The Great Mimico Mail Robbery some 91-years ago was like a scene from an old Al Capone Hollywood movie which still remains unsolved today.

The armed stick-up and police dragnet for three well-dressed, fedora-wearing robbers made major headlines back in March 1929.

It began when a truck rushing mail from the Mimico Post Office to the Canadian National Railways, on Judson St., was heisted by men who pulled a car in front of the truck as it turned left under the bridge from Royal York Rd.

“Come on, stick ’em up!” one bandit is said to have yelled.

The truck was driven by Harold Douglas, 19, whose dad Thomas, had been ferrying mail from Long Branch, New Toronto, Mimico Beach and Mimico to the train station for 17-years. The three men in the truck were ordered to lay on the floor of the car.

The robbers were in search of a mail bag containing gold bullions, which they were told would be in the truck. They opened a number of bags only to find about $5.

The victims had guns pointed at them, their hats drawn over their heads and driven around for several hours before being dropped off at High Park. They hurried to the Cowan Ave. police station to file a report.

Soon a massive manhunt was underway involving Mimico Police, Toronto Police, provincial cops and Post Office investigators.

“I don’t think they were foreigners. They spoke like Canadians or Americans; not like Polacks or Italians. But then you can’t tell,” one of the victims told police, describing the men as seasoned professionals.

It wasn’t long before police arrested John Miller and Fred Haight, both 28, in the U.S.

The career bandits had escaped from Toronto Brick and Tile Company, then the Mimico Reformatory and later Toronto South Detention Centre, on Horner Ave., while serving time for weapons charges and attempted murder of a Windsor cop.

Soon George Brown, 24, was arrested in Orillia, along with George Little, in Detroit.

Police learned the heist was hatched while the men were serving time with a former postal employee who had masterminded several large mail truck robberies.

A trial for the high-profile robbery and kidnapping began in mid-May and in two weeks a jury ruled they were not-guilty due to circumstantial evidence. Charges were dropped against the men and the incident remains unsolved in police blotters today.

 

The late Frederick Barnard Fetherstonhaugh was a top lawyer who lived in a huge Mimico waterfront home and is best known for owning the first electric car in Canada.

Known to his friends as ‘Fred’ or ‘FB,” he founded Fetherstonhaugh and Company, an international law firm specializing in patents that had offices in 10 Canadian and U.S. cities including Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, New York and Washington.

FB lived large and by 1899, he with wife, Marion Arabella Rutledge, had purchased a large property on the Mimico waterfront and built a huge home, called Lynne Lodge, after his mother’s home in Ireland, which was designed in Queen Anne style, with an mix of towers, windows, dormers and cladding.

The couple on their estate at Royal York Rd., and Lake Shore Blvd., built a stone guest house called “The Tower,” or sometimes dubbed the ‘castle’ by area residents.

Fred is best remembered for his electric vehicle, the first that was built in this country. It was featured at the 1893 CNE and later commemorated in 1993 on a Canadian $100 gold coin.

“The car could go only 14 miles on one charge, with a top speed of 15 mph, and it frequently broke down, but nevertheless, Fred used the car for 15 years,” according to researcher and historian Denise Harris.
Harris wrote that after Fred moved to Mimico, power to recharge the battery was “stepped down” from the line used to power the Toronto and Mimico Electric Railway that ran past his home.

The vehicle came about in the early 1890s after William Still approached Fred to patent a lightweight, high-efficiency storage battery he had invented. A car lover, Fred loved the project and soon became a partner in developing the vehicle.

FB had rich friends and was a member of the Board of Trade, the Manufacturers’ Association, the Canadian Institute, the Masonic Order, St. James Cathedral, the Royal Canadian Yacht Club and the Argonaut Rowing Club.

He was presented to King Edward VII at Windsor Castle in 1905 for being a founding member of the Empire Club and represented the club at the coronation of King George V in 1911.

After wife died in 1930, Fred married Audrey Victoria Emaygh, who was 32 years younger who left him and took most of his fortune. He fell into debt and his law firm was seized.  He also lost some of his property and when Fred died in 1945, his estate was valued at only $13,000.

His waterfront property was sold in 1947 for use as a restaurant being shut in 1955. The house was demolished around 1957 and an apartment building erected on its site at 2667 Lake Shore Blvd. W.