Patrick Lyon (1769, Edinburgh, Scotland – April 15, 1829, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a Scottish-born American blacksmith, mechanic and inventor. After being falsely accused and imprisoned for a 1798 bank robbery, he became a working class hero. A self-made businessman, he was among the foremost American makers of hand-pumped fire engines.
Artist John Neagle's portrait of him, Pat Lyon at the Forge (1826–27), alludes to his unjust imprisonment, and is an iconic work in American art.
Biography
Lyon and his parents moved to London when he was a child, and he worked in various factories, beginning at about age 10. He emigrated to Philadelphia in November 1793, where he worked as a journeyman, before opening his own business in May 1797.
Bank of Pennsylvania robbery
Prior to 1798, the Bank of Pennsylvania conducted business from an office in Philadelphia's Masonic lodge. Following a robbery attempt at the lodge, the bank signed a lease with Carpenters' Hall, and hired contractor Samuel Robinson to prepare the hall for the bank's operations. Two previous banks had operated out of Carpenters' Hall, while their permanent buildings were under construction. Robinson hired Lyon to create new locks for the vault in the cellar of the hall, and brought the vault's iron doors to Lyon's shop on August 11. Lyon completed his work on August 13, and the doors were reinstalled that day.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania served as the temporary capital of the United States from 1790 to 1800. In 1793, one fifth of the city's population had died in a yellow fever epidemic; the disease reappeared in 1797, and again the following summer. In late-August 1798, President John Adams, Congress, and many of the inhabitants abandoned the city. On August 28, Lyon and his 19-year-old assistant Jamie fled Philadelphia by ship to Lewes, Delaware, but Jamie died of yellow fever within two days of their arrival.
On the night of August 31/September 1, while much of the city was deserted, the Bank of Pennsylvania's reserves of $162,821 in cash and Spanish gold were stolen from the vault in Carpenters' Hall. There were no signs of thieves having broken into the building, and Lyon's locks on the iron doors were undamaged. Lyon was still in Delaware weeks later where he learned that he was the prime suspect in the robbery, and returned to Philadelphia to clear his name. He met with officers of the bank and the mayor of Philadelphia, but they came away suspecting that Lyon had secretly made an extra set of keys for the robbery. In the midst of the worsening yellow fever epidemic, he was arrested without evidence and thrown into Walnut Street Gaol: "Upon the presumption that his locks were so good nobody but himself could open them, he was thrown into prison and there kept for a long time."
The robbery turned out to be an inside job. Isaac Davis, a member of the Carpenters' Company, and Thomas Cunningham, the night watchman at Carpenters' Hall, were the only conspirators. Cunningham died of yellow fever within days of the robbery, and Davis came under suspicion after making major deposits into a number of Philadelphia banks, including the Bank of Pennsylvania. Davis confessed, and was granted a pardon from Pennsylvania's governor in exchange for returning the bank's money. Davis returned all but $2,000, disappeared from Philadelphia, and never served a day in jail.
Even after Davis's October 1798 confession, Philadelphia's high constable John Haines would not release Lyon, but reduced his bail from $150,000 to $2,000 (still, more than the blacksmith's net worth). Haines convened a grand jury in January 1799, but it refused to indict Lyon and he was released.
Narrative
Lyon wrote a narrative about his imprisonment: The Narrative of Patrick Lyon, who suffered three Months severe Imprisonment in Philadelphia Gaol, on merely a vague Suspicion of being Concerned in the Robbery of the Bank of Pennsylvania: with his Remarks thereon (1799). In its introduction, he pleaded for equal justice for rich and poor. The frontispiece of the publication was an engraved portrait by Philadelphia artist James Akin, and showed a 30-year-old Lyon in Walnut Street Prison, incongruously dressed as a gentleman, seated on a Chippendale chair, and holding a technical drawing and calipers.