Name/Title
ManuscriptEntry/Object ID
2016.2.99yScope and Content
McKinley document found on eBay
The local has the 1901 mug shot of the assassin.
By Sherri L. Shauls
Vindicator Trumbull Staff
Niles -- A piece of history associated with President William McKinley is back in Erie County, N.Y., thanks to the kean eye of a Buffalo attorney.
The original court docket from Leon Czolgosz's trail for the 1901 assassination of McKinley is back after it was rescued from the Internet auction site eBay.
The single-page document was expected to fetch as much as $6,000, but the sale was canceled once authorities were alerted it was stolen from the Erie County Courthouse in Buffalo, N.Y.
"It started last Friday when I got a call from the local U.S. attorney's office and they asked , 'Do you have the records for the trail of Leon Czolgosz?'" said David J. Swarts, clerk of courts in Erie County.
Swarts said authorities got involved in the hunt for the document after Buffalo lawyer Glenn E. Murray, who has participated in re-enactments of the assassination, found the listing on eBay.
Murray informed federal officials and the auction house that posted the document for someone else, that the docket was stolen property.
Swarts said after he got the call, he went to the basement records room in the courthouse to check for himself. "I looked in book number 25, page 15, and it was missing," he said.
Swarts said it's unclear when the document was taken, but he suspects it took place within the past year. The page was not cut from the book, he added.
"It's an old book, and the binding was separated," he said. "I think they just nudged it out."
The document details the two-day trail of Czolgosz, an anarchist who moved to Buffalo from Cleveland and shot McKinley twice while the president shook hands of well-wishers in a recieving line during the 1901 Pan-American Exposition.
McKinley, who suffered gunshot wounds to chest and stomach in the Sept. 6 attack, died of gangrene Sept. 14. Czolgosz was indicted Sept. 23 and sentenced to death just days later.
Before his execution by eletric chair Oct. 29, Czolgosz said he killed McKinley because he was "the enemy of the good people!... I am not sorry for my crime."
It's not the first time public records have been removed from the courthouse, Swarts said. Books of mariage certificates and immigration records were removed from shelves and stored on mircofilm to prevent theft, he said.
Several other historical documents related to President Grover Cleveland and Millard Fillmore, who have ties to Buffalo, have also been subjected to theft.
In the future, he added, the court docket -- which was returned to the Erie Count District Attorney's office Tuesday -- will be kept in a display case. Athorities continue to investigate how the auction house came into ...
Sunday, July 04, 2004 America OnlineCollection
BlaneyAcquisition
Accession
2016.2.0Source or Donor
Eileen B. BlaneyAcquisition Method
Gift