They erected a partition to block passersby from looking into the basement from the street and then cut through the stone floor directly under the vault. įour months later, he and Ned Lyons, with two other men, rented a basement underneath the Ocean Bank, located at Fulton and Greenwich Streets, in New York City. Hope told authorities that he believed this dispute was the motive leading to Howard's murder. While in custody in San Francisco years later, Hope claimed that a member of the Kensington gang was so upset over the split that he vowed to kill Howard.

Jim Casey was later killed by McCormick and Howard's body was found near Yonkers on the Hudson River. Although they successfully escaped with the money, a fight over splitting up the cash resulted in the deaths of three gang members. His partners in the robbery included Jim Casey, Jim McCormick, George Howard and three other men. On April 6, 1869, however, he and a group of men posing a police detectives stole between $80,000 and $100,000 from the Kensington Savings Bank. There he worked as a machinist, eventually married and started a family. James Hope was born to poor Irish immigrant parents in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1836.

His most infamous crime, however, was the 1878 robbery of the Manhattan Savings Institution with the George Leslie Gang.Įarly years in Philadelphia and New York City He was considered one of the most successful and sought after bank burglars in the United States during his lifetime as well as a skilled escape artist for his repeated breakouts from Auburn State Prison in New York.Ī pioneering career criminal and safe-cracker, he planned and took part in many of the major robberies of the post- American Civil War era including those of the Kensington Savings Bank and, in partnership with Ned Lyons, the Ocean Bank and Philadelphia Navy Yard. James 'Old Jimmy' Hope (1836 – June 2, 1905) was a 19th-century American burglar, bank robber and underworld figure in Philadelphia and later New York City. New York burglar, bank robber and underworld figure he was a member of the Leslie Gang. Old Jimmie Hope, Old Man Hope, Gentleman Jim and James J.

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