From the Richmond Dispatch, 2/27/1863, p. 1, c. 3

Recent Robberies. – The store of Captain James Charles, next adjoining the establishment of the late August Schad on Broad street, was entered by robbers on Wednesday night and relieved of a lot of liquor and cigars and five hundred dollars in money. Up to yesterday no clue had been obtained as to the robbers.

The store of Phillip Epstin, corner of Main and Locust alley, was broken into by thieves one night last week, who removed and sequestered to their own use a lot of boots and shoes. They also broke open a desk and stole $900 in N Carolina funds. Getting a clue on the operators in this case, Messrs Maccubbin, Clackner, and Goodrick, on the detective corps, arrested two men giving the names of P W Reynolds and David M Preston as being concerned in the affair.

Preston lives at the corner of 20th and Main sts and some of the stolen goods were found on his premises. The arrest of the two men was accomplished on Wednesday last. After being taken in custody they were put in Castle Lightning, and means were adopted to discover the extent of their complicity in the affair. Preston admitted to the officers that he got into the house of Epstin and took the articles out, a portion of which were found in his possession. On yesterday the case having been worked up to such an extent as to insure the conviction of the guilty parties, they were carried from the military prison and delivered into the custody of the Mayor to be dealt with by the civil authorities.

In the matter of the robbery of Chiles & Chenery’s store Mrs. Mary Connors, her daughter, and Frances Hulston who live on 9th, near the corner of Canal St., were arrested by Messrs Maccubbin, Custis, Franklin, and Williams, of Maj. Griswold’s office, who found at the house occupied by the parties several hundred dollars’ worth of Chiles & Cherery’s goods, Mr. Chenery being with them, and identifying his property. Joseph Bucston, a brother of one of the girls was arrested at Mrs. Connors’s ostensibly as a deserter, but really because he was believed to be one of the parties concerned in the robbery. Such afterwards proved to be the case. Being put in Castle Lightning, he and other desperadoes effected their escape. The revelations madeby Mrs Connors, and the two girls arrested with her, led to the detection and recover a large lot of the stolen property and may eventually prove the means by which all of it can be restored to its owners. The armed guard and city night watch do all they can to prevent robberies, but it is almost an impossibility, owing to the presence in our midst of such a number of [illegible] place of refuge.

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