Peter Staff: The Saloonkeeper as “Private Eye.”

 

Peter Staff was well known in his hometown, Terre Haute, Indiana, as a Civil War soldier, affable saloon owner, and tireless inventor.  The most important role Staff may have played in his life, however, was as a hired detective who helped free three men unjustly accused of murder and put the finger on the true culprits.

Soldier:  Peter Staff was born in Indiana in January 1844, likely in Terre Haute where his father,  John T. Staff owned a saloon at 22 South Third Street.  Coming of age just as the Civil War was beginning, Staff in September 1861 joined the 36th Regiment Indiana Infantry.   He would see active combat for the next four years, being part of the bloody battle of Shiloh where stands a memorial to the 36th Infantry. 

In rapid succession, the 36th Indiana saw action at battles at Corinth, Mississippi; Chicamaugua, Georgia; Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the Siege of Atlanta, ending with the Battle of Bentonville in North Carolina just days before the South surrendered.  The unit was mustered out in July 1865.  The regiment lost a total of 245 men during the war:  11 officers and 102 enlisted men were killed or mortally wounded; 2 officers and 130 enlisted men died of disease.  Staff survived and went home to Terre Haute.

Saloonkeeper:  Upon his return Staff went to work as a bartender for his father, learning the saloon trade and gaining the experience and resources to start his own drinking establishment.   As early as 1879 he  was running a saloon and billiard hall in Terre Haute at 913 Wabash Avenue, five blocks from his father’s saloon.  Called The Lake Shore Saloon, Staff’s place was considered a cut above most in Terre Haute .

Staff’s proprietorship was marked by a flair for unusual giveaways to special customers.  These included ceramic pigs made by the Anna Pottery of Anna, Illinois.  Shown here is an anatomically correct sow with incised details to its face and hooves. One side is marked with extensive advertising: "Peter Staff, / Proprietor / Lak(sic) Shore Saloon. / main bet ninth and tenth streets / Terrehaute / the best wines Liquors and Cigars Constantly in…” The other side says:  ”Think it not passing strange or unlawful / If within this hog you find the mountain dew or Overjoyful / Use but dont abuse the Liquid of this Pork”.  

A second Staff pig bottle is similar but a boar hog from the look of its equipment.  The incised message is only on one side, giving the saloon address and “Choice Wines Liquors and Cigars/1879 Terrahaute Ind./Use but don’t abuse the Liquid of this Pork.”  The occasions on which Staff gifted these items has gone unrecorded.

Inventor:   Peter Staff was known in Terre Haute as an inveterate inventor whose ideas for new and better products spanned a variety of fields.  Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) records validate that view.  In 1902 Staff patented a mirror frame, in 1904 and 1907 pipe couplings, in 1905 an air brake valve, in 1906 a shade and curtain hanger, and in 1909 foldable tableware.

Among Staff’s more interesting brainchildren was a 1905  “vehicle top,” shown here. This invention came at a time when many gasoline powered vehicles like automobiles and tractors were open to the air.  Made of canvass and metallic tubes, this canopy presaged the convertible top but required assembly and positioning above driver and passengers when it rained.  More recently the PTO has classified the saloonkeeper’s top among inventions for protecting field tractor drivers from the elements.  Staff thought it should be used for automobiles.  No evidence exists that any of his inventions were ever put into commercial production. 

Terre Haute Union Station

Detective:  “On Saturday night, June 8, 1878, an Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad train sat in the old Union Station in Terre Haute. The crew stepped out of the depot at 10th & Chestnut readied the train for another trip west. Climbing onto the caboose after checking the couplings on the cars was James Murray, the brakeman. His was one of the most dangerous jobs in railroading. Brakeman had to climb upon railroad cars to operate the brakes, even in the worst of weather.”   That is how Historian Tim Crumrin begins his account of death on the rails leading from Terre Haute, a murder in which Peter Staff would play an unusual role.

As the train steamed the five miles toward neighboring St. Mary’s of the Woods, men intent on derailing it altered crucial switches and hid to watch.  The engine jumped the track dragging the cars.  Murray was thrown from the caboose and crushed to death under the wreckage.  In a convoluted way the Lake Shore Saloon became central to the investigation.  Railroad officials, apparently not trusting local authorities hired as “detectives” two men, George Jackman and James Knight,  who were regulars in Staff’s saloon.  After their “investigation,” for which they were paid $500, the pair put the finger on three local men, one of them Crumrin’s great-great grandfather.  In October 1878, a Terre Haute grand jury indicted the three for the second degree murder of James Murray.  They were arrested and thrown into jail awaiting trial.

Meanwhile Peter Staff also had been hired as a “detective” by the railroad.  A member of the Brotherhood of Railroad Firemen, Staff’s saloon was known as a gathering place for railroading types and it may have been hoped he would learn

something.  He did.  Staff told authorities that Jackman and Knight had confessed to the crime while sitting in the back of his saloon.  Whether he had heard the admission directly or through third parties was not disclosed.  Other evidence then came to light that corroborated Staff’s information.  By this time the first three men arrested, including Crumrin’s ancestor, had been released from jail for lack of evidence.  Now they were exonerated.

Jackman and Knight were arrested and charged with Murray’s murder.  Convicted and sent to the Indiana State Prison, they appealed and were granted a new trial by the Indiana Supreme Court.  The pair, though likely guilty, walked free after the railroad company declined to prosecute them a second time.

The abrupt conclusion to this crime story leaves many unanswered questions.   Who hired the perpetrators behind the train wreck — and why?  Why did the railroad drop the case against Jackman and Knight?  Why did local authorities agree, ignoring the criminal death of James Murray?  I suspect Peter Staff knew some of the answers but he is not on record disclosing anything.  Staff continued to operate his saloon into the 20th Century until diabetes forced his retirement.  He died of its complications on Feb. 7, 1912 and was buried in Terre Haute’s Highland Lawn Cemetery.

Today Peter Staff is not remembered for his soldering, or his inventions, or even his role in helping solve the I&St.L. train wreck.  His memory is kept alive by a pair of small ceramic pigs that once held several swallows of whiskey.  Staff gave them away.  Currently they command $2,000 to $3,000 at auction.

Note:  This post was initiated by seeing Staff’s pig bottles and deciding he was a likely candidate for this blog.  When the saloonkeeper’s trail led to the train wreck investigation I was sure of it.   Prof. Crumrin is the author of a 2019 book entitled “Wicked Terre Haute” available from Amazon Books and elsewhere.