AUGUST PALMER

Alias:

Specialties: BURGLAR

No: 63 Last Displayed: 10/25/2021

Description:

Twenty-nine years old in 1886. Stout build. German, born in United States. Married. Cigar-maker. Height, 5 feet 10 inches. Weight, 180 pounds. Light hair, gray eyes, round full face, fair complexion.

Record:

AUGUST PALMER is a brother of Herman Palmer (189), both desperate New York burglars. They, in connection with Robert Clifford, Peter Wilson (deceased), and John Anderson, alias Little Andy, all expert burglars, succeeded in doing considerable work in and around New York before their capture, The Palmer brothers are expert safe burglars. August Palmer and Peter Wilson (who was shot and killed at Chester, Pa., while committing a burglary on May 2, 1884) were arrested in New York City on June 8, 1880, for an attempt to robthe safe at the pawnbroker establishment of Patrick Ganley, in Division Street, in which there was at the time $15,000 worth of jewelry, etc. Wilson was bailed out, and escaped conviction for lack of evidence. Palmer, at the time of his arrest, lived with his wife, Mary Steele, in Seventy-sixth Street, near Third Avenue, New York. The detectives searched his rooms, and concealed behind a mirror they found three pawn-tickets, which represented an amethyst ring, a gold watch and chain, and a pair of opera glasses, which, when redeemed, were at once identified as part of the property stolen from Meyer's pawn-shop, No. 528 Second Avenue, which was burglarized on the night of April 30, 1880. The safe was torn open, and its contents of jewelry, etc., valued at $6,000, carried away by August Palmer and associates. August was tried in the Court of General Sessions for the Meyer burglary, convicted, and sentenced to five years in State prison on June 28, 1880. At the time that August's home was searched and the pawn-tickets found, there was also found two pieces of silk dress goods, that were stolen from Mannassa L. Goldman's dry-goods store on Canal Street, New York. The store was entered by burglars on Christmas-day, 1879. August's wife claimed the silk, and she was sent to the penitentiary for having stolen goods in her possession. Palmer was arrested again in New York City for assaulting a party who gave evidence against his brother Herman, and sentenced to three years for assault in the second degree, on September 19, 1884. His sentence will expire, if well behaved, on January 14, 1887. Palmer's picture is a good one, taken in 1880.