From The Connecticut River Valley in Southern Vermont and New Hampshire: Historical Sketches by Lyman S. Hayes, Tuttle Co., Marble City Press, Rutland, VT., 1929, page 259:
CHARLESTOWN BANK ROBBERY RESULTS IN A MOST PECULIAR MANNER IN 1850
One of the most peculiar bank robberies that ever occurred in this vicinity was that of the old Connecticut River Bank at Charlestown, eight miles north of here, because of the circumstances of the immediate recovery of the booty, entirely by accident. It occurred on the night of June 10, 1850, and caused great interest and excitement in all this vicinity.
It was planned and carried out successfully up to a certain point by two brothers named Larned, who lived on a farm in Grafton County about 25 miles away. The banking building was the same now used by the Connnecticut River National Bank. The burglars arrived in Charlestown about 9 o'clock in the evening with a team and soon went at their work. They were amateurs in the business, but the primitive safeguards of the vault were soon overcome and by midnight four locks had been picked and $12,000 largely in specie was secured. The doors were all relocked and nothing indicated the robbery until the next morning when Cashier Olcott, father of the late George Olcott, opened the bank for business. The alarm was then given and in the absence of either telegraph or telephones messengers were started in all directions.
An unheard-of simple accident defeated the success of the scheme. They had loaded their booty into their buggy wagon and with a swift horse started for their home, thinking to reach there before daylight leaving no traces behind them. When they reached the foot of a long hill in Alstead they alighted to walk up the hill [260] and thus relieve their horse. While one of the brothers walked much faster than the horse the other fell some distance behind. The foremost one reached the top of the hill, and after some minutes the other emerged from the darkness, but the horse was nowhere to be seen.
They retraced their steps but the horse, buggy and money had all disappeared. They perceived a light in a farm house but no trace of the missing team. Dayylight soon coming on they were obliged to give up the search and went home.
The horse had turned into an obscure wood road at right angles with the hill, and having no one to guide him had continued on several miles until the road came out on another main road in the town of Marlow. A man who had been out caring for a sick neighbor was going home about daylight and discovered the driverless horse meandering along the highway. He thought whooever owned the team would soon be along, and started to hitch it to the fence, when he was surprised to find a quantity of gold coin on the buggy-bottom. Investigation revealed the large amount, together with the false keys and a lot of tools. He took the team and its contents to his home in Marlow, and returned over the road he had come to Alstead, where he found messengers from Charlestown who had been sent out to give the alarm. Cashier Olcott and President ex-Gov. Hubbard of the bank went to Marlow and identified the money, of which not a dollar was missing.
The identity of the team was established and officers went to the home of the Larned brothers to arrest them but one had run away and was never apprehended. Abijah Larned, when confronted with the evidence, made [261] a complete detailed confession. He was bound over under $2,500 bonds and paid all expense the bank had been put to, but when the time for trial came he forfeited his bonds and neither of the brothers was ever seen in that vicinity again. A few years later Abijah was arrested for robbing a bank in Cooperstown, N. Y., and sent to prison, where he died before the expiration of his sentence.