detectives robbed Adam Grove of  [Vicksburg] Union County of $1,400.  The men presented themselves as counterfeit officers.

"The old folks were informed that they were government detective in search of counterfeit money, and the old man was commanded to show all the money he had.  He was followed by several of the gang to different chest, drawer, and closets where he kept his money, and as it was laid out, they examined it."
At some point, Mr Grove ut his band behind his back, and the robber, believing he was reaching for a weapon, pulled revolver on him.

Mr Grove lunged for the weapon, and a tussle ensued - but Grove was knocked to the floor with a club held  by one of the other men.

The thieves then ransacked the house.  Once they were confident they had gathered everything of value, they made a fire and cooked themselves supper.

At 10pm they went to the barn, chose two of the best horses, and hooked them to a sled.  Mr & Mrs Grove were tied up with wash line, and put in their bed.  The villains then threatened that if they made any alarm before 3am they would murder them.  Then they jumped on the sled and rode away, their goal obviously being to catch the 2:30am train at Sunbury.

Eventually Mrs. Grove was able to free herself from the bindings, and by 4am she had the others free as well. An alarm was raised as soon as possible, with dispatches sent to all neighboring towns.
It was believed that four of the men had come up from Harrisburg the day before, taking the train to Montandon Junction and walking to the Grove house.  They were spotted along the way, but thought to be men coming to help with the threshing.

After hearing of the robbery, a man living "below the Hummel farm at Sunbury" came to town to report that about twenty minutes after 2am he was awakened by knocks on the door, but he refused to come down.  He looked out the window and saw a two horse team hitched to a sled, in which sat one man, with two more on his porch.  "He refused to come down, which was perhaps a good thing for him."
They asked how far down the road it was to Northumberland and the farmer told them they were far below it already.  The men then hurried off, upriver, "which accounts for the horses being found where they were, nearly at the place where the teams cross the ice."

The men must have arrived at Sunbury around 3oclock, which would have made them too late for the 2:30 train, had it not, fortunately for the robbers, been running late.

Mr Grove was reported to have been "badly abused by the robbers, probably because of resistance to their demands".  The robbers escaped with approximately $1400, most of which was in gold and silver coins.  [Today that would be roughly $33,000]

The horses and sled were recovered at Sunbury, and returned to the Groves.  The Northumberland Public Press took the opportunity to admonish residents to keep their money in banks, "or some other secure place away from residences. It is impossible to hoard up that amount of money in a house without the knowledge of it reaching prowling robbers."

The Northumberland Public Press, February 1875

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Find more stories and history of Lewisburg here:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2020/08/lewisburg-pa.html

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Adam Groff [Grove] was born December 21 1802, and died Mar 6 1878.  He is buried at the Dreisbach Church in Union County. In 1828, his father purchased a farm for him, "two miles east of Mifflinburg".

That same year, Adam married Leah Miller.