The Inspector's Lost Son Was Working at Providence Hospital

Edward Byrnes, Jr., who was stolen from his home in Brooklyn, N.Y., seventeen years ago, and who was located last Friday at Providence hospital by a Post-Intelligencer reporter, will leave for his home tomorrow. In an interview with a Post-Intelligencer reporter yesterday he denied ever having been previously interviewed or having given facts concerning his life. He says he is the son of the famous New York police superintendent, Thomas Byrnes, and has in his possession letters from his sister, signed as Katie Byrnes and below as Mrs. James Quigley, of 769½ Dean street, Brooklyn, New York, she having married since he disappeared. Her letter is a sisterly appeal for him to return to those from whom he has been separated through no fault of theirs. He has letters from the office of the Brooklyn superintendent of police, but will not allow any one to read their contents. The story of his abduction, the cause, and his subsequent life as related by him is interesting and rivals the celebrated Charlie Ross case. He told it to a Post-Intelligencer reporter in the following words:

'I was born March 20, in Brooklyn, N.Y. My mother often said I was born one year before the close of the war. I had one sister, named Katie, she was named after my mother, and was several years older than I. My father is Thomas Byrnes, now superintendent of the New York police, at the time of my birth in [New York]. My father's brother is Daniel Byrnes, chief of the old and new Brooklyn fire department, and who was retired from service about seventeen years ago on account of injuries received. When I was a child—I suppose it was because I was the only boy at that time—I was the pet of the family. At the age of 6 or 7 years I was sent to Father Myers' boarding-school. I do not remember the number, but know it was on Atlantic avenue. One day, when I, in company with some of my fellow schoolmates, were playing in front of the building, a woman drove up in a carriage and called me to her. She talked to me about the school, how I was getting along in my studies, and asked me if I did not want some candy and sweetmeats. I was pleased with the idea of such a feast and readily accompanied her. When we were going through the city she asked me if I did not want to go down to the Brooklyn bridge, where the big stones were then piled up on the wharf. I used to play there, and she evidently knew it. This plan and the desire for the candy made me unsuspicious, and I thought her a very nice woman. I got out at the bridge and she did the same. A little later she picked me up and put me back in the carriage. I did not know anything from then on until I awoke on the New York Central train. I was scared and wanted to go back home. I asked her where we were going, and she told me that she was taking me where her little boys were, and that when we got there I should be made a lawyer. After a long, long ride we got off the train. She told me we were in Cincinnati, and took me to either her brother's or sister's. The house was on Pearl street, and as I remember, was a big brown-stone front, elegantly furnished. There were three or four children in the house, and for a time I had great times playing ball and marbles with them. After a long time I began to think everything was not just right, and told her I wanted to go home. She flew into a rage and said that my father had sent her father, John Myers, who was the contractor for the Brooklyn boulevard, to the penitentiary, and that she had stolen me to grieve my parents and then finished by saying: 'I guess I have done it.' I was mad at the way I had been used and yet ashamed to return home or write because I had been away from home so long. I told Ed Conchlin, Jr., who lived on the same street, all about it and he, in confidence, told me that John Myers was the contractor who had swindled the city of Brooklyn and the workmen he had employed on the boulevard work. My father had worked up the case and sent him to prison and that I was the means taken to 'get even.'

I was more than angry at this news, and determined to run away. Conchlin was about 17 years old and I about 10. He had seen considerable of the world, and agreed to go with me. We took the train for St. Louis and stayed nine days, then on to Kansas City, then to Denver and then to Pueblo, Col. We got into the saloon and restaurant business. John, James and Mike Tineny were running Tammany hall at that time, and Jack Corneas was chief of police of South Pueblo. We were in business for about a year and a half, and outside of it made $1,500 in gambling. We got on a spree one night and took in the mining camps, and stayed in Lead[s]burg, the big distributing point for the mines, two weeks. Our next jump was to Los Angeles, where we found ourselves broke. We went to Oakland somehow and started in gambling. 'They came our way' and we won lots of money. One night we had a big time and the next morning I found myself outside Golden Gate bound for Seattle. I was taken sick with typhoid fever and went to Providence hospital. After recovery I went to work for the sisters and stayed with them for over two years as steward.'

Edward Byrnes was employed at Providence hospital as steward for about two and a half years. He was well liked by all, and above all thoroughly reliable and trustworthy. Sister Superior Eugene, in speaking of Byrnes, or Allen as he was known, said: 'He was different from other inmates of the hospital when a patient. He kept a close mouth and was always by himself. Frequently he would go into the waiting-room and read. When he went to work he was in a position where his honesty was tested, and in every case his reckonings were correct. I have not had any communication from New York about him, nor do I know what he was before he came here. I know that he has been honest and faithful while at the hospital.'

Police Captain Sims does not credit the claim that Byrnes is the son of the celebrated thief catcher. He believes that if the son of such a man was abducted heaven and earth would have been overturned before the case was dropped.