Forgers

#100 Edward Lillie

~ jpkntz

Edward Lilly (Abt. 1822-1894), aka Big Ned Lilly, Ed Lillie, Joseph Morgan, Edward Walsh, etc. — Sneak Thief, Confidence Man

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Sixty-five years old in 1886. Born in United States. Sailmaker. Married. Slim build. Height, 6 feet i inch. Weight, 166 pounds. Black hair, turning quite gray; gray eyes. Wears a gray chin whisker. Has a sloop and owl in India ink on right arm ; spots of ink on left arm.

RECORD. Ed. Lillie is one of the most notorious confidence operators in America. He does not confine himself to that particular branch of the business, as he has done service for forgery and robbing boarding-houses. He is known in a number of the large cities of the United States and Canada, and is considered a very clever man.

      He was arrested in New York City on November 25, 1876, under the name of James H. Potter, charged with purchasing from George C. Flint, of West Fourteenth Street, New York City, $600 worth of furniture, and giving him in payment therefor a worthless check for $750 on the National Bank of Newburg, N.Y. The bank’s certification on the check was forged, and he received $150 in change. In this case Lillie pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to two years and six months in State prison, on February 2, 1877, by Judge Gildersleeve.

      He was arrested again in New York City on July 28, 1879, in company of one John Hill, alias Dave Mooney (173), charged by Mrs. Lydell, who kept a boarding-house at No. 46 South Washington Square, with entering the room of one of her boarders and stealing $575 in money, three watches, two chains, and a locket, altogether valued at $1,000. In this case he was discharged for lack of evidence. Lillie was arrested again on board of a Galveston steamer, lying at the dock in New York City, on January 9, 1881, charged with obtaining $50 from Miguel S. Thimon, a Texan, by the confidence game. In this case Lillie was sentenced to two years and six months in State prison, on January 12, 1881, by Judge Cowing.

      He was again arrested plying his vocation along the river front in New York, in June, 1884, and sentenced to six months in the penitentiary, charged with vagrancy. He obtained a writ, and was discharged by Judge Lawrence, of the Supreme Court, on June 13. 1884. He fell into the hands of the police again in New York City, on February 27, 1885, charged by Benjamin Freer, of Gardiner, Ulster County, N. Y., with swindling him out of $250 in money. One David Johnson, of Catasauqua, Pa., also charged him with swindling him out of 102 English sovereigns on January 2, 1885, on board of an Anchor Line steamer, while lying at the dock in New York City. Johnson was on his way to Europe. Lillie was tried for swindling Johnson, and sentenced to five years in State prison on March 9, 1885, by Recorder Smyth, in the Court of General Sessions. Lillie’s picture is an excellent one, taken in November, 1876.

      As per usual, Byrnes recites a criminal record starting in the late 1870s; but Ed Lilly was one of the oldest criminals in Byrnes’s book, and had already had a long career by that time. In fact, even by 1858, he was described as an extensive operator of confidence games in New York, Philadelphia, and other large cities. His origins are not known, but he likely came from New York City or Boston. As a young man he learned an honest trade–sailmaking.

      In 1858, Lilly was arrested in New York for swindling a man via a con known as the “patent safe game.” [Note: in some instances this small patent safe was called a “little joker”; but “little joker” was a term also used for the object hidden under a shell in the shell game; and later, a device used to crack combination locks.] In this operation, Lilly would make the acquaintance of the victim, and then both he and the victim would happen meet a total stranger (who in actuality was an accomplice of Lilly). The stranger would show them a new small safe he had invented with a hidden chamber, inside of which was an object. While the stranger was (supposedly) distracted, Lilly would sneak the object out of the chamber in view of the victim, then would bet the stranger that the object was no longer in the safe. Lilly would then ask the victim for a loan to cover the sure bet. The victim would supply the loan. Then the stranger would open the safe and (via a trick mechanism in the safe) find that the object (actually its double) was there, losing the bet. Lilly would pretend bafflement, and would promise to meet the victim later to pay back the loan for the lost bet. In this instance the victim went to the police. Lilly was convicted and sent to Sing Sing for two years.

      Upon his release, Lilly was arrested in 1860 for burglary, but escaped conviction. At the onset of the Civil War, Lilly moved to Washington, DC, and opened up a canvas tent and flag store–his skills as a sailmaker were now in high demand, as the War required huge amounts of canvas camp goods. As busy as he was, Lilly was often mentioned in the Washington newspapers for getting into fights in gambling houses, carrying concealed weapons, intoxication, and attending prize fights.

      It was while in Washington that Lilly proved he had a heart. He became upset over a lost dog:

      He had even named the dog for his favorite gambling game, Faro. Lilly seemed less attached to his female companions: including Kate Walsh, Sarah Hart, and Margaret Lilly–the last of whom ditched Ned Lilly in favor of the affections of fence Moses Erich (to mention just two of Mag Lilly’s several notorious male companions).

      In 1870, Ed Lilly was arrested in Syracuse, accused by one of his victims. Police there confiscated Lilly’s baggage, and found some fascinating items:

      During the 1870s, Lilly added forged checks and counterfeit bonds to his kit, a risky choice, in that being caught with those subjected him to the risk of additional charges. It was on a charge of Forgery that he was convicted in New York in 1877 and sent to Sing Sing under the alias James H. Potter, the crime that Byrnes first recites in Lilly’s history.

      As Byrnes recounts, Lilly was sent to Sing Sing two more times, in 1881 and 1885. In 1889, Lilly was arrested with bogus bonds in his possession at the Hoboken ferry terminal, and was consequently sent to the Hudson County Penitentiary (Snake Hill) for six months.

      In 1894, Lilly checked into a Baltimore boarding house under the name “Alexander Stewart.” He was found one morning in his room, asphyxiated by gas escaping from an unlit lamp. He would have died anonymously, had it not been for the distinctive tattoos that he, like many criminals, bore on his body: in his case a sailing ship and an owl. Those features had been recorded several times in Sing Sing, and were recognized by New York officials.

#8 Walter Sheridan

~ jpkntz

Walter Sheridan (Abt. 1833-1890), aka William A. Stoneford, Charles H. Ralston, Walter A. Stewart, William Holcomb, Doc Dash, Charles H. Keene, etc. — Horse thief, con man, bank sneak thief, counterfeiter, forger

From Byrnes’ text:

DESCRIPTION. Fifty-five years old in 1886. Born in New Orleans, La. Married. No trade. Height, 5 feet 7 inches. Weight, about 165 pounds. Light brown hair, dark eyes, Roman nose, square chin. Generally wears blonde whiskers. He is a good-looking man, and assumes a dignified appearance.

