Milford History Online

When talking about crime, the bank robbery can sometimes seem to be in a lawbreaking class of its own – somehow more glorious than your average armed robbery or carjacking. There is something about the ingenuity, the timing, the brazenness that has always captured the public imagination. Get in, get out, empty the safe, avoid the alarms, find the getaway car (or horse, in another era), outrun police – all with the clock ticking. Indeed, crime novels, television dramas, and Hollywood movies featuring famous bank robbers from Jesse James to Bonnie & Clyde usually emphasize fiendish genius over any moral shortcomings. As it happens, our own town of Milford has a bank robbery yarn for the ages.

The year was 1874 and the target was the Souhegan National Bank on Nashua Street. On the evening of October 19, six strangers stepped out of a covered wagon traveling west from Nashua and rendezvoused in the horse sheds next to the Congregational Church on Union Street. From there, the masked men spied their mark – Frederick T. Sawyer, the bank’s cashier – and followed him home to his Souhegan Street home, waiting several hours until he retired sometime after one in the morning. After gaining entrance to the Sawyer home by turning a porch door key with pliers, the gang burst in on the sleeping family, vowing that they would kill Sawyer’s wailing two-month-old infant if anyone got any big ideas. Three of Sawyer’s children and his wife were ordered into one closet, and the family’s 16-year-old maid Mary Broderick and Sawyer’s 12-year-old son Fred were hustled into another. Broderick bravely struggled and attempted to call for help but she was quickly overpowered. 

Their captives now secured, the thieves bored six one-inch auger holes into both of the closet doors and stationed a man at each.  Mr. Sawyer was then gagged with a piece of broom handle and choked with a twister cord as he was led out of the house and across the Swing Bridge to the town hall post office where duplicate keys of the Souhegan Bank’s combination lock were stashed. In just a few minutes, the thieves had secured many thousands in cash and more than $100,000 in 1874 dollars’ worth of securities. 

The robbers then proceeded to deposit Sawyer back home, tied him to a chair fastened to a bed, and were soon on horses galloping down Union Street on their way to Massachusetts. In a wooded clearing in North Leominster, they divided their dough, discarded their masks and disguises, and fanned out on various trains for points beyond. Back in Milford, Sawyer’s son Fred was eventually able to kick the closet door open and free the family, as they called desperately out the window to a meatcutter on his way to early-morning employment. As Milford awoke, an alarm rang out and the news spread fast. The Cabinet ran a banner headline: “Bold Robbery of the Souhegan National Bank in Milford” and news of the incredible robbery was quickly picked up by the New York Times and papers across the nation.

At this point, the story becomes rather muddled. With the village suffering financially after many town leaders were wiped out by the heist, bank president William Towne attempted to track down the bandits. While various versions of his trip to Baltimore on a tip to recover the funds contain conflicting information and perhaps some tall tales, it appears that he negotiated with the thieves and eventually recovered most of the missing securities – a great benefit to financially ailing Milford. But the happy ending for our town did not extend to Mr. Towne – in West Roxbury, some months later, having evidently gone through a harrowing experience, the bank president committed suicide. 

The whole affair seems almost too fantastical to be true, but a trip down to the Milford Historical Society will turn up those closet doors, still sporting the air holes.