Manhunt Up the Gatineau
Chasing a Communist Criminal in Cottage Country
For a few days at the beginning of May of 1925, residents of the picturesque villages and cottage communities of the lower Gatineau valley near Chelsea were on edge as police conducted a hunt for a murderer.
A glorious golden moon did its best to make conditions pleasant enhancing the loveliness of the always beautiful panorama of hills and river. When the faint fingers of dawn began to show through the rain over the ridges of the Laurentians, every one of the nine trackers were on the move.
With text more suitable for a tourism brochure, a reporter described the experience of spending the night by a campfire at Tenaga alongside Hull’s Chief of Police Joseph Groulx and detective Mortimer Culver.
The men were part of a posse led by Ottawa Police Inspector Émile Joliat, who was still some years away from rising to the rank of Chief, but already well known for his police work. If that wasn’t enough, being the father of Montreal Canadiens star Aurèle Joliat raised his profile further.
The Murder
The events which led police up the Gatineau began in Ottawa at the Albert Street rooming house of Theresa and Michael Comerford on the evening of April 30, where boarders Fred Uffett and Charles Underwood had an alcohol fueled encounter which turned deadly.
According to the Commerfords, when Underwood — an American who had served in the Great War and had somehow landed in Ottawa — arrived home inebriated and in a pugilistic mood, he began harassing a female tenant. Despite being rebuffed and warned, Underwood persisted so the young woman called on fellow tenant Uffett — himself an American — for help, and a fight ensued. Commerford managed to separate the men and took Underwood to the kitchen, at which time he realized that the instigator had been stabbed and slashed and was bleeding profusely from the face and neck. He shouted for his wife to call the police, prompting Uffett to make a hurried exit.
Police rushed Underwood to the Water street hospital, but the blood loss was too great and he died shortly after arriving. Detective Leonard Willis put out the call, and the hunt for a killer was on.
The Hunt
Uffet made his escape from the city by heading north along the canal and then climbing the stairs to the Alexandra bridge and crossing over to Hull, according to Ottawa Lock House employees, who saw the man shortly after 8 o’clock.
As news about the killing began to spread, more started to be known about the suspect and the many aliases he used, painting a picture of a cunning career criminal who routinely pretended to be disabled while begging or selling “Yankee Notions”, which were assorted knick-knacks prominent in New England sold by travelling peddlers.
As is often the case when authorities are looking for a dangerous fugitive, the public was reporting sightings in every corner of the area. By noon on May 4, police had responded to nearly twenty reports of alleged sightings which had them chasing leads in Ottawa, Hull, Chelsea, Aylmer, and even Breckenridge.
One fact that was uncontested was that he had gone to the home of the Dunn family the morning after the crime in the Creekside shanty village in Hull. The Dunns had met Uffett through the Salvation Army and were the reason he came to the area from Montreal. He wasted no time in deceiving Mrs. Dunn and managed to steal a suit belonging to her husband before sneaking out the back door, leading her to contact police, giving them their first solid lead including what at the time they believed to be his real name: Frank James.
With this information, police were able to learn that James had served a two month sentence in Bordeaux prison in Montreal for burglary three years earlier, at which time he was photographed, fingerprinted and had his Bertillon measurements taken. A “Wanted” notice with these details was sent to police stations throughout Canada and the United States.
As tips continued to come in, police focused their search on West-Hull, owing to information from Mrs. McAnee and Mrs. Walsh at the Old Chelsea Telephone Central, and that of “little” Miss Hazel Bradley. The child reported seeing him walking near their farm on Mountain Road, and the women stated that he travelled through the village before heading along Kirks Ferry Road.
Using the Cascades train stop as a base, Inspector Joliat oversaw the search of cottages, barns and sheds in the area well into the night before stationing men to wait for morning light at various points along the road and railway line. But the search the next day proved as fruitless as the one before, and was called off. Some time later it was learned that James had stolen a rowboat in Hull and gone back to Ottawa and headed east, ultimately crossing into the United States. Whether he was ever actually in West-Hull or not will forever be a mystery. The case soon faded from the headlines, and police moved on.
The Arrest
The Great Depression brought about a lot of civil unrest, with many American cities witnessing protests, strikes, and a deep fear of Communism.
Following a violent assault with a metal bar of two International Ladies Garment Worker Union representatives at a “Riot of Communists” in Boston on February 28, 1930, a man named Leonard Doherty was arrested and charged. Doherty claimed that he had acted in self defense, and that he was a Mayflower descendant, presumably in an attempt to prove he wasn’t a communist.
When police matched his description and checked his fingerprints, he was found to be a match for fugitive Frank James, wanted by Ottawa police. The information was relayed to Inspector Joliat and soon after a request for extradition was made through the UK consulate, as was the practice at the time.
Leonard Doherty claimed he had never been to Ottawa and stated that he would fight extradition. After serving a sentence for the Boston assault, he received a hearing at which the judge cited a lack of Probable Cause for the Ottawa crime and set him free.
Doherty’s arrest didn’t go unnoticed in Washington. He was mentioned in the Testimony of Michael H. Crowley, Boston’s Superintendent of Police, before the US House of Representatives Special Committee to Investigate Communist Propaganda in the United States on July 15, 1930, in New York City.
Crowley had been summoned to share information on the activities of communists in the city. He brought along a list of 100 names provided to him by division commanders of people who had been arrested and considered communist radicals, which included Doherty.
In May of 1932, Leonard Doherty was once again arrested for attempting to incite a riot, this time in New Orleans. And once again, police compared his finger prints to outstanding circulars, and once again he was found to be a match for the Ottawa murderer.
But there was little appetite by the Ontario Attorney-General to request extradition a second time, and Doherty stayed in Louisiana, his fate unknown.
Postscript
At the time of the murder, Michael Comerford was starting to make a name for himself as an inventor and didn’t appreciate the notoriety afforded to him because of the case. A few years earlier he had created a street car window cleaning device while working with the Ottawa Transit Commission, and would go on to patent many ideas including a reversible car window, a drinking straw dispenser and a washing machine wringer among others.
