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The Gulfport Sheriff demurred, then hesitated and finally announced he wasn’t sure he’d let Sylvester go. He claimed a share of the $1,000 reward and threatened to question the extradition papers. County Attorney Foley took the sheriff aside and explained to him that neither he nor Deputy Sheriff Fitzgerald had anything to do with payment of the reward, Sheriff Duckworth consulted a Gulfport attorney, and finally, with reluctance, gave Sylvester up to the Wabasha county officials. County Attorney Foley and Deputy Sheriff Fitzgerald at once made speedy preparations for departure, fearing Sheriff Duckworth might change his mind. They took the first trains for New Orleans and arrived there last evening. No handcuffs were put on the prisoner, and as they left for the depot, they resembled nothing so much as three jolly tourists. When they departed, Sylvester exchanged farewells with other prisoners in the jail, and said goodbye to the sheriff and his family and to Gulfport newspaper men who had interviewed him for the Post-Bulletin. Sylvester expressed himself as being glad the manhunt was over, and thanked Sheriff Duckworth and his wife for the kind treatment received while he was in jail. In turn the sheriff assured the aged banker that he had been a model prisoner and had created a very favorable impression while in jail. When the two authorities and their prisoner arrived in New Orleans Sylvester begged to be allowed to say at the hotel last night. "I can’t stand this jail life," he told his guards, "It’s awful." The county attorney and the deputy sheriff refused to listen to him, however, and took him to the Parish jail where he was locked up for the night. Once in his cell, Sylvester chatted amiably with the Wabasha county officials and with New Orleans newspapermen sent to the prison to interview him for the Post-Bulletin. As he sat in the cell, Sylvester, sunburned from the months spent in the South, looked like a tourist who had been ordered by his physician to stay in the open. Nonchalantly Sylvester said of traveling over the entire South for several months to evade capture. But his voice grew bitter and anger showed in his eyes when he told of the betrayal that led to his apprehension. The "Judas" who betrayed him was George W. Hoffstetter of Gulfport, Mississippi, Sylvester said. The aged banker told newspapermen that he left Plainview last February 28 and went to Winona. From Winona he took a train to Chicago; and when he learned that the authorities had tracked him there and were on his trail he went to Cleveland. Then he went south, working as a laborer in sawmills and cotton field in Alabama and Mississippi. Finally he settled on the Hoffstetter farm near Gulfport. Hoffstetter treated him kindly and he thought the genial farmer was a friend. Hoffstetter listened interestedly when Sylvester poured out to him the whole story of his troubles. The Hoffstetter tried to sell Sylvester his farm and when the former banker refused to buy it, Hoffstetter took advantage of his confidence "simply" Sylvester said, "because he wanted to make a paltry thousand dollars." During all the months that he was a fugitive from justice, Sylvester traveled under the alias of Samuel L. Edwin. He looks thinner and older after his long flight, but appears to be in good health.
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* SOURCE: Manzow, Ron (compiler), "The Sylvester Family of Plainview, Minnesota - a collection of information taken from the Plainview News, other newspapers, letters, and diaries beginning in 1884": Plainview Area History Center, 40 4th St. S.W., Plainview, MN 55964. Compiled in 2001.
NOTE: from Ron Manzow, December 2001: "Feel free to reproduce the pages for anyone who wants a copy. It was
compiled to be shared... All I ask is that they consider sending a check to the [Plainview Area] History Center to help us out. That
should be enough."
Howder; © 1995-2011 All Rights Reserved. Last Updated February 14, 2011.