RECORD. Walter Sheridan is an accomplished thief, a daring forger, bank sneak, hotel thief, pennyweight-worker and counterfeiter. He is also one of the most notorious criminals in America. Among his aliases are Stewart, John Holcom, Chas. Ralston, Walter Stanton, Charles H. Keene, etc. When a boy, Sheridan drifted into crime and made his appearance in Western Missouri as a horse thief. He finally became an accomplished general thief and confidence man, but made a specialty of sneaking banks. In 1858 he was arrested with Joe Moran, a noted Western sneak thief and burglar, for robbing a bank in Chicago, Ill., and was sentenced to five years in the Alton, Ill., penitentiary, which time he served. He was afterwards concerned in the robbery of the First National Bank of Springfield, Ill., with Charley Hicks and Philly Phearson (5). Sheridan engaged the teller. Hicks staid outside, and Phearson crawled through a window and obtained $35,000 from the bank vault. Hicks was arrested and sentenced to eight years in Joliet prison. Philly Phearson escaped and went to Europe. Sheridan was arrested in Toledo, O., shortly afterwards with $22,000 in money on him. He was tried for this offense but acquitted.

      He next appeared in a “sneak job” in Baltimore, Md., in June, 1870, where he and confederates secured $50,000 in securities from the Maryland Fire Insurance Company. After this he secured $37,000 in bonds from the Mechanics’ Bank of Scranton, Pa. He was also implicated and obtained his share of $20,000 stolen from the Savings and Loan Bank of Cleveland, O., in 1870. He was arrested in this case, but secured his release by the legal technicalities of the law. Sheridan’s most important work was in the hypothecation of $100,000 in forged bonds of the Buffalo, New York and Erie Railroad Company to the New York Indemnity and Warehouse Company, in 1873, for which he obtained $84,000 in good hard cash. It took months to effect this loan. He took desk room in a broker’s office on the lower part of Broadway, New York, representing himself as a returned Californian of ample means. He speculated in grain, became a member of the Produce Exchange, under the name of Charles Ralston, and secured advances on cargoes of grain. He gained the confidence of the President of the Indemnity and Warehouse.

      Walter Sheridan is among the handful of the most infamous criminals profiled by Chief Byrnes.  He was often successful, and tried his hand at many different types of crimes. The accounts of Walter Sheridan’s origins are fairly consistent: he came from a respectable family in Kentucky; was sent to New Orleans for his education; went astray, and, in the late 1850s, was known as a horse thief in central Missouri. Unfortunately, none of this can be verified–not even his supposed full name: Walter (Cartman or Eastman) Sheridan.

      Several more complete accounts of Sheridan’s criminal career have been written, most recently by Jay Robert Nash in his Great Pictorial History of World Crime. However, the most succinct summary appeared in the St. Louis Post Dispatch of January 22, 1890, on the occasion of Sheridan’s death:

      The identity of Sheridan’s wife and son Walter (who claimed his body from the coroners in Montreal) have defied solving. The body was said to have been taken back to Baltimore, but no burial records have been found.

#14 Charles O. Vanderpool

~ jpkntz

Charles O. Brockway (Abt. 1837-1901), aka Charles D. Vanderpool, Chester C. Brockway, Charles Seymour, Curley-Headed Kid — Counterfeiter, Forger

From Byrnes’ text:

DESCRIPTION. Fifty-one years old in 1876. Born in United States. Married. Medium build. Dark curly hair, blue eyes, sallow complexion. Height, 5 feet 9 inches. Weight, 160 pounds. Black beard.

RECORD. Charles O. Brockway, whose right name is Vanderpool, is one of the cleverest forgers in America. He has no doubt been responsible for several forgeries that have been committed in America during the past fifteen years. He at one time kept a faro bank in partnership of Daniel Dyson, alias Dan Noble, who is now serving twenty years in Europe for forgery. He subsequently branched out as a counterfeiter, and served two terms in State prison for it. The last one, of five years, was done in Auburn, New York, State prison. His time expired there in 1878.

      He afterwards went West, and was arrested in Chicago, Ill., with Billy Ogle, in June, 1879, for forgery on the First National Bank of that city. At the time of his arrest a full set of forgers’ implements was found in his room. He made a confession, and charged an ex-government detective with having brought him to Chicago and picked out the banks for him to work. This statement was corroborated by a subsequent confession of Billy Ogle. The authorities indicted the ex-detective, and Brockway was admitted to bail in $10,000. The case never went to trial for lack of other evidence to corroborate Brockway and Ogle, who were both men of bad character.

      Brockway came back to New York, where he was credited with doing considerable work. The following banks are said to have been victimized through him : The Second National Bank, the Chemical National Bank, the Bank of the Republic, the Chatham National Bank, the Corn Exchange Bank, and the Phoenix National Bank. He was finally arrested at Providence, R. I., on August 16, 1880, with Billy Ogle (13) and Joe Cook, alias Havill (15), a Chicago sneak, in an attempt to pass a check on the Fourth National Bank for $1,327, and another on the old National Bank for $1,264. Brockway pleaded guilty to two indictments for forgery, and was sentenced to eight years in State prison at Providence, R. I., on October 2, 1880. His time will expire, allowing full commutation, on August 26, 1886. See commutation laws of Rhode Island. Brockway’s picture is a good one, taken in 1880.

       Contrary to Byrnes’ assertion, Charles O. Brockway was born to John O. Brockway and Abigail Carey in Washington, Sullivan County, New Hampshire in 1837. John Brockway passed away in South America just two years after Charles was born. In 1846, Abigail remarried to Sylvanus Clogston. By 1850, Charles Brockway was living with a young farming couple named Fletcher, rather than with his step-father’s family.

      Fourteen years later, at age 27, he had not moved far away; he was said to be living in Laconia, New Hampshire. One account suggests he had soldiered for New Hampshire in the Civil War; but his name is not found in muster rolls, and a different account suggests he had been in prison in Concord. Residents of Laconia say he was suspected of being involved in a failed attempt to rob the Laconia Savings Bank in 1864.

       It was about this time that Brockway fell in with one of the nation’s most infamous counterfeiters, Bill Gurney. Brockway was said to be a “passer of the queer”, i.e. one assigned to put counterfeit currency into circulation. Brockway was also said to be an avid faro player, the card game favored by gamblers before poker replaced it in later decades. In October, 1864, officers from Albany and New York captured Brockway in Troy, New York. He was accused of drugging and rolling a businessman in a Houston Street saloon; and of passing counterfeit bills in Albany. Though committed to trial in New York, he was eventually returned to Albany and was jailed there. The 1865 state census found Brockway still in the Albany prison.

