JOHN "RED" HAMILTON

8/27/1898 - Mostly forgotten now, one of the critical figures in both the First and Second Dillinger Gangs is born into the large (he will have eight siblings) Byng Inlet, Ontario, Canada Irish family of John and Sarah Hamilton (a German-American emigrant from New York) ... John "Red" Hamilton (the nickname comes from the deep dark color of his hair).

Hamilton

Brought to the United States at three when his family moves to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Hamilton has a fairly normal childhood.  He attends McKinley Public School, where he is an above average student, and he is a regular Sunday attendee at the local Catholic church.  Like many in the region, he also takes full advantage of the many outdoor opportunities  of northeastern Michigan, becoming an excellent trapper, hunter, and most importantly for his upcoming career, an expert marksman with enough talent that he wins a number of local shooting competitions.  The only personality disorder of any kind that is evident is Hamilton's inclination to accept the dares and challenges of his companions ... he climbs up a 175-foot factory chimney for the reward of a single dime, and he is awarded another nickname that will be with him for the rest of his life when while sledding with friends near the town's railroad tracks he decides to demonstrate the speed of his hand/eye coordination by touching the spinning wheel of a passing train, a stunt that earns Hamilton the moniker "Three Finger Jack" after his audacious moment costs him the index and middle fingers on his right hand.

Sault Ste. Marie

A tenth grade education the terminus of his formal studies, Hamilton leaves school and works for a time as a lumberjack and as a deckhand on a freighter plying the Great Lakes.  In 1919, he gets together with two friends in Pontiac, Michigan and hustles freight for the Oakland Motor Company.  By 1921, Hamilton is back in Sault Ste. Marie and marries Mary Stephenson ... a pairing in which Hamilton soon discovers life as a farmer will not pay the bills of his "high life" loving wife or support the two sons, Howard and Orville, the couple brings into the world.  Bootlegging as a side job like countless others, Hamilton becomes a full time criminal when his illegal brewing still is discovered in the farm's chicken coop.  Arrested, Hamilton jumps bail in 1924 and joins the bandit gang of his wife's brother, Alvia, just in time to be part of the crew that takes a $33,000 payroll from the Lakey Foundry of Muskegon Heights.  Still not a full time crook, Hamilton and his family move to Detroit, where the young man works his "show" job as a carpenter while running rum from Canada down into the States.  And there is an attempted burglary of the Walter E. Miles Coal Company of Grand Rapids (Hamilton and his partner are discovered by police breaking into the company's safe, but flee out a back door after spotting a cop car in the parking lot, there take for the evening is a disappointing $200).  And of course, there is also his place as a member of the Stephenson Gang.  On January 3, 1927, the gang, composed of Hamilton, Raymond Lawrence, Clayton Powers (the husband of Mary's sister), Curtis Turner, and Mary's brothers, Alvia, John, George, and Joseph, hit the Kent State Bank of Grand Rapids for over $25,000.  Next up Hamilton and Lawrence get set to rob a South Bend, Indiana bank, but call it off when a hostage manages to escape and contacts the authorities ... forced to flee early, the pair leaves behind $48,500 in cash and $85,000 in securities.  Their escape does not last long and both men are arrested when local Chief of Police James J. Hatt investigates a report of a man putting Wisconsin car plates on a Michigan car.  Saying nothing while Lawrence spills his guts on his criminal adventures with the Stephenson crew, less than 36 hours after the bungled bank job, pleading guilty to avoid a life sentence, Hamilton is sent away to the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City to begin serving a sentence of 25-years behind bars (not pleased, Mary divorces him, marries a Toledo, Ohio man, and dies in childbirth in 1930 ... Hamilton's two sons are raised in Ohio by his mother-in-law). 

