Joining the
Grave-Robbing Crew
Janet Kuypers
2/12/19
My grandmother’s birthday is February 12th.
And when I was a toddler, the family would
take her out to dinner for her birthday. We
would all sing “Happy Birthday” to her, and
instead of singing “Grandma”, ingenious me
would belt out “ Abraham Lincoln” instead.
I know Lincoln’s not from Illinois, but Illinois
is where he’s known (I mean, I even kept
one or two of my custom “Land of Lincoln”
emblazoned Illinois vanity license plates).
And Lincoln is known for so many amazing
things through his Presidency until he died —
including attempts on his life — but I also
love stories about how people even tried
to steal Lincoln’s corpse. Because back in
1875, Big Jim Kennally had a really great
counterfeiting ring in Chicago, be had a guy
named Boyd, and he made the best money.
Problems came when the Fed finally caught them,
and Boyd took all the heat. So Kennally’s thinking,
‘wait a minute, I’m not making money hand over fist
anymore, I’ve gotta get a plan to make more dough.’
Then he got an idea, how got a wonderful, awful idea,*
so he met his goons at the bar he owned, “The Hub.”
And that’s when he laid out the plans, that
these two guys would kidnap Abraham Lincoln,
steal his corpse, and then hold it for ransom
for Boyd’s release from prison. And the goons,
Mullen and Hughes, thought this was a great
idea, but then they saw someone listening in.
You see, this guy, Lewis Swegles, overheard
them and asked if he could help them out too.
The goons thought he looked like a legit guy,
so they asked Swegles to join their crew — not
realizing that Swegles was actually an informant
for this new U.S. agency, the Secret Service
(which had only been around for ten years,
and the legislation creating the agency was
actually on Abraham Lincoln’s desk the night
he was assassinated.) And really, protecting
dead Presidents so sounds like a job for them.
Swegles brings this to Patrick Tyrrell, agreeing
to catch these men red-handed. And really,
what a way to cement the Secret Service as a
true institution of the United States of America.
So that night Swegles joins the two goons
to go to Lincoln’s grave, but they’re shocked,
because it’s not a grave they’re digging up,
Lincoln’s in a mausoleum, a sarcophagus, and
then a coffin. ‘This must be how rich people —
or at least Presidents — are buried,’ they think...
but then Mullen takes out his axe and thinks,
well, a job’s a job, and he was about ready
to start bashing everything around to get to
Lincoln’s body. So Swegles had to stop him,
so he goes ‘hey, we have to be careful,
we don’t want to hurt Lincoln’s body, and
the noise will alert the graveyard owners,
giving us less time to run.’ So the goons
listened to this guy that they thought was legit,
so they opted to break in to the mausoleum,
and then they try to just lift the whole
thing up, which of course they couldn’t do,
the sarcophagus was way too heavy.
So now the goons are trying to figure out
what to do, so Swegles says, ‘let me go
outside and have a smoke break to think
this through...’ and after he leaves he
signals the Secret Service, who sneaks up.
However, one of the Secret Service guys,
George Hay, all stoked but all nervous,
accidentally fires his firearm. The goons,
Mullen and Hughes, hear the gunshot
and think they’ve gotta make a run for it,
even as more men are firing in the dark.
And what’s really hysterical is that the
goons get away because it takes so long
for the Secret Service to get to the grave.
The Secret Service thought they really
screwed this one big time, but the thing is,
Mullen and Hughes had no idea who was
shooting at them. So, they just went
back to The Hub, which is where the
Secret Service found and arrested them.
Now, I’m really sad that in all my years in
Chicago I never tried to hunt down The Hub,
though I think that bar’s long closed. And
so what if I butted in with Lincoln on my
grandma’s birthday, because with these
Lincoln stories, it’s still cool to remember.
* How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
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