On the night of March 31st, 1848 no moon was visible. It was a fine evening for burglarizing a bank.
In 1898 historian W. K. Reynolds wrote a detailed retrospective celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the bizarre bungled attempted robbery of the New Brunswick Bank in New Brunswick Magazine.
That night a young boy named James Reynolds was going for a stroll around Saint John. He passed the New Brunswick Bank, located at 125 Prince William Street.
James Reynolds was amused to find a member of the Nightly Watch just standing there outside of the bank, staring at its four pillars.
He called out asking the Nightly Watchman if he was counting the pillars to see if they were all still there.
Then they heard a faint cry for help.
They couldn’t figure out where the sound came from.
A crowd assembled outside the Bank because “various other citizens had heard the noise from other positions in the vicinity and a dreadful noise it was at times. To some, it appeared like the howl of a dog, while others made out the words, "I'm in the vault! Let me out! Let me out!" as if from a being in mortal agony. A vain search was made … and as the night advanced the crowd began to increase, and the mystery [began] to deepen.”
Some sailors from the wharves came by to help. They brought a ladder and one of them, named Ned Carmichael, got up on the roof.
On the roof was a short chimney. The crowd below watched as the sailor leaned over the chimney and peered in.
W. K. Reynolds wrote: “ " Yes, boys, he's there," shouted Carmichael, and the excitement of the now largely increased crowd in the street grew intense.”
James Reynolds was told by the Nightly Watch to go to Queen Street to the house of Mr. McArdle, the manager of the Bank, to get him to unlock the bank.
As the boys rushed off to the banker's house to report a man stuck in a chimney at the bank, the clock struck midnight.
This was going to be an unexpected problem for James Reynolds because this meant that it was now April 1st.
April 1st is, of course, April Fools Day.
While the exact origins of April Fools Day aren’t exactly known, it is a very old holiday, going back at least 500 years. Everyone in Saint John would have known April Fools Day back then, including the sleepy banker named Mr. McArdle who was just awoken from his slumber to find a group of young boys at his door telling him that a bank robber was stuck in the chimney of his workplace.
W. K. Reynolds wrote: “Now, Mr. McArdle had a very good idea of the capacity of the young men of that day for all sorts of pranks, and when he was aroused at midnight on the first of April he flattered himself that he was wise enough to detect an April Fool trick when it was tried on him, especially when it was in the nature of such an improbable yarn as that a man was in the chimney of the bank.”
The banker went back to bed.
James Reynolds decided to try the president of the Bank, Mr. Leavitt.
W. K. Reynolds wrote: “When Mr. Leavitt was roused from his slumber, he was inclined to be just as doubtful as Mr. McArdle had been. He asked young Reynolds his name, and on learning who he was seemed more suspicious of a trick than ever, for it seemed evident that the youth's reputation as a joker had preceded him. Reynolds seemed so earnest, however, that Mr. Leavitt decided to go, but he insisted that the young man should wait and go in his company so that if there was a practical joke he would have the author of it in his grasp. It was then some time after midnight.”
When Mr. Leavitt unlocked the bank, he discovered, sure enough, as The Daily Telegraph newspaper phrased it: “There was a man in the flue!”
Someone in the crowd suggested just leaving the burglar in there.
Mr. Leavitt refused to hear of this though, declaring: “If the intruder's body were allowed to remain there it would interfere with the draft, besides becoming offensive in the course of time.”
Concerned that if the burglar died in the chimney it would make the bank smell, Mr. Leavitt made a decision: they would destroy the chimney to get The Queer Bank Burglar out.
James Reynolds was sent off to wake up some stonemasons to destroy the chimney.
By the time they first broke through the chimney, making a hole the size of a fist, the burglar had gone silent. Mr. Leavitt worried he’d died in his bank’s chimney, which would probably make for a lot of paperwork.
Someone poured a tumbler of brandy and managed to slip it through the little hole to revive the bungling bank burglar stuck in a chimney.
It took hours to get the burglar out of there. It was 4 or 5 in the morning when the man, completely black from ash and soot from head to toe, was dragged out of the chimney.
W. K. Reynolds wrote: “When the captive was taken out, he was laid on the floor and some of the soot brushed from his face. …[he was] slight, a man of about 20 years of age, some five feet six in height, of pale complexion, with high cheekbones and light brown hair… He was a stranger to all, but James Reynolds thought he must have seen him before, and started to question him.
" Do you feel pretty weak?" he asked in a sympathetic voice.
"No, I don't," was the reply in a gruff and savage tone.
"Don't I know you?" continued the young man.
" No, you don't" was the same gruff response.
"Well, now, what is your name?" was the next question.
"Go to (somewhere) and find out," was the answer, given so viciously that it closed the conversation.”
The would-be-burglar never talked, but young James Reynolds later remembered where he’d seen him before. Apparently, the bungling bank burglar was –of all things– a local baker.
The Bank Burglar Baker was placed in custody.
On July 26th –only six days before his trial was supposed to begin– he escaped from prison and was never heard of again.