      Upon his release, Brockway connected with a New Hampshire-based counterfeiter named Bill Dow, who was equally notorious in that endeavor as Bill Gurney. After the Civil War ended, federal bank notes replaced individual bank notes, and the United States Secret Service was founded to counter widespread counterfeiting operations. Dow was indicted in Maine, while Brockway tried to set up an operation in Mount Vernon, New York. The house he had rented was raided by agents of the Secret Service, but Brockway convinced one of the agents, Abner Newcomb, that he could provide information leading to much larger counterfeiting operations. They also made a deal to help settle Dow’s Maine indictment by setting up a fake raid and crediting Dow for making the raid possible. Eventually, the whole tawdry affair was exposed in a federal court, to the great embarrassment of the Secret Service. Brockway was sentenced to fifteen years for counterfeiting, to be served in Albany.

      Brockway was pardoned in early 1869 by President Johnson (in the last days of his administration) having served just one year and eight months of his fifteen year term. Shortly after his release, as he approached Mrs. Bunker’s residence on W. Houston Street in New York City, he was shot in the back by George Lockwood. The cause of the dispute between Lockwood and Brockway isn’t known; both were womanizers and gamblers.

      Upon recovering, Brockway partnered up with a check forger named Lewis M. Van Eaton, and made a forging tour that went from New Orleans to Detroit. Both men were captured; Brockway was brought from Detroit to New York, where he was tried and convicted for forgery. He was sent to Sing Sing for a term of four years and nine months.

      Upon gaining his freedom in 1875, Brockway tried to reform himself and landed a job as a streetcar conductor on the Lenox Street Line in Boston. Within weeks, he was arrested for forging streetcar tickets.

      Fleeing Boston, Brockway settled in Chicago and attempted to set himself up as a financial broker. Now over forty, Brockway romanced a girl of eighteen and married her. Whether his intentions to go straight were honest or not, his criminal acquaintances sought him out, involving him in further forging schemes. Their operations ranged from Chicago, to Boston, to Washington, and Baltimore, but it was in Providence, Rhode Island where a case was made against him. In 1880, he was sentenced to eight years in the Rhode Island State Prison. His young wife divorced him.

      After his release from prison this time, Brockway returned to Chicago and once again set himself up as a broker on the commodities market. In the last dozen years of his life, he stayed out of trouble with the law, though never was particularly successful in his new vocation. He died in debt in 1901 at age 64.

#202 Charles Williamson

~ jpkntz

Charles H. Perrin (Abt. 1844-191?), aka Charles Stevens, Charles J. Williamson, Charles P. Hall, Charles Cherwood, George A. Vincent, etc.   — Burglar, forger, swindler

Link to Byrnes’s entry on #202 Charles Williamson

      Chief Inspector Byrnes named Perrin as “Charles Williamson, alias Perrine” and described him as “one of the most extraordinary criminals this country has ever produced.” “Extraordinary” may have been the right word, but should not be equated with “successful” or “skilled.” Most of Perrin’s adult life was spent behind bars, and his main talent was sheer brazenness.

      Perrin was born to Solon and Jane Perrin of Fort Covington, New York, just a few miles from the St. Lawrence River on the Little Salmon River. The Perrins were respectable people in the community; by one account Solon served as a physician, and by another he acted as Sheriff. Charles was mentioned as being noted at school for his “careless and daredevil performances.” His father Solon became ill in the mid 1850s, and died when Charles was thirteen. Charles was taken in by his uncle, Henry J. Perrin, who found work for him in the printing shop of the Franklin Gazette, located in Fort Covington.

      Charles, at age 18, joined the Union Army when the Civil War broke out, though little is known of his service record. At the close of the war, he returned to New York City, where he found employment as a printer foreman in the stationers/publishers shop of Scott & Porter on Fulton Street. One night in January, 1866, one of the proprietors, Mr. Porter, from the street saw someone entering the locked storefront with a key–no one was supposed to be there. Porter summoned the police, and after a search they found Perrin inside, trying to hide himself under pieces of coal in the coal bin. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to three years at Sing Sing State Prison.

      Byrnes cites an 1869 warehouse robbery on Howard Street as one of Perrin’s crimes, committed under the alias of Stevens, but the crime occurred on January 24th a mile away at 12 Dey St., at the location of Hugh McKay, silk importers. Perrin was arrested and convicted under the name Charles Stevens, and given a sentence of 4 years six months at Sing Sing. [Note that Sing Sing’s intake registers for these months of late 1868-early 1869 do not exist, so the evidence is only found in newspaper accounts.] After his release in mid 1873–having made many criminal contacts while behind bars–Perrin moved on to the realm of forgeries–not as the “penman,” but as a self-assured front man whose job it was to gain the trust of suspicious financial bankers and trade fraudulent stock bonds.

      In mid-1873, Perrin joined with a half dozen other criminal luminaries in a giant conspiracy to flood Wall Street with forged railroad company bonds. The ringleaders of this endeavor were  longtime criminals Andrew L. “Andy” Roberts and Valentine “Frank” Gleason, an engraver who was born into a family of counterfeiters. Joining the ring were Spencer “Spence” Pettis, an ambitious but weaselly forger; Walter Sheridan (#8), one of the most successful thieves and forgers of the 19th century; and Steve Raymond (#55), an English forger. Two others provided support in the form of references and introductions: shady broker Charles B. Orvis and a wealthy New York dental surgeon with many unsavory associations, Dr. Alvah Blaisdell (misspelled by Byrnes as “Blaisell”).

      Perrin escaped from capture of the ring members with his share: between $80,000-$100,000. He then likely headed to England with Steve Raymond. However, he impetuously decided to come back to New York in 1875 and posed as Charles Farnham, an investment banker looking to enter a partnership with a legitimate brokerage firm. He was taken in by Rollins Brothers, bankers. While there he tried to insert forged bonds into the company’s transactions, but was discovered before much damage could be done. He was arrested and kept locked up in the Tombs, the city detention center, until his trial in October, 1876. He was hit with forty-eight indictments dating back to the 1873 railroad bond forgeries, so the sentence passed on him was stiff: ten years, plus another five. He was sent back to Sing Sing that month.

