{{Short description|Irish American detective of the United States Secret Service}} {{Use mdy dates|date=June 2021}} {{Infobox person | name = Patrick D. Tyrrell |birth_name= | birth_date = {{circa}}1831 | birth_place = [[Dublin]], [[Ireland]] | death_date = {{death date and given age|1920|4|3|89}} | death_place = [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], U.S. | resting_place = [[Calvary Cemetery (Evanston, Illinois)|Calvary Catholic Cemetery]], [[Evanston, Illinois]] | occupation = [[United States Secret Service]] agent | known_for = Stopping [[Funeral and burial of Abraham Lincoln#Attempted theft|the plot to steal the body]] of [[Abraham Lincoln]] }}
Captain '''Patrick D. Tyrrell''' ({{circa}}1831–April 3, 1920) was an [[Irish American]] detective of the [[United States Secret Service]] who, as head of the field office in [[Chicago]], became involved in foiling [[Funeral and burial of Abraham Lincoln#Attempted theft|a plot to steal the remains]] of [[President of the United States|President]] [[Abraham Lincoln]] on November 7, 1876.
==Biography== Tyrrell was born in [[Dublin]]<ref name="LFTC">{{Cite web|url=https://www.letterfromthecapitol.com/letterfromthecapitol/2007/04/2008will_americ.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160411011954/https://www.letterfromthecapitol.com/letterfromthecapitol/2007/04/2008will_americ.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2016-04-11|title=2008:Will America's Political Civil War End?|website=www.letterfromthecapitol.com|publisher=LFTC - Letter From The Capitol}}</ref> and moved to the United States as a child, growing up in [[Buffalo, New York]]. He entered law enforcement in 1856 in [[Dunkirk, New York]], and later became a detective for the [[Erie Railroad]].<ref name="Emerson">Emerson, p. 192.</ref> He moved to Chicago in 1869, where he and his wife Kate resided at a lakefront home near [[Lincoln Park]]; initially working as a [[private detective]], he joined the [[Chicago Police Department]] under Chief [[Elmer Washburn]]. After Washburn was named [[Director of the United States Secret Service|Chief of the Secret Service]] in 1874, Tyrrell became one of his agents.<ref name="Emerson"/><ref>Craughwell, p. 55.</ref> In 1875, Tyrrell led the hunt for Benjamin Boyd, a prominent engraver who worked for a Chicago-based [[counterfeit]]ing ring, and Nelson Driggs, a known dealer in counterfeit money. After a hunt that lasted eight months across five states, Tyrrell and his agents captured Boyd and his wife Almiranda in [[Fulton, Illinois]] on October 21, 1875; Chief Washburn apprehended Driggs in [[Centralia, Illinois|Centralia]] that same day.<ref name="Craughwell">Craughwell, p. 75.</ref> Boyd and Driggs were sentenced to ten and fifteen years respectively, and were held at the [[Joliet Correctional Center|Illinois State Penitentiary]] in [[Joliet, Illinois|Joliet]].<ref name="Rat">{{Cite web|url=https://historyrat.wordpress.com/2011/04/30/stealing-lincolns-body/|title=Stealing Lincoln's Body|first=Todd|last=Johnson|date=April 30, 2011|website=historyrat.wordpress.com}}</ref><ref name="Hauntings">{{Cite web|url=http://www.illinoishauntings.com/tomb.html|title=STEALING LINCOLN: MYTHS & MYSTERIES OF LINCOLN'S TOMB|website=illinoishauntings.com|access-date=November 8, 2013|archive-date=September 23, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130923225715/http://www.illinoishauntings.com/tomb.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> For his work in bringing down Boyd and Driggs, Tyrrell was promoted to chief operative of the Chicago field office in January 1876.<ref name="Craughwell"/>
===The plot to steal Lincoln's body=== {{main|Funeral and burial of Abraham Lincoln#Attempted theft}}
After Boyd's arrest, Irish crime boss James "Big Jim" Kennally (or Kinealy) came up with a plan to steal the body of Abraham Lincoln from [[Lincoln Tomb|its tomb]] at [[Oak Ridge Cemetery]] in [[Springfield, Illinois|Springfield]] and hold it in exchange for Boyd's release and a full pardon, as well as a cash ransom. After an earlier plan by associates of Kennally in [[Logan County, Illinois|Logan County]], a known hotbed for counterfeiting, failed in the summer of 1876,<ref name="Hauntings"/> Kennally recruited Terence Mullen and Jack Hughes to carry out the plan, to steal Lincoln's body and bury it in the [[Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore|Indiana Dunes]] along [[Lake Michigan]] in exchange for a full pardon for Ben Boyd and $200,000 ($4,255,319 in 2021 dollars) in cash.<ref name="Blue and Gray">{{cite web|url=http://www.bitsofblueandgray.com/may2003.htm|title=THE ATTEMPTED KIDNAPPING OF LINCOLN|publisher=Bits of Blue and Gray|date=May 2003|accessdate=2012-09-04|url-status=usurped|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120716210814/http://www.bitsofblueandgray.com/may2003.htm|archivedate=2012-07-16}}</ref> At the Hub, a saloon on the [[South Side (Chicago)|South Side]] of Chicago, Mullen and Hughes recruited a third man, Lewis Swegles, who was in fact one of Tyrrell's informants.
