The Murder of Chief Henry Hilborn
This cache is a bonus to the ECALT Adventure lab cache. To get the coordinates for this cache, complete the adventure lab. The coordinates for this will be in the final journal entry. I will post a link down below.
Through the adventure lab, you have followed the incredible story of the murder of the Palmyra chief of police. What you may not have known was that it was all based on a true story! The places, dates, and some of the actual people really did exist. Right down to the criminals that would con people to stop for a stranded motorist and then rob them. Even the larger than life Hilborn himself is not much of an exaggeration.
Henry Hilborn moved to Palmyra from Avon NY to take the job of Chief of police. He had a wife and two young daughters, close in age.
It was the early days of prohibition and Hilborn took a strick interpretation of the laws, and according to his brother, he was fearless in the way he enforced them. It was said that he would chase cars on foot down main street for speeding, guns blazing, and would arrest people for having booze in their pockets. The chief kept a close watch on the hotels in town and would raid them looking for alcohol, but often coming up empty. Again according to his brother, "he made many enemies".
One day Hilborn went to Canandaigua on police business. When he came home he fell violently Ill and was rushed to the hospital. He had told his wife that there had been threats on his life, but when questioned by his wife, he told her that he could not talk about it and she left it at that. In the hospital as he lay there fighting for his life, he told his brother, "they said they were going to get me." His brother being more worried about Henry getting better, regretted not pushing the issue to tell him who had made the threats.
Hilborn died ten days later in the hospital. It was unclear how he had been poisoned, as he did not drink often and told his brother that he had not drank at all on the trip.
Hilborns wife made an empasioned plea to the folks of Palmyra to come forward with information as to who had done this. His case had suspects, but went unsolved.
Just ten years later, prohibition ended and many of the places that he had raided looking for alcohol, gained liquor licences from the state. The murder of Henry Hilborn became a tragedy of the prohibition era and 100 years later, a forgotten foot note.
I would like to thank Bonnie Hays, executive director of the Palmyra historical museum, for giving me the information that inspired me to write about this story and findagrave.com for all the newspaper articles and information that I found in researching this story.
To find this cache start by looking for Erie Canal Adventure Lab Trail- Murder of Henry Hilborn. Complete this adventure lab and be sure to open the last journal entry to find the coordinates to this cache. Also note, there are two bonuses for this adventure lab with a set of coordinates for the first bonus after finishing the first half. Then another set of coordinates at the end.
First to find gets a special gold pathtag only available as a FTF prize.