      Sing Sing had a justly deserved reputation for holes in its security, which did not take long for Perrin to exploit. In 1904, a former prisoner, known only as “Number 1500,” recalled “Charley” Perrin, aka Williamson:

      “Although he was a bold and merciless crook, he was an exceedingly well-educated man, and he could think harder and longer than any one else I ever met in prison. His mind must have had magnificent training from some competent person, for he could quickly acquire knowledge and retain it in its original accuracy apparently for an indefinite time. His mental equipment was peculiar in that it exhibited a remarkable power in every task to which he applied it, except in the development of a criminal project. In this line, his own chosen life, he had no more ability than an idiot. He often explained to me plans for some stupendous rascality that were so foolish as to lead me to doubt his sanity. Certainly nature never intended him for a rogue. He had, however, succeeded in one great criminal undertaking and obtained a large sum of money, the credit of which enterprise he unjustly claimed from his more capable associates…

      “…It was on a warm June night of the next year [1877] that Williamson took his departure. He was employed in the bakery, then situated on the river front, and his occupation demanded his labor in the evening after the other inmates had been locked in their cells. The darkness of night had just fallen when the bakery was discovered to be on fire. In the excitement of extinguishing the flames Williamson’s flight was not for a time discovered. He had eluded the guards and run along the river front northward to the railway station. There he entered the Hudson and swam to its channel, a mile and a half away. He remained in the water until nearly midnight when he hailed the captain of a passing boat bound for New York. He impressed the master of the vessel with his sincerity in offering a liberal reward for his aid and in due time was landed in the city. The promise of substantial pay was faithfully redeemed and in a few weeks Williamson was safe in England. There he found friends who, like himself, had fled their country for their own and their country’s good and engaged with them in a scheme to rob a great London bank.”

      Byrnes’ summary of Perrin’s time in England are correct; he fell in with some other American forgers, tried to pass altered checks against the Central Bank of London, Southwark branch, and was captured. Perrin was sentenced to ten years at Newgate Prison under the name Charles Cherwood. There, he demonstrated some of his “stupendous rascality” by suggesting he be employed by British authorities:

      Instead, British prosecutors suggested to Perrin that his sentence could be reduced simply by informing against his accomplices in England: Dan Noble, John “Clutch” Donohue, and Joe Chapman. Perrin complied, and was released in 1883 after serving half of his sentence.

      Perrin returned to the United States via Canada, came to New York briefly, and headed west, to St. Louis. There he was caught on February 28, 1884 attempting to pass an altered check at the St. Louis National Bank. He gave his name as “George A. Vincent,” but papers found on him included letters and clippings indicating that he was a seasoned forger. His identity was confirmed by New York detectives, but proceedings against him in St. Louis continued. He was convicted and sentenced to ten years in the Missouri State Prison at Jefferson City.

      Perrin was released from Jefferson City in August, 1892, having had two years reduced from his sentence. Waiting for him at the prison gate were officers from New York, who arrested him and took him back to Sing Sing to serve out the fifteen year sentence that he had so rudely declined to endure earlier. He was later transferred from Sing Sing to Clinton State Penitentiary in Dannemora, New York.

      Perrin was finally released from Clinton on February 20, 1902. He was now 57-58 years old, and had spent 31 of his previous 36 years of adult life behind bars. However, he was still a man of surprises. From Dannemora, Perrin got on a train south to Troy, New York, where he met a woman with whom he had been corresponding through the mail while in prison. They got married that same night. Her given name was Mary Ann Smith, a former farm girl from a modest family of Cazenovia, New York–but she was not without a fascinating history of her own.

      Mary Ann was born around 1862, and in her late teens migrated to New York City and took a job in a cigarette factory. According to one story, a picture was taken of the factory girls, and Mary Ann’s attractiveness created a stir. However, by another story, she followed a brother, an actor, to the city; and she worked at A. T. Stewart’s, one of the first department stores; and later as a waitress in a coffee house. She came home to Cazenovia in the summers to escape the heat of the city.

      Around the winter of 1883-1884, she met Jacob H. Vanderbilt, a widower son of Captain J. H. Vanderbilt of Staten Island, and a nephew of magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the richest men in the world. Later, during divorce proceedings, Jacob Jr. would claim that he met Mary Ann while she using the alias “Violet Smith,” and that she worked in a “house of ill-fame” and in alliance with a bunco steerer (a recruiter for rigged gambling operations). Upon their meeting, Jacob Jr. became enthralled with Mary Ann, and even came to visit in Cazenovia in the summers of 1884 and 1885, where he would arrange rendezvous with her. Jacob realized his family would never approve of her, but secretly married her anyway in April of 1886–they both used assumed names. Vanderbilt installed her in an apartment in Manhattan, but word soon leaked out to his father.

      Jacob Sr. told him the marriage was unacceptable, that he had to get rid of her or else he would be disinherited. Jacob Jr. relented, and told Mary Ann they would have to separate, and that she would be given $1000. Mary Ann hired an attorney instead, and what had been a private matter became a very public scandal, with public sentiment on Mary Ann’s side. They eventually settled out of court, with Mary Ann getting a substantial yearly allowance. Jacob Jr. was banished by the family to Seattle, where he took over as a bank president and remarried.

      Mary Ann stayed at her Manhattan apartment, occasionally running into her Vanderbilt relatives, much to their embarrassment. It was there that she entered into a correspondence with prisoner “Charles P. Hall,”  (the name Perrin now sported.) After the two met and married in Troy, they returned to Manhattan, where Perrin enjoyed a bit of the good life thanks to the gratuity of the Vanderbilts.

      Mary Ann, still known to the public as “Mrs. Jacob Vanderbilt,” further tweaked her former in-laws by opening a tea room/smoking room catering to women on fashionable Fifth Avenue. In 1903, the idea of women smoking in public–especially at a high society address–was heartily criticized.

      Meanwhile, the urge to pursue his own schemes overtook Perrin’s judgment (as it always had in the past). Perrin started to make regular visits to New Brunswick, New Jersey, in order to convince people there to invest in an electric water filtration plant:

      While the water filtration scam was percolating, Perrin also joined a cabal of corrupt New York real estate agents and lawyers in their efforts to run fire insurance frauds. Perrin had his new wife, under the name “Emily O. Hall” buy a house in Dutchess County, New York. Two days after they (supposedly) moved in, the place burned to the ground. Hall was arrested and accused of arson, but in order to have the charges dropped, agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and name his co-conspirators. Needless to say, the publicity about the arson made its way to New Brunswick, killing any last hopes Perrin had of scamming investors there.

      Both Charles H. Perrin and Mary Ann Smith disappeared from the public record after 1904. It could be that Mary Ann was mortified to learn that Perrin had returned to his criminal ways; or it could be that they vanished into new, different aliases together, and surfaced somewhere unexpected with new plans, scams, and scandals–yet to be uncovered by researchers.

