ROBERT BOWMAN

Alias: GEORGE MUNROE, J C HOGAN

Specialties: FORGER

No: 39 Last Displayed: 8/24/2020

Description:

Forty-six years old in 1886. Height, 5 feet 9 1/4 inches. Gray eyes, gray whiskers and mustache. Complexion medium. Stooped shoulders. Looks hump-backed. High forehead. Bald on front of head. Scars on bridge of nose, back of neck, and between the shoulder-blades. Born in New York. Weight, 140 pounds.

Record:

BOWMAN was an associate of Wm. H. Lyman, a notorious forger, who died in prison in 1883. Both of them were sent to Clinton prison, New York State, for four years and six months in August, 1878, for forgeries committed in Catskill, N. Y. Bowman and Lyman were again arrested at Hudson, N. Y., on September 16, 1881, and taken to Fitchburg, Mass., where they were sentenced to prison for three years for forging drafts on the American Express Company, at that place. They were also charged with raising drafts that were drawn by the National Bank of St. Albans, Vt., on the Park Bank of New York City. Also with forging a draft, on September 5, 1881, on Clipperly, Cole & Haslehurst, Troy bankers. When arrested $1,200 in money was found on them.Bowman was arrested again in Chicago, Ill., on January 14, 1886. About January 6, 1886, a man giving the name of J. F. Hall, presented to the Floyd County Savings Bank, of Charles City, Iowa, a draft payable to himself, purporting to have been drawn by the First National Bank of Joliet, Ill. Hall also had a letter of introduction from the Joliet bank; the draft was deposited to his credit, and on January 9, 1886, he wrote to the Floyd County Bank from Chicago, enclosing his receipt for the draft, and asking that the money be sent to him by the United States Express. It was sent, and when Hall called for it he was arrested and recognized as Bowman. One of the detectives went to Fort Wayne, Ind., where Hall had lived, and captured the latter's valise, in which was found a large number of counterfeit checks and certificates. It was estimated that Bowman and his gang had defrauded the banks in the western country out of $50,000. Bowman's case in Chicago, Ill., was nolle prosequi, by Judge Rogers, on June I, 1886, because the State's attorney was unable to obtain sufficient evidence to convict him of the forgeries committed there. He was discharged, and immediately re-arrested and taken to Vermont, where he was committed for trial, charged with having committed forgeries on the First National Bank of Brandon, Vt., the Vermont National Bank, the Rutland County National Bank, of Rutland, Vt., and the Farmers and Mechanics' Bank of Burlington, Vt. These forgeries were committed in 1881, by Bowman and Ned Lyman, and amounted in the aggregate to $30,000. Bowman's picture is a good one, taken in 1886.