Michigan City 

Course now decided, the quiet, intelligent 28-year-old outlaw keeps out of obvious trouble, with his worst offense being skipping rope in the shirt shop in 1932.  Despite his "good behavior," yearly his pleas for clemency are denied as the parole board identifies the convict for exactly what he is ... a dangerous man.  Fellow inmates at the institution also see Hamilton the same way and he is soon a member of a group of felons that daily discuss their strong-arm experiences, the bank robbing techniques of Baron Herman Lamm (known as the father of modern bank robbing), and a variety of plots to escape the prison ... "Handsome" Harry "Pete" Pierpont, a bank robber serving a 10-21 year sentence for armed robbery and attempted murder, Russell Lee "Boobie" Clark, a genial outlaw until crossed serving a 20-year sentence for robbing multiple banks in 1927 (an acute discipline problem for the prison, Clark will try three escape attempts, and is a ringleader when the convicts strike for better conditions at the institution in 1929), and "Fat" Charles Omer Makley, a bootlegger and armed robber from Ohio serving a 10-20 year sentence for robbing a bank in Hammond, Indiana.  As a member of the group, in exchange for his help coordinating an escape from the prison, in 1929 Hamilton contributes to criminal education of a recent transfer to the prison from the state's Pendleton Reformatory ... a 26-year-old nobody serving a 10-20 year beef (the judge decides to make an example of the young man) for the bungled robbery of a Mooresville grocer Frank Morgan in 1924 ... a convict named John Herbert Dillinger.

Pierpont

Clark

Makley

Dillinger

Dillinger comes through for his friends by sneaking three guns into the prison in a 200-pound box of thread from the Gordon Shirt Company for the institution's shirt shop (marked by a red "X" in one corner of the box), before being arrested himself in Ohio for some of the robberies that bankrolled the breakout.  Out on, Hamilton is one of three men that receive .45 automatics for the break (Pierpont and Makley are the other two), which takes place on September 26, 1933.  Ten men in all leave the prison  that afternoon, silently taking guard hostages as they make their way to and then out of the front gate.  Once outside, the men split into two groups, steal two cars and vanish into the countryside.  Pierpont, Makley, Clark, Hamilton, and Eddie Shouse (a former race car speedster the gang has settled on to be their getaway driver on future jobs) make it to the hideaway Dillinger, former convict Harry Copeland, and Pierpont's girlfriend, Mary Kinder have set up in Hamilton, Ohio (on the way there, Dillinger's former cellmate, murderer Jim Jenkins falls out of the car when it makes a sudden and violent turn to avoid a posse on the road and he is killed by a shotgun blast to the chest and head by another posse looking for the escapees).  Party time, the men shower and shave, receive new clothes, and enjoy their first home cooked meal in ages before discussing how they are going to free Dillinger from the barred confines of his Lima, Ohio cell.  Money required first to put any plot they come up with in motion, at the suggestion of Makley, the gang decides that their first caper will be to rob the First National Bank of Makley's boyhood hometown of St. Mary's, Ohio.  On October 3, 1933, with Hamilton taking on the assignment of making sure no one on the outside interferes with the job (a large crowd has gathered at a poolroom across the street to listen to the opening radio broadcast of the World Series taking place between the Washington Senators and the New York Giants), the gang successfully robs the St. Mary's bank of $14,000 in cash (brand new bills, Kinder will spend several days applying soil and water to the bills and then ironing them to make the cash appear worn).  Nine days later, on Columbus Day, they arrive in Lima to free their buddy.

Kinder

Hamilton

Springing Dillinger, while Pierpont, Makley, and Clark go inside the Lima jail to get their buddy out (killing Sheriff Jesse Saber in the process), Hamilton is stationed a few hundred feet from the jail at the entrance to the town's Ohio Theater, where he makes sure no trouble comes to the team inside.  Reunited with the young thief, the gang (the press will call this group of outlaws "The Terror Gang," or in a misbegotten notion that they can cause trouble between the veteran bandits, "The John Dillinger Gang"), along with their girlfriends, makes their base in Chicago and begins the robberies that will bring them national infamy and will vault Dillinger into Public Enemy #1 in 1934 ... outside lookout as "tiger" again, Hamilton is at the Greencastle, Indiana robbery of the Central National bank that puts $74,782.09 in the pockets of the outlaws, and during the robbery of the American Bank and Trust Company of Racine, Wisconsin, Hamilton is part of the inside crew that includes Pierponnt, Dillinger, and Makley and has the responsibility of emptying the bank teller's cages of cash (the bank is a $28,000 payday for the gang)  During this time period, Hamilton kills Sgt. William T. Shanley when the officer surprises the outlaw when he goes to a Chicago garage to pick up a newly repaired Auburn automobile in the company of his latest girlfriend, Elaine Dent ... 42-year-old Shanley is a 20-year veteran of the force that leaves behind a wife, two sons, and two daughters (the murder will cause the city to create a 40-man Dillinger Squad, a group of lawmen on call 24/7, dedicated to bringing down the gang). Heat on in Chicago, along with the rest of the gang, Hamilton takes a vacation in Florida that includes laughs, booze, all-night poker games, and ringing in the New Year by shooting machine guns at the moon.  Round Two of the gang's vacation a meeting in the Wild West town of Tucson, Arizona, Hamilton first drives back to Chicago with Dillinger, hoping to make nightclub dancer Patricia Cherrington his newest girlfriend.