#35 Robert S. Ballard

~ jpkntz

R. S. Ballard (Abt. 1835-1895?), aka Robert S. Bullard, William C. Russell, Henry C. Maltby, etc. — check forger, bigamist

From Byrnes’ text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-nine years old in 1886. Born in Ireland. Married. Physician. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 6 inches. Weight, 137 pounds. Dark hair mixed with gray, blue eyes, dark complexion. Has a wart on left side of his nose.

RECORD. Ballard, alias Harvey C. Bullard, alias W. C. Russell, alias Henry C. Maltby, was arrested in New York City on March 31, 1883, for swindling Ferdinand P. Earle, of Earle’s Hotel, out of $150 by means of a worthless check. He was also charged with bigamy and swindling. He was at one time a practicing physician, and connected with one of the New York hospitals. He was also wanted at the time of his arrest for swindling by the use of bogus checks and other devices, in New York City, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Providence, R.I., Baltimore, Md., Atlantic City, N.J., Brooklyn, N.Y., and Philadelphia, Pa.

      In 1881 he married a Miss Amelia Black, at Poughkeepsie, and deserted her a few days afterward. In November, 1882, he married Miss Annie Van Houten in Baltimore, and brought her to New York, where he deserted her at Earle’s Hotel, after swindling the proprietor. At the time of his arrest, in his valise was found hundreds of bogus checks and drafts, signed R. S. Ballard, Riggs & Co., R. S. Riggs, W. C. Riggs & Co., for sums ranging from $500 to $6,000, all bearing recent dates; and also a large number of check and bank books. One of the latter showed an alleged deposit of $15,900 in the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York. Another exhibited a credit of $10,600 on a Tarrytown, N.Y., bank, and the third represented a deposit of $14,594 in the Western International Bank of Baltimore, Md. He had checks of banks in nearly every prominent city in America. The Bankers’ and Brokers’ Association offered a reward of $1,000 for his arrest under the name of W. C. Russell. Ballard pleaded guilty on May 2, 1883, in the Court of General Sessions, New York City, and was sentenced to five years in State prison by Recorder Smyth. His sentence expires, allowing him full commutation, on December 1, 1886. His picture is an excellent one, taken in 1883.

      There are many men and women in Chief Byrnes’ book that defy research and remain ciphers, but few are more mysterious and erratic than R. S. Ballard (the earliest name under which he can be traced). Byrnes arrested him and sent him to Sing Sing for three years in 1883; and probably gave him the “third degree,” but no details he offered about his early life can be verified, except that he was born around 1835 in Ireland (he was said to have a strong northern Irish accent). Byrnes states that he was at one time a practicing physician connected with a New York hospital, but this seems doubtful–see clipping below.

       The earliest trace of Ballard is from the 1880 census, where “R. S. Ballard” (already 45 years old, born in Ireland) was working near Morristown, New Jersey as an attendant at the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum. An 1883 article from the New York Times has Ballard giving his true name as William C. Russell:

      However, this version omits his tenure as an asylum attendant in New Jersey, and contains no facts that have been verified, other than that 1881 marked the year he turned to crime.

      In mid-1881, Ballard moved from Morristown, New Jersey, to Newburgh, New York, and took up residence in a boarding house run by a Mrs. Brock. He paid his rent on time, but did not appear to be employed. Letters found in his room indicate that he applied for a job at the Hudson River State Hospital (asylum) in Poughkeepsie. He paid great attention to Mrs. Brock’s 28-year-old daughter, Amelia Brock, and proposed to her. She accepted, and they made plans to buy a larger boarding house. To fund this purchase, Ballard started to float forged checks; and when the realization came that they would be verified, he disappeared.

      Over the next couple of months he popped up sporting forged checks in Hartford, Boston, and Providence. By early December he was in Baltimore, where he was introduced to bankers by an acquaintance and was allowed to float a couple of $100 checks, which were declared fraudulent a few days later. On a train from Baltimore, Ballard met a young traveling saleswoman from New York, Annie Marie Wall Van Houten. She had been abandoned by her husband about two years earlier. The two immediately connected, promptly decided to get married, and lodged together at the Earle Hotel in Manhattan. While enjoying their honeymoon, Ballard deposited forged checks into two banks, and then withdrew some of those funds and disappeared. Annie Marie also tried to access those funds and was detained by police.

     A few months later, Chief Byrnes and his detectives caught up with Ballard, and he was sent to Sing Sing. He served three years and was released in 1886, drifted to Philadelphia, floated more bad checks, and was sent to jail again.

     The more interesting story, it appears, is that of Annie Marie Wall Van Houten. Deserted by two husbands (and, perhaps, no less a bigamist than Ballard was), Annie eventually found employment as a detective for Wilkinson’s Detective Agency in New York, managed by a former NYPD and Pinkerton detective. In 1897 she married the boss, but the pairing ended three years later in public fashion:

      Annie lived the rest of her life (she died in 1938) without any further husbands, perhaps tiring of the institution of marriage. Who would not want to sit and trade a few stories with Annie?

#97 Col. Alexander C. Branscom

~ jpkntz

Alexander C. Branscom(e)  (1841-1923?), aka Bethel C. Alexander  — Swindler and forger

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-four years old in 1886. Born in Virginia. Medium build. Single. Claims to be a book publisher. Height, 6 feet. Weight, 178 pounds. Medium brown hair, dark gray eyes, ruddy complexion. Good education; converses well. Right arm off at the elbow.

RECORD. Col. Branscom is an expert forger and swindler. He was sentenced to three years and six months in State prison in August, 1880, in New York City, for forging Florida bonds. His expertness with the pen is a marvel, in view of his being obliged to write with his left hand, his right arm having been cut off at the elbow. His correspondence while conducting his swindling operations, large as it has been, was entirely written by himself, and does equal credit to his powers of invention and to his skillful penmanship. Not a detail calculated to convey confidence was lacking in any of his transactions.

      He was arrested again in New York City on November 2, 1884. During August of that year he made several contracts with business men in New York to publish and advertise in an official guide to the New Orleans Exposition; and a highly decorated pamphlet, “The Diversified Industries of the South.” He contracted with Conroy Brothers, paper dealers, of No. 33 Beekman Street, New York City, on August 14, 1884, for $7,000 worth of white paper for his publications, and gave them a note for $7,000, purported to be endorsed by Colonel Edward Richardson, the millionaire president of the Mississippi Mills, at Wesson, Miss., and at that time president of the World’s Exposition at New Orleans. Branscom uttered about $40,000 worth of similar notes in New York, and when arrested he confessed that he had forged endorsements to $52,000 more, and had intended to issue about $110,000 worth in all. If he had succeeded, he said, he would have carried his publications through and cleared $50,000. In addition to the money collected by the notes, Branscom also got orders for $6,000 worth of advertisements in the blank space of his two books, and he planned to collect $30,000 more from the same source. His cash collected from all sources in this transaction enabled him to deposit $14,000 in the Shoe and Leather Bank of New York, but two-thirds of this amount he subsequently drew out. Branscom was convicted of the forgery of one note for $7,000, and was sentenced to ten years in State prison in the Court of General Sessions, New York, on March 14, 1885, by Recorder Smyth. Branscom’s picture is a good one, taken in November, 1884.

