The Buzzards Are Here! The Buzzards Are Here!


Written By Nick Siegert, Group Tour Coordinator
Posted by Shianne Hargrove

The most recent installation of the “Thieves & Vagabonds” exhibition swooped in late last year, joining the series of “case studies” that make up the interior, curved walls of the exhibit. The Buzzard Gang, 1867-1948, tells the story of a famous (and infamous) family that lived in the Welsh Mountain area of Lancaster County. Over many years, this family-based group of criminals achieved a level of notoriety that rivaled that of famous Western outlaws. The litany of crimes committed by this group included multiple shootouts, hold-ups, burglaries, assaults, and a famous prison break, earning them the status of local legends.

My name is Nick Siegert, and I have been working in Visitor Services for LancasterHistory for over two years. I came to Lancaster County in 1996 for a teaching position at Garden Spot High School in New Holland. New Holland is close to the Welsh Mountains, where the Buzzard Gang began. I knew nothing about this group before I came to Lancaster County.  Recently, I was in New Holland at a grocery store, and I mentioned this article I was writing about the Buzzards to my friend P.J. She lives in the Welsh Mountains and was very familiar with the Buzzards. The next thing I knew, I was conversing with two other people, one of which claimed to be related to the family. While working the front desk at LancasterHistory, a woman who had come to see the new Buzzard exhibit approached me. Donna Hammond and her brother, Jerre, were related to the Buzzard brothers. They had come to see the exhibit on the Buzzards, and they had some articles they felt I might find interesting. I truly appreciated their enthusiasm and willingness to share their information.

The Buzzard Family’s Humble Beginnings

Historical image of the Buzzard brothers and Harry O'Brien. There are six photos in total.
Notorious outlaws of Lancaster County. Includes the following: Abe Buzzard, James Robinson, William Poleet, William Martin, Cyrus Brody, and Harry O’Brien. Lancaster Magazine Photograph Collection, LancasterHistory

The story begins with a family in the Welsh Mountains in the 1860s. John and Mary Buzzard had eight children – 6 boys and two girls. John went off to fight in the Civil War and served in the 79th PA Volunteers. He died of disease in Kentucky in 1862, leaving Mary to raise the children by herself. The Welsh Mountains were considered an impoverished area with difficult living conditions. In the 19th century, social services were almost unknown, and many people, including the sons of the Buzzard family, turned to a life of crime. Their crimes spanned from the late 1860s up to the early 1940s. They were in and out of prison several times, and, with many collaborators, they committed crimes in the Welsh Mountains and into Berks, Chester, and Lancaster Counties, as well as Maryland. Eventually, the boys would become known as the Buzzard or Welsh Mountain Gang.

The Buzzard boys–Martin, Abe, Isaac, Jacob, John, and Joe–spent their early years passing back and forth between their mother’s home in the Welsh Mountains and residential schools for soldiers’ orphans. The Buzzard daughters, Mary & Annie, don’t appear in any newspapers; it is possible the girls were not involved in the Buzzard’s criminal activities. After spending their childhood in orphan homes, the men spent their young adult years passing between the prisons in Lancaster County and Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. Each time the men were released, they returned to the Welsh Mountains. No doubt poverty and a lack of employment opportunities for people convicted of breaking the law made it difficult to escape the cycle of crime and incarceration; however, it is essential to note that many others in similar financial circumstances made other life choices.

The Buzzard Brothers’ Career in Crime

Black and white photo of a two story home in Bowmansville, Pennsylvania. The house has multiple windows with white trimming.
Former Schaeffer Jewelry Store in Bowmansville, c. 1962. Once robbed by Abe Buzzard. General Collection, LancasterHistory

Abe and Isaac (Ike) Buzzard were the two most prominent and prolific members of the gang. At one point, during a prolonged period of incarceration, Ike sat down with a reporter and gave an accounting (autobiography) of his life, which stretched from his youth up until 1884. He recounted a litany of robberies, physical assaults, break-ins, shootings, shoot-outs, horse-thievery, other assorted felonies, and minor crimes. However, Abe Buzzard was the most famous (or infamous) of the six brothers. A great deal was written about him in the papers; his exploits and ability to evade the law brought local pride. However, it is important to note that Abe spent most of his life behind bars. Rewards ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 were offered for his capture. (Using an inflation calculator, this could equivocate to about $32,000 to $161,000 in today’s money!) This rivaled the most notorious Western outlaws. He was very much wanted by law officials.

