People and incidents

Henry D. Rider and the Hampton Park payroll attack (1916)

Case outcome established

Gunmen attacked the Hampton Park cranberry payroll car in 1916. Henry D. Rider was killed; Giovanni Iraco was convicted and executed, while alleged organizer Millie De Marco was acquitted.

The attack

Andrew Jackson Rider withdrew approximately $4,000—not the $8,000 reported in the source collection clipping—to pay about 300 cranberry pickers. His daughter Elsie Smathers drove; Andrew’s visiting brother Henry sat beside her, while a fourth man rode with Andrew in back. The saved clipping calls him bog foreman James N. Rigby. The Mount Holly News of July 17, 1917, read directly, calls him John Rigby of Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania, and reports his suit for injuries received while in the employ of R. L. Latimer & Company of Philadelphia — an outside contractor's employee rather than a Rider foreman, which is what a suit under the employers' liability act presupposes. The surname Rigby is thus carried by the clipping, the governor's proclamation and the newspaper alike; only the index to the New Jersey Mirror has Rigley, and the given name is John rather than the clipping's James. Near Atsion, masked gunmen blocked the road. Smathers drove through the ambush despite being shot twice. Henry was killed; Andrew and the fourth occupant were wounded, but the payroll was saved.

Andrew was the founder of the Trenton Business College, now Rider University, and later became a major Hampton Park cranberry grower. Henry was from Howell, Michigan; “Lowell” in the saved clipping appears to be an OCR or reporting error.

Prosecution and aftermath

Police arrested several suspects, including nineteen-year-old bog worker Millie De Marco and Giovanni Iraco, also reported as Giuseppe Rosso. A Burlington County jury convicted Iraco of first-degree murder in April 1917. After the verdict he tunneled through his Mount Holly jail-cell wall with an iron spoon, escaped, and was recaptured while heading toward Philadelphia.

Iraco later testified that De Marco helped plan the robbery and named additional participants. A separate jury acquitted her in December 1917. Contemporary reports place Iraco’s execution in Trenton on February 19, 1918, after two reprieves—a date more reliable than later lists that give February 9.

The governor’s reward proclamation

A notice issued by Governor James F. Fielder on November 8, 1916 adds an official paper trail to the newspaper story. Prosecutor Jonathan H. Kelsey requested a reward after Ellis H. Parker swore a complaint charging known and unknown participants in the Shamong attack. The proclamation offered $250 for each offender apprehended and secured under the statute; its preamble describes the request as covering apprehension and conviction of nine or ten alleged offenders.

The notice names the four occupants as Andrew Jackson Rider, Elsie Rider Smathers, Henry D. Rider, and J. H. Rigby. That last set of initials differs from “James N.” in other reporting, and the given name is settled against the clipping by the Mount Holly News of July 17, 1917, which names him John Rigby of Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania. No reported decision in his suit survives, so his middle initial and his age remain open. His 1917 suit over the wages that stopped after the attack is treated separately in the Rigley employers' liability case. Two further spellings differ between the sources used here: the 1917 record calls the bog tract “Hampton Neck” against “Hampton Park” in the clippings behind this entry, and it spells the convicted man “Iraca” against “Iraco” here. Neither “Hampton Neck” nor “Hampton Park” appears in the federal gazetteer. More importantly, the document shows the investigation was still seeking multiple participants in November; it is not evidence that every person named or detained was guilty. Governor’s proclamation, Mount Holly News, November 14, 1916. That file could not be re-opened for checking on September 13, 2026 — the host returned a block page to an automated request, as it does for its other document links — so the “J. H. Rigby” reading rests on the earlier reading of it alone.

Sources

Source collection clipping; Mount Holly News, February 13, April 3, April 10, and December 18, 1917, and February 26, 1918; New-York Tribune, October 6, 1916, and April 21, 1917; Monmouth Inquirer, February 28, 1918; Rider University’s biographical history of Andrew Jackson Rider.

Burlington County Library index to the New Jersey Mirror, keyword “Rigley” — Re-run September 13, 2026 for the July 18, 1917 record naming John N. Rigley, 58, sent by R. L. Latimer & Company to repair machinery, and reporting his suit over the wages that stopped. The index entries are librarians’ summaries of each issue, not the newspaper’s own text, and the index returns nothing for the “Rigby” spelling used in the clipping behind this entry.
Governor’s proclamation, Mount Holly News, November 14, 1916 — Cited for the four occupants’ names, including the “J. H. Rigby” form. The host returned a block page to an automated request on September 13, 2026, so this document could not be re-opened for checking.