Saber

Racine - Bank Is At Center On Corner

Shanley

Hamilton & Cherrington

Though never proven in a court of law that either man participates in the robbery, Hamilton and Dillinger (and a third man that is never identified), with no preparation, rob the First National Bank of East Chicago in January of 1934.  What should have been a five to six man job of course turns into a debacle in which Dillinger sends a lethal burst of machine gun fire into the chest of 43-year-old detective Patrick O'Malley while he and Hamilton are leaving the bank (with Hamilton wounded so badly that he will remain in Chicago being nursed by Cherrington) for a payday of $20,000.  The electric chair is now in play for Dillinger, Hamilton, Pierpont, Clark, and Makley.  Everyone arrested that visits Tucson, Hamilton is thrust into the job of providing assistance to Dillinger for yet another prison break, a job he achieves by contacting former Pendleton and Michigan City pal, Homer Van Meter, about Dillinger joining Baby Face Nelson's gang of outlaws if Nelson can help him out of jail.  Wooden gun escape from the Crown Point, Indiana jail accomplished on March 3, 1934, Dillinger and Hamilton become members of what will be known as "The Second Dillinger Gang," along with Baby Face Nelson (real name Lester Joseph Gillis, a runtish, 25-year-old psychopath), Tommy Carroll (a 33-year-old bank robber and murderer), John Paul Chase (a 32-year-old bootlegger from San Francisco, California), Homer Virgil Van Meter (Dillinger's Pendleton and Michigan City, 28-year-old chum), and 35-year-old jug-marker (he finds banks to hit, creates robbery plans, and sets up escape routes), Harold Eugene "Eddie" Green.  Emptying teller cages again, Hamilton participates in the March 6, 1934 robbery of the Security National Bank & Trust of Sioux Falls, South Dakota that nets the gang $49,500 (and has Baby Face Nelson gunning down, with delirious screams of "I got one!  I got one!," motorcycle cop Hale Keith), and helps the outlaws escape the job by sprinkling roofing nails all over the Route 77 road.  On the March 13, 1934 robbery of the First National Bank of Mason City, Iowa, Hamilton duels with a tear gas firing bank guard in an overhead bullet-proof cage, shoves teller cage money into a sack, and is forced to leave over $200,000 in the bank's vault when the gang runs out of time for the robbery (leaving with $52,000, in the gun battle that takes place outside, Baby Face Nelson wounds several individuals, and Dillinger, Van Meter, and Hamilton all take wounding bullet hits (they will get doctoring later that night from Dr. Nels Mortensen of St. Paul).

Nelson

John Paul Chase  

Green

Tommy Carroll

Van Meter

Outside The Bank - Bandits Have Just Fled

St. Paul no longer a safe haven for the gang after a gun battle takes place outside the apartment Dillinger and his girlfriend, Billie Frechette, are using as a hideout (Van Meter also engages the FBI at the apartment complex), and the murder of Eddie Green at the hands of Federal agents, Hamilton and girlfriend Pat Cherrington are part of the outlaw group (Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, Tommy Carroll, and Homer Van Meter) that travels to the Little Bohemia Lodge outside of Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin for a few days of rest and relaxation in April of 1934 (and days before, believing his days as an outlaw are numbered and coming to an end, accompanied by Dillinger, Hamilton makes a brief visit to Sault Ste. Marie to see his sister, Mrs. Anna Steve, for a last time) ... very few days of rest and relaxation as it turns out!  Beginning the last days of his life, Hamilton escapes from a surprise FBI raid on the lodge by slipping out a back window of the lodge, jumping down into a snowbank, then, with Dillinger and Van Meter, fleeing into the surrounding wilderness in search of a car to steal to make their way back to the relative safety of St. Paul.  Ford coupe stolen from a local carpenter, the men make their way over backroads towards St. Paul, thinking to enter the town from the south, rather than as expected from the north.  A good plan that goes awry when they are spotted crossing the Mississippi River over the bridge at the town of Hastings, Minnesota.  In the gun battle that ensues before the bandits finally escape, the outlaws and authorities fire on each other while their vehicles reach speeds of more than 80 mph.  Hit in the back by a rifle round from Deputy Sheriff Norman Dieter, Hamilton's bloody wound necessitates immediate medical attention which can't be found in St. Paul with the town frothing over the latest events ... so the trio changes plans and after procuring another ride, heads for Chicago.

