In the early morning hours of March 19, 1906, a sense of duty called Sergeant Frederick Booth, a 35-year-old male officer with the Jackson Police Department, to a boarding house on Page Avenue. He was in pursuit of three men wanted for the robbery of the Brooklyn Post Office. Little did he know that this confrontation would be his last, a final act in a life dedicated to upholding the law.
As Booth, accompanied by several citizens, moved to apprehend the suspects, the situation escalated with tragic swiftness.
One of the suspects, a man named John Blake, brandished a. 38 caliber revolver. A single shot rang out in the quiet morning air, and Sergeant Booth fell, fatally wounded. In the ensuing chaos, Blake and another suspect, Jack Hamilton, managed to flee the scene, disappearing into the city. The third man, John Walpole, was not as fortunate and was taken into custody at the boarding house. The city of Jackson was thrown into a state of alarm as the largest manhunt in its history was launched to find the escaped fugitives.
The relentless search for Blake and Hamilton concluded at a farm located two and a half miles west of the city, along the Michigan Central Railroad Line. With their capture, the trio of suspects was reunited in custody, and the community of Jackson could begin to mourn its fallen officer. The wheels of justice turned for Sergeant Booth, and all three men implicated in his murder were convicted for their roles in the robbery and the killing of a dedicated public servant. John Blake, the man who fired the fatal shot, and his accomplices, Jack Hamilton and John Walpole, were all sentenced to life in prison.
