Jimmy Hope

James "Old Jimmy" Hope (c. 1836 – June 2, 1905) was a 19th-century American burglar, bank robber and underworld figure in Philadelphia and later New York City. He was considered one of the most successful and sought after bank burglars in the United States during his lifetime as well as a skilled escape artist for his repeated breakouts from Auburn State Prison in New York.

A pioneering career criminal and safe-cracker, he planned and took part in many of the major robberies of the post-American Civil War era including those of the Kensington Savings Bank and, in partnership with Ned Lyons, the Ocean Bank and Philadelphia Navy Yard. He worked with George Leonidas Leslie on the 1869 Ocean National Bank robbery, the 1876 Northampton Bank robbery, and the 1878 Manhattan Savings Institution robbery.

Early years in Philadelphia and New York City James Hope was born to poor Irish immigrant parents in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in about 1836. There he worked as a machinist, eventually married and started a family. On April 6, 1869, however, he and a group of men posing as police detectives stole between $80,000 and $100,000 from the Kensington Savings Bank. His partners in the robbery included Jim Casey, Jim McCormick, George Howard and three other men. Although they successfully escaped with the money, a fight over splitting up the cash resulted in the deaths of three gang members. Jim Casey was later killed by McCormick and Howard's body was found near Yonkers on the Hudson River. While in custody in San Francisco years later, Hope claimed that a member of the Kensington gang was so upset over the split that he vowed to kill Howard. Hope told authorities that he believed this dispute was the motive leading to Howard's murder.

Four months later, he and Ned Lyons, with two other men, rented a basement underneath the Ocean Bank, located at Fulton and Greenwich Streets, in New York City. They erected a partition to block passersby from looking into the basement from the street and then cut through the stone floor directly under the vault. They took over $1 million in cash and bonds but later discarded the bonds in and "took as much gold and silver as they could carry without attracting attention". This amounted to only a few thousand dollars. The following year, Hope and Lyons led another robbery against the Philadelphia Navy Yard burglarizing the paymaster's safe. Hope, by then a well-known underworld figure in the city, was a main suspect along with Lyons and two other men but none were brought to trial due to lack of evidence. Only Lyons was taken into custody and he later jumped bail. Hope was arrested for robbing Smith's Bank in Perry, New York later that year, this time convicted, and sentenced to five years imprisonment at Auburn Prison on November 28, 1870. They were also made to stand one hour in the pillory and pay a fine of $5,000 each. All four offered to pay $25,000 in lieu of the whipping but this was denied by the court. It would be over 30 years before another bank robbery was attempted in the state of Delaware.

Hope and his gang escaped from jail in New Castle, Delaware eight months later using a steam-powered tugboat to make their getaway.

Manhattan Savings Institution robbery In 1875, he was recruited by George Leonidas Leslie and spent the next three years preparing for arguably his biggest heist, the Manhattan Savings Institution robbery. It was believed that Hope actually broke into the building long before the robbery to study the bank vault. A few months before the robbery, he and Abe Coakley were briefly imprisoned the Deep River Bank in Deep River, Connecticut and were questioned by police regarding the violent bank raid in Dexter, Maine. Both refused to cooperate and Hope was taken to Dexter, where he was a suspect in said robbery,

On October 27, 1878, Hope and several masked men stormed the Manhattan Savings Institution and held janitor Louis Werckle and his family, who lived in the building, captive. Holding his wife and mother-in-law at gunpoint, the men forced Werckle to open the outer door of the bank vault then bound and gagged him with the women. Hope and Samuel "Worcester Sam" Perris then worked on the inner vault door and were eventually able to gain access using their safe-cracking tools. The robbers quietly left the bank through the back door taking with them securities and money valued at $2,757,700; of this $73,000 was in coupon bonds and $11,000 in cash. He was confronted by Detective Isaiah W. Lees and a police squad almost immediately after lowering himself into the bank. Hope pulled a revolver but surrendered when he saw the detectives, armed with sawed-off shotguns, outnumbered him. His accomplice, who was on the next floor, was able to escape but later identified as Dave Cummings. He and his partner were both arrested and given long prison terms.

Several Eastern lawmen were waiting for Hope upon his discharge on November 11, 1886. A local court ruled against the extradition order signed by then California Governor George Stoneman, however, and a court battle postponed Hope's return to New York until May 1887. Lees assigned Officers Ed Byran and Harry Hook to accompany Hope and two New York police officers as far as Chicago, Illinois.