There is a tendency to think of the Buzzards as a hapless gang of petty criminals, but this is untrue. They shot at people and held up individuals at gunpoint. They committed jewelry robberies as well as a tremendous number of burglaries, home invasions, and even shootouts. Surprisingly, no one was killed. At one point, Martin Buzzard and an accomplice broke into the home of Isaiah Schaffer, a farmer in the New Holland/Grofdale area, shot him in the head, stole $200, and left him for dead. Amazingly, Schaffer survived and lived until age 89. Police later arrested, tried, and convicted Martin Buzzard. He spent 16 years in prison.

 

The Canary Jailbreak

Perhaps the most impressive act the Buzzard Gang committed was the “Canary Jailbreak.” In 1883, Abe and his brother, Ike, engineered one of the most famous jailbreaks in Pennsylvania history. Abe and Ike were in Lancaster County Prison around the same time. The prison allowed Ike Buzzard to have a canary in his cell. This bird hatched eggs but the brothers separated her from the chicks. On October 10, 1883, they used the ploy of reuniting the mother and baby birds to engineer a jailbreak. They locked one of the jail guards in the cell, took their keys, grabbed some weapons, and released twelve prisoners. It was the largest jailbreak in Lancaster County history until the 1980s when another twelve prisoners escaped.

Following the jailbreak, Abe and Ike went on a remarkable crime spree all over Lancaster County. Over the next 22 months, they committed over 22 burglaries and 17 different house break-ins. These were hardly the actions of petty criminals. Ike was captured in July of 1884. Abe remained on the lam until he learned about the reward money offered for his return. He turned himself in on June 3, 1885. In December 1885, Isaac and Abe went to Eastern State Penitentiary to serve out their sentences.

The Reinterpretation of the Buzzard Family

At one point, Abe Buzzard’s career in crime took an interesting turn when he apparently renounced his former ways and tried his hand at preaching. He wrote a sermon, “Ruin and Redemption,” and traveled a circuit delivering the sermon to several churches in the general area. In 1891, the newspaper published a version of the sermon. Abe wrote:

“I soon fell into evil courses and with bad companions led a wayward life until I woke one day and found myself on the wrong side of the prison bars. When my time expired, I was discharged from prison without money or friends to aid me to live a nobler life, and I soon fell back to the old life. I was worse than homeless, and after being in prison, no one offered me work or kind words. Already the brand of the criminal was stamped upon my youthful brow, and I was an outlaw because society made me one. No one tried to find the good that was sleeping deep down in my heart, and hardened and embittered by such un-Christian conduct on the part of those whose duty it was to try and save the poor erring brother, I eventually became careless and sunk lower and lower in the sea of sin that ever stands ready to engulf all who venture near its fatal shores.”

The sincerity of the sermon seems a little self-serving, and perhaps it was. One contemporary newspaper account from Coatesville, PA has it that during this sermon of damnation and redemption, some of Abe’s partners in crime took the opportunity to burglarize the homes of the parishioners. There is a lot of conjecture and doubt associated with this newspaper account.

To again address the tendency to claim the Buzzards were a group of “hapless petty criminals,” it is possible that the Buzzard brother’s major crimes were underreported or deemphasized in newspaper accounts because they were committed during the early years of the Buzzard’s criminal careers. The crimes they committed in their older years were mainly petty crimes. And, it was these petty crimes that landed them in prison for the final time.

In any case, Abe soon found himself behind bars again for stealing chickens. In 1926, he was classified as a habitual criminal and sent to the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. Abe eventually died in prison in 1935. His legacy lives on as a petty criminal, but he and his brothers made their mark on local history and area newspapers that covered their exploits widely.

“The Buzzard Gang: 1867-1949” is a case study as part of LancasterHistory’s major exhibition, Thieves & Vagabonds: A History of Law and Justice in Lancaster County. The exhibition is expected to remain on view throughout 2025.

From PhotoBlog