On learning of the plot, Swegles brought word to Tyrrell, who immediately wired the new Chief of the Secret Service, James Brooks, requesting instructions; though it was not a counterfeiting case, Mullen and Hughes were known counterfeiters, and Tyrrell, horrified by the implications of the plot, called it a "damnable act" and a matter of "national importance". On October 27, 1876, Tyrrell met with Lincoln's only surviving child, [[Robert Todd Lincoln]], and attorney [[Leonard Swett]], who had contributed to Lincoln's presidential campaign in 1860. In that meeting, Tyrrell explained all the details he had of the plot and requested that he allow the crime to go forward in order to catch the criminals in the act; after initial hesitation, Robert Lincoln agreed. On November 2, Brooks approved Tyrrell's request to act on the information.<ref>Emerson, p. 196.</ref><ref>Craughwell, p. 98.</ref> Tyrrell then recruited a group of Secret Service agents and [[Pinkerton Government Services|Pinkerton detectives]] to assist him in stopping the plot and apprehending the grave robbers. Mullen and Hughes decided on November 7, the day of the [[1876 United States presidential election|presidential election]], to make their move.
Tyrrell and his agents followed the grave robbers on the overnight train from Chicago to Springfield on the evening of November 6<ref name="Blue and Gray"/> and met with [[John Carroll Power]], the custodian of Lincoln's tomb, who agreed to assist Tyrrell in the stakeout. On the evening of November 7, while Mullen and Hughes made their move on the tomb, Tyrrell, Power, and his agents were waiting in the vestibule for Swegles to signal them; fearful of the echoes on the marble floor as they paced, they had removed their boots.<ref name="Hauntings"/> Finally, Swegles gave the pre-arranged code word, "wash", and the agents moved in, but one of the Pinkertons accidentally discharged his pistol, causing the robbers to make a hasty retreat. Tyrrell briefly became embroiled in a gun battle with some of the Pinkerton detectives in the confusion that followed. Tyrrell and his agents arrested Mullen and Hughes in Chicago several days later.<ref>Emerson, p.197-199.</ref>
===Later life and legacy=== In 1879, Tyrrell and his family moved to [[Topeka, Kansas]], within the [[St. Louis, Missouri|St. Louis]] District of the Secret Service. He and his wife divorced in 1899, and he subsequently retired from the Secret Service and returned to Chicago.<ref name="Craughwell 2">Craughwell, p. 203.</ref> He occasionally wrote "Stories of the Secret Service", one of which appeared in an edition of ''[[The Watertown Herald]]'' in [[Watertown (city), New York|Watertown, New York]] in 1905.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://news.nnyln.net/watertown-herald/1905/watertown-herald-1905-october-december%20-%200043.pdf |title=Archived copy |accessdate=2013-11-08 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109155524/http://news.nnyln.net/watertown-herald/1905/watertown-herald-1905-october-december%20-%200043.pdf |archivedate=2013-11-09 }}</ref> Tyrrell died in Chicago on April 3, 1920, at the age of eighty-nine. After a High Requiem Mass at his parish church, St. Elizabeth's, on the South Side, Tyrrell was buried at [[Calvary Cemetery (Evanston, Illinois)|Calvary Cemetery]] in [[Evanston, Illinois|Evanston]].<ref name="Craughwell 2"/>
For his role in foiling the plot, Robert Lincoln gave Tyrrell a full-size portrait of his father in 1877,<ref>Craughwell, p. 154.</ref> followed by a written tribute to Tyrrell dated April 14, 1887; both of these items remain in the possession of Tyrrell's great-great-grandson, [[R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.]], the editor-in-chief of ''[[The American Spectator]]''.<ref name="LFTC"/>
==Notes== {{reflist}}
==References== * Craughwell, Thomas J. ''Stealing Lincoln's Body''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-674-03039-8}}. * Emerson, Jason. ''Giant in The Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln''. Carbondale: SIU Press, 2012. {{ISBN|978-0-809-39071-7}}. * Power, John Carroll. ''History of an Attempt to Steal the Body of Abraham Lincoln (Late President of the United States of America) Including a History of the Lincoln Guard of Honor, with Eight Years Lincoln Memorial Services''. Springfield: H. W. Rokker, 1890.
==External links== {{Commons category-inline}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tyrrell, Patrick D.}} [[Category:1830s births]] [[Category:1920 deaths]] [[Category:United States Secret Service agents]] [[Category:Chicago Police Department officers]] [[Category:Irish emigrants to the United States]] [[Category:Burials at Calvary Cemetery (Evanston, Illinois)]] [[Category:Police officers from County Dublin]]