Page 14 - March 2017

A Monthly Look
Back At Our History

By Lt. Col. (Ret) Ron Guilmette

State Police Constable wounded and Coal Oil Johnny shot dead!

On September 5, 1866 State Police Deputy Constables James P. Wade, Benjamin H. Linscott and James W. Kirk,
assigned to Suffolk County, began watching three men who were gambling and acting suspicious at Chelsea
Beach (Now Revere Beach). On the following Sunday, the three men hired a horse and wagon team in Boston
and headed out toward Beverly on the “turnpike road” with the deputies following in their horse and wagon team.
No criminal act was observed but the deputies continued to keep them under surveillance during the following
week. After overhearing their plans, the deputies again followed them north to Beverly. Two of the men again
headed north in their rented horse and wagon team and one left Boston on the 5 o’clock train. Deputies Wade
and Linscott followed in their horse and wagon and Deputy Kirk followed one suspect on the train to Beverly. The
three subjects joined together at Beverly and the deputies laid in wait for them on the bridge road from Salem to
Beverly. When the suspects did not arrive by 3 in the morning, the deputies headed back toward Chelsea Beach
to set up a stake out. At about 4 in the morning they confronted the three men on the road to Chelsea Beach. A
struggle ensued as the deputies tried to arrest the three. Deputy Linscott was shot in the leg with a ball tearing his
knee apart, and one suspect, know as Coal Oil Johnny, was shot four times by Deputy Wade as he was about to
fire at the deputies. Four balls entered the suspects body, one in the head, one in the shoulder and one in each
leg. The last words heard from Coal Oil Johnny lips before he died were; “Don’t tell my mother that I am shot.”
The second suspect was handcuffed, and the third suspect, an Irishman well known in Chelsea, escaped after
being shot three times, in the face, arm and leg. The third suspect fired six shots at deputy Kirk but the balls did
not penetrate the breast of his jacket, and he was uninjured. The deputies recovered $4,000 in silver stolen from
the homes of Colonel H. Lee Jr. and Mrs. Elijah Cabot of West Beach in Beverly. The third suspect, identified
as George J. Gray, fled to New York City. Deputies Kirk and Jones received information as to his location and
traveled to New York City and teamed up with the famous NYPD Detective Captain John Jourdan of the Sixth
Prescient. Captain Jourdan later arrested Gray and he was returned to Boston by the state constables. (Atlantic
Traveler September 15, 1866) (The World – New York - September 25, 1866)

James P. Wade was born in1833 in New York, son of Peleg P. and Mary Wade, who were both born in Ireland. In the 1850
census, James was living in Buffalo, NY with his parents. James Wade married Ella F. Hale of Portland, Maine on March
23, 1864. On his marriage license in 1864 he listed his occupation as “Carpenter.” In the 1865 state census he was living
in Chelsea and listed his occupation as Lieutenant, Army. James P. Wade enlisted in the 32nd Massachusetts Voluntary
Infantry Regiment. He was promoted to sergeant major in July 1862, 2nd lieutenant in October 1862 and 1st lieutenant in
May 1863 and mustered out in July 1865. The 32nd Regiment was engaged in many battles including, Bull Run, Battle of
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and at Laurel Hill where they suffered heavy loses. In the 1870 census he was
living on Walnut Street in Chelsea with his wife Ella, and two children, Mary L. and Edward E., and he listed his occupation
as “State Police.”

James P. Wade was among the first to be appointed as a deputy constable in July of 1865. He served with the state police
from 1865 to 1881 as a deputy constable, a state police detective and as a detective with the state district police. He
is one of the few officers who served with all three departments and one of the longest serving members during that
period of time. In 1866, Constable Wade shot and killed the notorious criminal, “Coal Oil Johnny” in the “Chelsea Beach”
shooting where deputy constable Benjamin Linscott was shot and wounded. In 1867, Wade and state constable Daniel C.
Jones arrested the murderer of Haverhill Policeman Joseph Burnham. In 1881 Wade was appointed Superintendent of the

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