      Chief Byrnes described Branscom as an expert forger and swindler, though in Branscom’s own mind, he was merely an honest businessman forced by the stress of being under-capitalized to take the shortcut of forging documents, with every intent to make his contractors and investors whole again once the profits were realized. However, Branscom made this error on at three least separate occasions, which implies it was more of a strategy than a result of misfortune. Chief Byrnes notes that his forging talents were all the more impressive because he only had the use of one arm, having lost his right arm in the Civil War. Branscom was likely born left-handed, so it is surprising that he was able to so capably imitate the handwriting of right-handers.

      In 1883, after recently emerging from Sing Sing and full of confidence that he would never have to resort to crime again (he did), Branscom gave the New York Herald the following account of his career, which appears to be fairly accurate:

      “I was born in Greenville, Grayson County, Virginia, thirty-nine years ago. My grandfather served in the War of 1812, his father served through the Revolution and my father was an officer in the Confederate army. When I was seventeen years old I also went into the Confederate service as a private in Colonel Jubal A. Early’s regiment, the Twenty-Fourth Virginia Infantry. I went to Manassas in 1861 and passed through some of the worst battles in which Pickett’s division was engaged. After the Battle of Gettysburg I was commissioned a Captain and assigned to duty with the Twenty-First Virginia Cavalry. I served under Generals John S. Williams, William E. Jones, Simon B. Buckner, and James Longstreet in the departments of Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee.
     “In a fight near the village of Piedmont, June 5, 1864, my right arm was carried away by a cannon ball. I received other wounds during the war–one from a shell in the right leg that disables me very much at times. After the war I went into the grain business without capital, but I soon had ample credit. A foolish love affair led me almost to suicide. I made out powers-of-attorney for the settlement of my business, but reconsidered my purpose of self-destruction and fled to Mexico. I passed to Central and South America, making more than my expenses in various forms of commission. I transposed by name and was known as Mr. Alexander. I came back to the United States, and when the railroad to Arkansas was completed, I went into the cotton factorage business in St. Louis.
     “A [financial] panic struck me some pretty hard blows and the banks would not lend money upon cotton to arrive. Up to this time I had been morally but not legally, guilty of wrongdoing. I now gave duplicate and worthless cotton warehouse receipts and soon had a bank credit. In time this was discovered, and one small bank began criminal proceedings against me. I was imprisoned five months. The banks got to fighting amongst themselves and really kept me from trial for nearly three years. When I was tried I was convicted, but business men came to my assistance, and I was pardoned before sentence was passed upon me.
     “I tried to rise again on an honorable foundation, but I had none. Friends offered to assist me and I undertook to build a factory. That failed, and in utter desperation I attempted suicide in an old coal shaft beyond the suburbs of the city. I took a deadly drug, but it did not kill me. I obtained some money from a relative, made some more from commission sales, and went to Florida as an advance agent for a colony. I was chloroformed and robbed in a boarding house in Jacksonville.
     “A year later I was in a promising fruit packing and shipping business. I conceived the idea of controlling the Florida orange crop and wanted money to do it. I came on to New York and borrowed money on worthless Florida securities. If these transactions were discovered before I could return the money, I expect to go to prison. they were discovered and I assumed the role of my own prosecutor. I spent twenty-six months in Sing Sing and only left there a few days ago. I went into confinement under the impression that I deserved it and that it would do me good.”

      Much of what Branscom said is accurate. His war service is verified, though he left as a Captain, not with the honorary “Colonel” title that Byrnes used. Although the incident that caused him to leave Virginia has not surfaced, it is true that he appeared in St. Louis as a businessman named Bethel C. Alexander. The forgeries of receipts he made there were big headlines, and the case did drag on as long as he indicated (from 1874-1877).

      While in Sing Sing between 1880 and 1883, Branscon wrote a fictionalized account of his life, and had it published as: Mystic romances of the blue and the grey: masks of war, commerce and society. Pictures of real life scenes enacted in this age, rarely surpassed in the wildest dreams of fictitious romance

      His prose is over-embellished, and the hero, Nathan Cloud (i.e. Branscom), is a Byronic adventurer tossed about by fate.

      A year after the publication of his novel, Branscom was back at his old tricks: he dreamed up a scheme to publish a guidebook and a picture book to the 1884 New Orleans World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition. To pay for the printing costs, he forged the name of the Exposition’s president on notes that would become due after four months–by which time Branscom hoped to have reaped the profits. Branscom decided to run this scheme in New York, where he already had one conviction for forgery.

      He was caught again, and this time was sentenced to ten years in Sing Sing. Four years were taken off his term, and he was released in 1891. He returned to the fruit shipping business, and in the late 1890s was found in San Diego, California, running a lemon shipping business. He promoted a process of steaming unripe lemons to preserve them during shipping, but it appears to have had mixed results.

      Family sources indicate he returned to Florida and passed away in the early 1920s, but he had disappeared from all news accounts long before that date.

#32 William E. Brockway

~ jpkntz

William E. Brockway (1822-1920), aka E. W. “Bill” Spencer, “Long Bill”–Counterfeiter

Link to Byrnes’ entry on #32 William E. Brockway

      William E. Brockway was the most prominent American counterfeiter of the 19th century, noted for the length of his career and his use of new printing technologies. His criminal exploits and connections could fill a book, but to get a flavor, check out his mentions in:

http://numismatics.org/kings-of-counterfeiting/ (American Numismatics Society)

Three Years with Counterfeiters, Smugglers, and Boodle Carriers: With Accurate Portraits of Prominent Members of the Detective Force in the Secret Service. Boston: Jackson, Dale & Co., 1875

A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States 1st edition by Mihm, Stephen (2007)

      Brockway would likely be more famous, were it not for the presence during much of his lifetime of another active forger, Charles O. Brockway (the two were not closely related). Charles O. Brockway displayed little honor among thieves, and for a time was on the payroll of the United States Secret Service helping to arrest other counterfeiters. Many newspapers and police got the two Brockways mixed up, and attached Charles O.’s sins to William E.

