TO CATCH A MACDOUGAL STREET THIEF (1910)
Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes.
The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations.
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When investigating the history of a house, we sometimes come across a jewel that details an event which took place within the structure. The following narrative from 1910 tells a story involving the homeowner of No. 274 MacDougal Street, a rowhouse in the Ocean Hill section of Bedford-Stuyvesant, who happened upon a would-be burglar entering his home through an open window late one night.
The homeowner, Charles Ortman, an engineer, had recently moved to the newly-built structure with his small family. Ortman showed a presence of mind not typical of someone faced with an intruder attempting to gain access to his home.
Using old newspaper stories, city insurance maps, and census records, we reconstruct the case.
- Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 5 November 1910 –
“Charles Ortman, an engineer last night shot a burglar who was in the act of breaking into his home at 274 McDougal street. The shooting was witnessed by his 12-year-old son, Charles, and by his wife, who had followed him out to the dining room, where the thief’s face had appeared pressed close to the window pane.
“Whether the would be intruder was slightly or fatally wounded the police do not know. He had disappeared when a policeman of the Ralph avenue station arrived, in response to a summons from the Ortman home. But there was evidence enough that he had been hit.
“The turf in the back yard was blood-stained and the soil was torn up by his struggles. The police are making inquiries at all the Brooklyn hospitals this afternoon to find out if any of them has a patient suffering from a pistol-shot would.
“The circumstances surrounding the shooting were intensely dramatic. Ortman is chief engineer of the National Lead Company, which has its plant on Front Street. He lives at the McDougal street house, with his wife and two sons, Charles and Leonard.
HOW IT ALL WENT DOWN
“At the time the shot was fired Ortman had crawled from the bedroom on his hands and knees into the dining room, so that he would not be seen by the fellow who was lifting his bulk through the dining room window. The plucky boy of twelve had followed his father closely in the same attitude. Mrs. Ortman brought up the rear also in a crouching position.
“The Ortmans occupy the first floor of a two-story brick building. At the time of the attempted burglary, 10:40 o’clock, they had all retired. The yard in the rear of the house is separated from a vacant lot fronting on Hull street by a fence which an agile burglar might easily scale. This is the way the fellow is believed to have approached the house, and Mr. Ortman thinks that he may have learned in some way that he had taken $60 home with him.
“Mrs. Ortman did not feel well. Shortly after she retired her husband went to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. To reach the kitchen he had to pass through the dining room, which immediately adjoins it. In that room the gas was turned low.
“As Mr. Ortman traversed the dining room on tiptoe the shade of a window shot up with a snap. Startled, he still kept his presence of mind and stepped quickly into the kitchen, where he got the water., making as little noise as he could. As he passed through the dining room again the window was raised cautiously. The opening thus made framed the face of a man who wore automobile goggles and an automobile cap.
DID EVERYONE HAVE REVOLVERS UNDER THEIR PILLOWS BACK THEN?
“Very quietly Ortman reached under the pillow in the bedroom and found his revolver. Then he told his wife in a whisper not to be alarmed, and described what he had seen. Mrs. Ortman didn’t make a scene or scream. Pluck runs in the Ortman family. She simply followed him and her son out, taking every precaution to keep out of the burglar’s line of vision.
“Reaching the dining room Ortman took careful aim at the face in the window and raising himself slightly fired one shot. The bullet ripped its way through the window sash and the man with the automobile goggles fell back with a low moan.
“Then only did Mrs. Ortman give way to her feelings. She ran to the parlor, flung open a window and screamed out into the night. ‘Police! Police!’
“Persons living in the neighborhood awoke and put their heads out of the windows to see what was the trouble. lights leaped up in this house and that. everybody wanted to know from everybody else what the trouble was.
THE POLICE ARRIVE
“Within a few minutes a policeman of the Ralph avenue station was knocking on the Ortman door. Ortman met him.
“‘A burglar just tried to break into my home and I may have hit him,’ remarked Ortman, who then related the details of the attempted house-breaking.
“The policeman made a thorough inspection of the premises. He soon discovered the torn and blood-stained turf, but no sign of any human being either in the yard of in the vacant lot adjoining. Then he took a memorandum of the circumstances and reported back to his station.
(No follow-on story has been identified which might shed some light onto how this story ended. – Ed.)
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