For years, Alpena County Sheriff’s Office Administrative Assistant Kat Tomaszewski delved into library archives and squinted at faded newspaper clippings, hunting for stories about a violent, deadly, and incomplete piece of Alpena’s history.

The hunt focused on Charles Lynch, a sheriff killed in the line of duty in Alpena’s early days, his death the result of the capture of a notorious murderer.

Last summer, after a decade of searching, Tomaszewski finally found a drawing, and then a photo, of the man whose name she believes the community ought to know.

Now, Tomaszewski and others similarly intrigued by Lynch’s story want to make sure the one-time sheriff gets the marker that’s been absent from his Alpena grave for 135 years.

News Photo by Julie Riddle At the Alpena County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday, Kat Tomaszewski displays a life-size mock-up of a monument she and others hope to install at the grave of former Alpena County Sheriff Charles Lynch.

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More importantly, Tomaszewski said, she wants to make sure a piece of Alpena’s past doesn’t get lost forever.

A community is stronger when it knows and treasures such stories, she believes.

“If you don’t know where you came from,” she wondered, “how do you know who you are?”

A MISSING PHOTO

News Photo by Julie Riddle Kat Tomaszewski clears snow away from the grave of Charlie Lynch at Evergreen Cemetery in Alpena on Friday.

The national Officer Down Memorial Page lists more than 25,000 police line-of-duty deaths, including 84 such deaths this year.

Lynch’s name appears on the website, but the box where his photo ought to appear is blank.

Tomaszewski hopes that will change now that she’s found a photo she believes depicts the Alpena sheriff who died after apprehending Charles “Blinky” Morgan, one of the nation’s most wanted men of his time.

The historical treasure troves of the Alpena County Library and Besser Museum for Northeast Michigan, along with online resources, have provided bits and pieces of Lynch’s story that Tomaszewski has woven together and organized in a row of binders she keeps on a shelf in her office.

As libraries increasingly digitize their collections, more historical tidbits become available — tidbits like the sketch of Lynch that recently appeared alongside an Ohio news clipping, making Tomaszewski gasp with disbelief.

News Photo by Julie Riddle A New York Times news story noting the death of former Alpena County Sheriff Charles Lynch appears on Thursday.

In short order, someone who knew of her passion for Lynch’s story told her about a photo held in the archives at the Besser Museum that matched the drawing she had discovered, finally adding to Lynch’s name a face not seen in more than a century.

A delighted Tomaszewski sometimes leaves a copy of Lynch’s photo on coworkers’ desks, telling them, “You can have Charles for the day.”

The former sheriff would probably have hated all the fuss, she thinks.

“He probably couldn’t care less that he was this forgotten hero,” she said. “But he should not be forgotten.”

MURDER AND ESCAPE

News Photo by Julie Riddle The gravestone of infant Charlie Lynch appears at Evergreen Cemetery in Alpena on Friday.

The Alpena sheriff’s death on Aug. 17, 1887 at the hands of the notorious Blinky Morgan gang earned a mention in the New York Times.

Stories of Lynch’s hunt for and arrest of the criminal showed up in newspapers in several states, painting a picture of heroic efforts by a dedicated and careful police leader.

According to Tomaszewski’s research, Lynch had served many years as an officer in the young town of Alpena when Morgan and his posse came to the city to hide from the long arm of the law.

The gang had been fingered in a fur store robbery in Cleveland, in which they made off with $10,000-plus worth of goods – more than Lynch’s office was then trying to raise to build a new county jail.

Police caught up with one of the gang in Pittsburgh and put him on a train back to Cleveland, but Morgan caught wind of the transfer and staged a getaway, boarding the train with his gang and violently beating a police officer to death before fleeing.

News Photo by Julie Riddle Kat Tomaszewski, of the Alpena County Sheriff’s Office, on Thursday points to a death record noting the line-of-duty death of former Alpena County Sheriff Charles Lynch.

With newspapers attributing at least seven murders to Morgan and calling him the next Jesse James, police everywhere were on a sharp lookout for the wanted men.

BLINKY COMES NORTH

Meanwhile, rumors about suspicious newcomers spread in Alpena.

When a woman visiting the home of a Mr. and Mrs. Williams – considered respectable members of the community – walked in without knocking, she discovered a strange man sitting in the living room.

A flustered Mrs. Williams introduced the visitor as Mr. Williams, her brother-in-law from Cleveland.

When the same woman met Mrs. Williams and Morgan on the street some time later, Mrs. Williams introduced her guest as Mr. Jones, her cousin from Boston.

The woman told her husband, who told Sheriff Lynch.

“And he was like, ‘What the heck?'” Tomaszewski said. “‘There’s something shady going on here.'”

The sheriff’s suspicions were confirmed when the Williams’ 10-year-old son told a friend about his uncle, Charles Morgan, ensconced in his house.

“That was the final clue,” Tomaszewski said. “The sheriff was like, ‘Game on.'”

‘DON’T LET GO’

Suddenly responsible for the capture of a murder, fugitive, and bona fide bad guy, Lynch carefully planned his next steps until he was ready to move in on Blinky Morgan, news reporters of the day told their readers.

With officers surrounding the Williams’ house, Lynch burst in the front door. A surprised Morgan looked Lynch in the eye and reached for his gun.

Lynch sprang forward, tackling Morgan and bending him over the back of a chair – but not before Morgan got off a shot.

The bullet lodged behind Lynch’s knee. Wounded, the sheriff yelled to his men, “I’m hit in the leg, but don’t let go of him!”

The Alpena police captured Morgan and two of his men and placed them on a boat to Detroit.

Morgan was later found guilty of murder for the Ohio train raid and hanged.

A doctor removed the bullet lodged in Lynch’s leg and told the sheriff he’d be fine. Infection filled the wounded knee, however, swelling it to three times its size until it burst.

Less than two months after he caught Blinky Morgan, Lynch died in a Detroit hospital, a victim of Morgan’s gun.

A FITTING MEMORIAL

When Morgan absconded from Ohio, a $16,000 reward was offered for his capture and that of his gang members.

That reward money should have gone to Lynch’s widow, Anna, and her four small sons, Tomaszewski contends.

Anna Lynch never got that money, however, and she died two years after her husband – of a broken heart, Tomaszewski thinks.

Though loved by his community, and though attended at his funeral by 100 horse-drawn carriages and honored with elaborate flower arrangements at his visitation at the Alpena County Courthouse, Lynch never received a headstone to adorn his burial place in Alpena’s Evergreen Cemetery.

Anna Lynch buried her husband with their infant son, Charlie, who preceded his father in death.

Recently, a group dedicated to preserving historic gravestones raised Charlie Lynch’s flat, white grave marker, which had sunk almost out of sight, and surrounded it with a wooden frame and small stones to protect it.

Now, it’s the father’s turn for a stone, Tomaszewski said.

A handful of Lynch enthusiasts has been raising money since the fall, hoping to install a monument of granite and marble bearing the name of the Alpena sheriff killed in the line of duty.

The monument will cost $14,000, and they still have $10,000 to go to pay for it, but Tomaszewski hopes people who love their community will help honor a man who died trying to protect it.

People who know her zeal for learning Lynch’s story wonder why Tomaszewski would put in years of effort learning about “some random guy from the past.”

“He gave everything for us,” she said simply. “I just wanted him not to be forgotten.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693 or jriddle@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jriddleX.

News Photo by Julie Riddle In her office on Thursday, Kat Tomaszewski, Alpena County Sheriff’s Office administrative assistant, enthuses about a drawing and photo of former Alpena County Sheriff Charles Lynch, discovered by Tomaszewski last summer.

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