      William E. Brockway hailed from Saybrook, Connecticut; but his parentage is unknown. In later years, he claimed that he was born as William E. Spencer, and had been orphaned and taken in by a Brockway family. However, at the time he claimed this, he was attempting to maintain a family in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn under the name Edward W. Spencer, and many assumed that he was just attempting to explain why he was using that alias. When Brockway died in 1920, he was buried in a New Haven, Connecticut graveyard that contained both Brockways and Spencers, but his gravestone says Brockway.

      One report suggests that as a young man, Brockway worked in the New Haven painting studio of Samuel F. B. Morse, who attended Yale. In 1843, at age 21, Brockway married Louisa H. Olmsted, a cousin of the landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. In 1846, they had a son, William E. Brockway, Jr. However the boy died a year later, in 1847. The child’s death coincides with the onset of Brockway’s first known criminal activity. Another child, daughter Louisa Brockway, was born between 1847 and 1849.

      In the late 1840s, Brockway was apprenticed to a New Haven printer, whose customers included Banks seeking to manufacture their own notes–paper currency, at that time, was produced by individual banks, not the Federal government. Brockway was encouraged by his employer to attended classes at Yale conducted by America’s first professor of science, Benjamin Silliman. From Silliman, Brockway learned the magic of voltaic batteries and the process of electroplating. He realized that he did not need to steal the bank’s engraved plates to make copies of them–all he had to do was get an impression of the plate, using a thin sheet of copper foil. From that impression, he could reproduce the plates exactly.

      Brockway used this method to start counterfeiting between 1847 and 1848. However, it did not take long after the high-quality notes were circulated for suspicion to fall on him. He was captured in Hudson, New York in 1849 after being identified by some of the agents he recruited to pass the money. Louisa, his wife, came to Hudson to try to extract him, but was herself caught with counterfeit notes.

      Brockway spent the first five years of the 1850s in prison, and upon his emergence, remarried. What had happened to Louisa is not known. His new wife was Frances D. Mayne, born in Ireland.

      Between 1856 and 1866, Brockway and Frances (Fannie) had three children: Frances J., born in 1856; William E., born in 1860; and Caroline, born in 1866. Sometime before 1865, they moved to Canarsie, Brooklyn, where the Brockways assumed the name Spencer. Brockway is found in census records from 1865 through the 1880s as “Edward W. Spencer, broker.” The son, William E. Spencer, grew up to be a respected physician.

      Meanwhile, Brockway’s daughter from his first marriage–Louisa Brockway–was sent to Europe for her schooling. While there, she met a Belgian businessman, Frederick Schafer-Lafond, and became his wife. They had two children: Frederick Jr., born in 1866; and Gertrude, born between 1870 and 1872. Louisa’s husband Frederick died in the early 1880s. Louisa then took up with a Russian merchant named Wilhelm E. Jetzkewitz. He took Louisa and her children to Riga, Latvia. However, he went broke sometime around 1883, and Louisa left him (perhaps after bearing him a child).

      Louisa came back to the United States in 1884, and while in New York was romanced by a publicity agent/reporter named Edward Campbell Allison. Allison was little more than a small-time huckster, which Louisa realized after a few years, and divorced him.

      Her daughter Gertrude Schafer-Lafond, while still a teen of 15-17, married Charles P. Wootton of Boonton, New Jersey–the Woottons were an old, wealthy family of Boonton. She bore Charles Wootton two children: a daughter, Lorna L Wootton; and Harlan Spencer Wootton.

      What’s interesting about this is that Brockway’s great-grandson, Harlan Wootton, was given the middle name “Spencer,” though Spencer was the name Brockway used with his second wife, not his first wife from who Harlan descended. So this is evidence that perhaps Brockway had told the truth–he was a Spencer.

      When William E. Brockway was arrested again for counterfeiting in 1895, the newspapers mention that his granddaughter, Gertrude Wootton, was by his side in the courtroom.

      The infamy of the Brockway name ruined the marriage of Gertrude and Charles P. Wootton. They divorced, and she remarried the ex-patriate British artist Reginald Bathurst Birch, illustrator of the novel Little Lord Fauntleroy.

      Brockway died in 1920 at age 98, having outlived all his fellow criminals and the authorities that tracked them.

#17 Lester Beach

~ jpkntz

Lester Beach (1825-1882) — Presenter of forged checks

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Fifty-nine years old in 1886. Born in United States. Married. Painter. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 9 inches. Weight, 166 pounds. Gray hair, brown eyes, light complexion. Heavy nose lines and wrinkles under the eyes. Hair thin on top of head. Generally wears a brown and gray mustache.

RECORD. Lester Beach is a well known forger, having been arrested several times. He is an associate of Charles R. Titus, alias Doctor Thompson (44)[sic], another professional forger, who attempted to pass a forged check for $100,000, drawn on J. B. Colgate & Co., brokers, of No. 47 Wall Street, New York City, in 1869. Beach was arrested in New York City on November 26, 1878, in company of Titus, charged with having obtained $70 from Morris Steinhart, of No. 67 Hudson Street, New York City, on a bogus certified check on the Bank of New York. He stated when arrested that he was furnished the check by a man named Browning, who was to meet him and receive the proceeds. This man proved to be Dr. Titus. Additional complaints were made against Beach by R. J. Clay, of No. 176 Broadway, and G. F. Morse, of No. 174 South Fifth Avenue, New York City. Mr. Clay stated that Beach obtained $30 from him on a certified check on the Newark City, N. J., National Bank, which proved to be a forgery. Mr. Morse stated that he had given Beach $99 on a certified check for $100 on the Merchants’ Bank of Brooklyn, N. Y., which also proved worthless. Beach was tried and convicted of forgery in the Steinhart case, and sentenced to three years and six months in State prison at Sing Sing, N. Y., on December 18, 1879, by Judge Gildersleeve, in the Court of General Sessions, in New York City. See record of No. 40. Beach’s picture is an excellent one, taken in November, 1876.

      Lester Beach, contrary to Chief Byrnes’s portrayal, was not a professional thief, and should not have been included in his book of habitual criminals. Byrnes also says that Beach was a forger and had been arrested several times. This is incorrect; Beach was a dupe recruited by a forger–Charles R. Titus aka Joseph M. Thompson–to present the forged checks at banks. Beach did so several times over the course of a few days in New York City in November, 1878. He had never been arrested previously.

Lester Beach. Illustration by David Birkey  http://cargocollective.com/dbillustration

      At that time, Beach was a 59-year-old unemployed house painter living in Brooklyn with a wife and six children. In 1871, he was an officer of  a Brooklyn Sons of Temperance organization, a private fraternal society that demanded sobriety and good character from its invited members.