Little Bohemia Lodge

The Hastings Spiral Bridge

Finding themselves anathema in Chicago after mob boss puts out orders that no one is to help the outlaws, denied treatment by underworld doctor Joseph Moran (who will soon be shot to death by Freddy Barker), Dillinger is given help by the only group of men that can relate to the dangerous circumstances the bandit gang faces ... the Barker-Karpis Gang.  Bleeding from an oozing wound the size of a silver dollar, in horrible pain, Hamilton is taken to a house in Aurora, Illinois, where bank robber and kidnapper, Volney Davis, and his girlfriend, Edna "The Kissing Bandit" Murray, are hiding.  There, expecting the authorities to show up at any minute, the outlaws (Dock Barker, Volney Davis, Homer Van Meter, and John Dillinger) minister to the mortally wounded bandit as best they can as gangrene sets in.  Hamilton finally passes away at around 3:00 in the afternoon of Thursday, April 26, 1934.  That evening, Dock Barker, Volney Davis, Dillinger, and Van Meter take Hamilton's body to a rock quarry six miles south of Aurora.  Outlaw funeral in order, a shallow grave is dug in the quarry's gravel, Hamilton's right hand is cut off, then Dillinger covers the corpse in ten cans of lye provided by Davis as the nation's current Public Enemy #1 delivers a short eulogy, "Red, old pal, I hate to do this, but I know you'd do the same for me."  The body is then covered up by Dillinger and Van Meter, with Volney Davis putting some strands of barbed wire over the spot to mark the outlaw's final resting place, and the men vacate the site as they move forward to their own criminal endings.  But did Hamilton really die escaping from the Little Bohemia Lodge?

Dock

Volney Davis

Murray

With information provided by Davis after he is arrested, escapes, and then is arrested again for the 1934 kidnapping of St. Paul banker, Edward Bremer, the faceless muck that is suppose to be Hamilton is located on August 28, 1935, and using a single molar found at the site, the corpse is identified by the FBI as belonging to outlaw "Red" Hamilton (Hamilton's sister will pay to have the body buried in an Oswego cemetery.  Despite the identification though (some think the body actually belongs to Dr. Moran), for years the FBI receives information that Hamilton survived his back wound and used the wounding and reports of his death to retire from his life of crime and live out his days in the wilds of Michigan and Canada.  That is the story that underworld informant Fred Meyers tells the FBI in 1936.  And it is the tale the Hamilton Family will tell decades later.  John's nephew, Bruce Hamilton, describes a 1945 adventure in which the family recovers a stash of money left behind by the Dillinger Gang, a stash that Bruce's father, Wilton Hamilton, uses to buy a new car and pay off the mortgage on his home in South Bend, Indiana.  And when Bruce is fifteen, members of the family gather on the Canadian border for a vacation in which the youth is introduced to his Uncle John for the first time.  And shortly thereafter, when Hamilton brother Foye is released from prison, he suddenly comes in to enough money to build a machine shop in Rockford, Illinois, purchase a piece of Great Lakes property called Turtle Island, along with boats and a seaplane to get to and from the island (which John Hamilton will use as a hiding place until he dies in Canada in the 1970s).  Family secret revealed, before his death, Bruce's father will tell his son that Red was treated in Chicago by Dr. Harold Cassidy, recovers from the wound at the home of his brother, Sylvester, in East Gary, Indiana, and then, with the help of Hamilton's grandfather, William Hamilton, is taken to a hideout near a place called the Rum Village Woods.  Finally recuperated, Hamilton will work as an electrician at a family owned bowling alley in South Bend for two years, before moving to Canada and vanishing from history.

The Official Story