SOMERSWORTH – This week I want to take you back just over 50 years to July 9, 1964. That was a day like no other in both Somersworth and South Berwick. The news that would shock both communities came first in the form of a bank robbery but that would not be where the story would end.
Our tale begins, in the then sleepy town of South Berwick, on the morning of July 9. A local couple, Mr. Everett Tozier and his wife, were in the First National Bank of Biddeford. Mr. Tozier was in the bank’s vault securing a bond coupon while Mrs. Tozier was making a deposit at the tellers window when two masked bandits entered the bank and demanded the day’s takings – which were estimated to be around $8,000. They were given the money they asked for and promptly left through the door that they had entered.
The bank like many had no alarm system at the time but that was when Mrs. Tozier sounded an alarm of her own. She had a counter-side view of what was happening and when she looked up she would see one of the masked bandits standing in front of her, before he leapt the counter in order to collect his bounty. Grabbing her handbag, she rushed out of the bank while screaming at the top of her lungs, “The bank is being robbed!”
First to hear her was a retired Congregational minister who stood by wide-eyed, but was of little help. Next though to hear the cry was Maine State Trooper Charles Black of York.
This was when tragedy would strike and change this crime from a bank robbery to a murder. Trooper Black began to respond, but he was given no time to draw his service revolver. Without a moment’s hesitation, one of the escaping robbers, Joseph MacDonald of Rochester, who was wielding a pistol, cut him down, just feet from the bank’s doors.
MacDonald would flee from the scene in his waiting car and speed off leaving behind his accomplice, Wayne Beckus. Beckus never did escape the scene. As he fled, he tripped and fell flat on his face, dropping the loot where he fell. Before he could get up, a passerby, retired military affairs officer Captain Walter Buckley, after hearing Mrs. Toziers cries, grabbed the fallen trooper’s revolver and held him at gunpoint until the police arrived.
In the meantime, the hunt was on for MacDonald who had sped away in the direction of the riverbank that ran across from Rocky Hill Road in Somersworth. It would not be long thanks to WTSN radio from Dover that the entire population of the Somersworth and the Berwicks were on the lookout for the murderer.
According to one newspaper, carload upon carload of New Hampshire and Maine State Police and deputy sheriffs arrived in Somersworth to join the search for the man who they believed had killed one of their own. Somersworth Police Chief Charles Boucher mustered his entire force, on or off duty, to help line the banks of the Salmon Falls River where the murderer had last been seen.
The search would end when two young boys who had been busy picking blueberries on Rocky Hill Road spotted the suspect hiding in the woods. The boys would race to downtown Somersworth to share their discovery. The tip-off sent State Troopers, bloodhounds, and the entire army that had assembled to where the suspect was last sighted.
It turned out that MacDonald would give up without a fight, cold and wet as he had swam across the river to evade capture. It was not long before he was on his way to a lifetime of jail time.
This week we will sadly laid to rest N.H. State Trooper, Jesse Sherill. A man who got up last Wednesday morning, put on his uniform and went to work, just like other state and local law enforcement officers do each and every day. Each knows there is a chance that they may not return home and yet they still go. It’s so easy to forget that these men and women are brothers, mothers, sisters, aunts and everything in between until something tragic happens as it did early Thursday morning or on Thursday, July 9, 1964.
Save the dates
SFA Penny Sale: The ever popular penny sale will take place on Nov. 21, at the Somersworth High School from 11 a.m., with drawings starting at 3 p.m. More information at http://www.nhfestivals.org/
Somersworth/Berwick Christmas Parade: Saturday, Dec. 4, at 1.30 p.m.. This year’s theme will be “Joy to the world.” More details as I get them.
Flashlight Candy Cane Hunt: Friday, Dec. 3, 5.30 p.m. sharp at Millennium Park. Registration is required and space is limited. More information here:https://www.somersworth.com/parks-recreation/pages/special-events
That’s all I have for this week but as always my mailbox is open and I would love to hear from you. As always stay safe and please be kind to one another as you never truly know what someone else is going through.