      By 1874, Beach was in dire financial straits. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported:

      “Officers Horan and Colgan of the Second Precinct took to the station house last evening a truckload of household furniture, consisting of beds and bedding, stoves, oil paintings, books, a sewing machine, and various other articles which had been standing on the sidewalk in front of premises No. 60 Middagh Street, since the morning of Tuesday. The offices learned that the property was that of Lester Beach, a painter, who had been ejected from the premises for non-payment of rent. He had been out of work for some time, and having no funds could not stow his furniture away after being dispossessed. His wife and children are in the country, being cared for by friends. The police retain possession of the goods.”

      Life was not kinder to Beach over the next four years. In late 1878, a man giving his name as “Browning” approached Beach with a proposition: if Beach would take several checks into banks and cash them, he could share some of the proceeds. Beach likely guessed that what he was doing was illegal, but decided he had to take the risk.

      After passing four checks, Beach was caught. On his testimony, “Browning” (Charles R. Titus/Joseph M. Thompson) was also arrested, but released for lack of evidence.

      Lester Beach was sentenced in December 1878 to three years and six months in Sing Sing–a harsh penalty. He was released in 1882–and died shortly after his release.

      While Chief Thomas Byrnes thought Lester Beach merited inclusion as professional criminal, Byrnes failed to arrest all the gambling den operators, brothel managers, protection racket gangs, after-hours dance hall operators, corrupt police captains, and others whom it was his duty to enforce the law. The profile of Beach is a monument to Byrnes’s misguided concept of justice.

      A lesser criticism is the sloppy editing of the Beach entry: Beach was arrested once, not several times; Titus’s profile is #40, not 44; Titus attempted to pass the check on Colgate in 1879, not 1869; Beach was sentenced in December 1878, not 1879; his Rogue’s Gallery picture was taken in November 1878, not 1876.

#40 Charles R. Titus

~ jpkntz

Charles R. Titus (1843-?) aka James M Thompson, C. A. Wilson, Fred Titus — Forger

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-three years old in 1886. Born in United States. Slim build. Dark complexion. Height, 5 feet 7 inches. Weight, 135 pounds. Black hair, brown eyes. Wears a full black beard. Married. A fine, genteel appearing man. Well known in most of the Eastern cities and in Canada.

RECORD. “Doc” Titus was arrested in New York City on November 26, 1878, in connection with one Lester Beach (17), for having obtained $70 from Morris Steinhart, No. 65 Hudson Street, New York City, on a bogus certified check on the Bank of New York. Beach when arrested stated that he obtained the check from Titus. Titus is a very clever forger, and has been mixed up in several transactions in paper. He is a warm friend of Charles B. Orvis, of Buffalo, New York and Erie bond fame.

      Titus was arrested again in New York City on September 11, 1879, with one Samuel J. Hoyt, a real estate and insurance broker, charged with having in their possession a forged check on the Bank of America for $100,000, with intent to utter the same. It was drawn to the order of John B. Baker, trustee, dated September 11, 1879, and purported to have been signed by J. B. Colgate & Co., a banking firm on Wall Street. It appears that one J. B. Baker was introduced to the accused by Charles B. Orvis. He, as alleged, was informed that the check was genuine, and that some of the employes of Colgate & Co. were implicated in its procurement. Titus, it was claimed, handed the check to Hoyt, who handed it to Baker, and requested him to buy four per cent United States bonds for it. Baker, who it appears was in the employ of Colgate & Co., took the check to them, and they pronounced it a forgery. The arrest followed, and Titus and Hoyt were committed in $10,000 bail for trial. Hoyt pleaded guilty to the charge on January 30, 1880, and was used by the authorities as a witness against Titus, who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to two years in State prison on January 31, 1880, by Recorder Smyth, in the Court of General Sessions at New York City. Titus’ picture is an excellent one, taken in 1880.

      The real name of this criminal is unknown, though he used the name James M. Thompson over a number of years; and also the last name Titus. His exploits were much more curious than the two instances of forgery that Chief Byrnes cites. A further mystery lies in the fact that Thompson/Titus had been arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to a three year/six month stretch at Sing Sing in April, 1883. Therefore he was in prison at the time that Byrnes wrote and published Professional Criminals of America. One would think that Byrnes would like to take credit for that, but he never mentions it.

      Thompson/Titus first came to public attention in 1877, when he turned State’s evidence in a case against a forging operation led by Nelson A. Gesner and the premier forger in America, James B. Crosse (then using the alias Charles J. Sprague). Thompson claimed that he had been hired by Crosse to pass forged checks in New York; but that Crosse failed to press him into service, and also failed to provide a promised retainer. In retribution, Thompson/Titus decided to offer testimony against Crosse and Gesner. Ultimately, his testimony was judged as insufficient, and prosecutors instead tried to turn Gesner and Crosse against one another.

      Unfazed by that experience, Thompson/Titus decided to embark on his own forging operation, using as his dupe a middle-aged painter from Brooklyn, Lester Beach. Beach passed a half-dozen forged checks of between $100-$200 around New York, all provided to him by Thompson/Titus. Beach was apprehended, but Thompson/Titus was set free for lack of evidence.

      About five months later, in early 1880, Thompson/Titus was caught with an accomplice, Samuel J. Hoyt, trying to pass a $100,000 check drawn on the Bank of America to a banking firm on Wall Street. This time, the tables were turned and in exchange for a light sentence, Hoyt gave evidence against Thompson/Titus. He was sent to Sing Sing for a two year sentence, emerging in 1882.

      A year later, In April 1883, Thompson (now using the middle initial “W.”) and a new accomplice, Frederick Morris aka Robert Ray, were arrested in New York for passing small checks under $100. This event sent Thompson/Titus back to Sing Sing for another three and a half years. When he emerged, he found his mug on display in Byrnes’s new book.

      In the late summer of 1887, Thompson/Titus was suspected of committing a burglary in Lowell, Massachusetts. A detective there traced him to Wheeling, West Virginia, where he was also suspected of some petty thievery. Police in Wheeling confronted him, but he escaped via train to Pittsburgh. From there he was traced to Montreal, Quebec. There, Canadian authorities arrested him as Fred Titus aka C. H. Brown, a man wanted for forgeries in Ridgetown, Ontario. It was reported that he had wife, Sarah McDougal in Ridgetown; and another in Mayville, Michigan; and also in Chicago and/or New Jersey.

      To date (May 2018), that is where the trail of Thompson/Titus ends. It is unknown if he was prosecuted and jailed for the Ridgetown crimes (forgery or bigamy); there is no mention that he was returned to Lowell to face charges there, so likely he remained in Canada.