Dr. J.J.D. Banting continued in his governorship of the Barrie Jail up until the time of his sudden death in 1933.
After that, Turnkey John Weaymouth became acting governor and his wife the jailhouse matron. By the end of the year, Ontario Premier George Henry had rewarded one of his strong local political supporters, John Forgie of Sunnidale Township, with the governorship.
Within months, the political winds changed and the Liberal government of Mitchell Hepburn came in. Hepburn had promised to oust most of the appointees installed by his predecessor and Forgie was one of the first to go. Governor Forgie was then replaced by Midland grocer Edward Garrity.
The team of Garrity and Weaymouth seem to have passed their time largely without incident through the following years. At least, no particular grievances or scandals were reported in the local newspapers. All of that changed when the Royal Bank branch in Bala, Ont., was robbed.
It all began about lunchtime on Aug. 2, 1939 when two men walked into the bank and asked for traveller’s cheques. The innocent request quickly turned dire when one of the men produced a sawed-off shotgun and demanded all the money in the safe. The robbers herded the bank teller, manager and lone customer into the bank vault and were gone in a flash with $1,800.
Within two hours, Provincial Police Constable Robert Beatty, only recently transferred from Barrie to Muskoka, caught up with Edward Davies who had been well described by the bank workers. He was arrested on the spot. Davies’ accomplice, Louis Wall, had seemingly escaped in a stolen motor boat.
Two weeks later, both men were in custody in a Muskoka lock-up. As law enforcement tried to figure out who exactly these fellows were, it became apparent that they were slippery characters. They gave their addresses variously as Toronto and Montreal, but some information came in that Davies, at least, had broken out of an American jail in 1936, been detained by Vancouver police ahead of deportation, but had disappeared.
The duo was transferred to Barrie for “safe keeping," as was reported in the Northern Advance of Aug. 17, 1939. So concerned were officials about a potential jailbreak, Magistrate Jeffs took the unusual step of visiting the men in the jailhouse to deal with remand, rather than risk transferring them to court, even for a few minutes. All went well for a week and then Edward Davies vanished from his jail cell. The Barrie Examiner set the scene on Aug. 31, 1939.
“Barrie citizens experienced thrills and chills surpassing those provided by the best detective mysteries when it became whispered about town Friday morning that Ontario’s ‘Public Enemy No. 1’, thought to be safely lodged in the county gaol, was numbered among the missing when his cell was visited by a guard about 6:30 a.m.”
Described by the police as a desperate criminal, Davies had managed to saw through the bars of his cell window and rappel into the jail yard by means of a rope he fashioned out of his bed sheets. The nimble desperado then managed to scale the 22-foot stone walls and disappear into the night.
The police had a good idea where he might have gone though. When arrested, Davies had only half of the loot on his person and his partner, Louis Wall, claimed never to have received his cut. The officers on his trail suspected the remaining money was likely hidden very close to the scene of the crime.
Along a lonely stretch of CPR tracks just outside of Bala, just 24 hours after his jail cell was found vacant, Edward Davies came face to face with Constable Allsopp of Gravenhurst. As the constable attempted to disarm Davies, a struggle ensued and Davies ended up with both his own firearm and the one belonging to Allsopp.
Allsopp kept Davies talking as he watched other officers approach, along the tracks, behind the escaped prisoner. Edward Davies, not knowing how many guns were pointed at his back, decided to give up.
A well-shackled Davies rode back to Barrie crammed into the middle of a carload of relieved police officers. On his return to the jail, Davies was searched and placed naked into a cell with no cot nor bedding. Later that same day, he was hustled onto a train bound for Toronto and the Don Jail where he was to be kept until his Sept. 1 trial date in Bracebridge.
Edward Davies was successfully housed in his Toronto lodgings and brought to Muskoka to answer for his crime spree. Surrounded by an abnormally large security detail, Davies learned, after three days of testimony, that he would be spending his next 12 years in Kingston Penitentiary. Louis Wall got nine years as his accomplice.
But who was Edward Davies really? He claimed to be a Montreal student, studying for his B.A. at McGill University. Yet, in 1938, the same man, then known to authorities as Joseph Masaldi, had jumped overboard from a ship at Union Bay, B.C., as he was being returned to the United States. A California prison camp had been missing such a man since May 1936.
After Davies and Wall were entrusted to the turnkeys of Kingston, the powers that be decided to have a look at the work of the chief turnkey of this town’s jailhouse, Mr. John Weaymouth. With such a high-profile escape to blemish the jail’s reputation, someone had to be held accountable. As Governor Garrity had been away on holiday, Weaymouth was the senior man in charge.
Davies appeared to have smuggled saw blades in from the outside, concealed them and successfully used them to escape. That they weren’t found by anyone, during searches of the prisoner or of his jail cell, fell on John Weaymouth. He was dismissed from his position and replaced by Gerald Woods.
That wasn’t quite the end of the story of Turnkey Weaymouth. He believed that he deserved more than simply being shown the door after nearly three decades of risking his life for the community, and many others concurred. It was agreed upon that Mr. Weaymouth be given a pension for life, something that no previous turnkey in Barrie had ever received.
Each week, the Barrie Historical Archive provides BarrieToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past. This unique column features photos and stories from years gone by and is sure to appeal to the historian in each of us.
