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#152 Abraham Greenthal / #153 Harris Greenthal

~ jpkntz

Abraham Greenthal (1822-1889), aka General Greenthal, Abraham Leslauer, Abraham Meyers; and Hirsch Harris (1824-1886), aka Herman Brown, Harris Greenthal, Herman Harris, Harris Meyer — Pickpockets

From Byrnes’s text on Abraham Greenthal:

DESCRIPTION. Sixty years old in 1886. Jew, born in Poland. Calls himself a German. Widower. No trade. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, about 185 pounds. Dark hair, turning quite gray. Prominent nose-lines ; mole near one of them. Beard, when grown, is a sandy gray. Generally has a smooth face.

RECORD. “General” Greenthal is known all over the United States as the leader of the “Sheeny mob.” He is acknowledged to be one of the most expert pickpockets in America. His home is in the Tenth Ward in New York City, and he has been a thief and receiver of stolen goods for the last thirty years. He has served time in several prisons and penitentiaries, but has generally obtained his release before his sentence expired. He is a clever thief, and will fight when forced to. The “General” was arrested in Rochester, N.Y., on March 1, 1877, in company of his brother, Harris, and Samuel Casper, his son-in-law, for robbing a man (see record of No. 153), and sentenced on April 19, 1877, to twenty years in Auburn, N.Y., State prison. He was pardoned in the spring of 1884 by Governor Cleveland.

      He was arrested again in Brooklyn, N.Y., on December 30, 1885, in company of Bendick Gaetz, alias “The Cockroach,” for robbing Robert B. Dibble, of Williamsburg, N.Y., of a pocket-book containing $795 in money, on a cross-town horse-car in that city. The “General” pleaded guilty to grand larceny in the second degree, on March 23, 1886, and was sentenced to five years in Crow Hill prison by Judge Moore, in the Brooklyn Court of Sessions. The “General” is an old friend of Mrs. Mandelbaum, who is now in Canada. Greenthal’s picture is a splendid one, taken in March, 1877.

From Byrnes’ text on Harris Greenthal:

DESCRIPTION. Fifty-eight years old in 1886. Jew, born in Poland. Married. No trade. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 5 inches. Weight, about 150 pounds. Brown curly hair, turning quite gray ; brown and gray whiskers, high forehead.

RECORD. Harris Greenthal, a brother of the “General” (152), is also an old New York thief and member of the “Sheeny gang” of pickpockets, who have been traveling through the country robbing people for a number of years. He resides in New York City, and is well known in all the principal cities in the United States and Canada. Harris Greenthal, alias Brown, the “General,” alias Meyers, and Samuel Casper, the “General’s” son-in-law, were arrested in Rochester, N.Y., on March 1, 1877, charged with robbing William Jinkson of $1,190 in money, at the Central Railroad depot. Jinkson was a farmer who sold his farm in Massachusetts, and with the proceeds had started West. The “Sheeny gang” had seen him showing his money in Albany, N.Y., and had followed him from that city. At the Central depot in Rochester they told him he would have to change cars. One of the trio took his valise, and the entire party entered another car. In jostling through the crowd the “General” relieved Jinkson of his pocket-book containing the money, which was in bills. They escaped, but were arrested about an hour afterwards. They were indicted, tried, and convicted. The “General,” alias Meyers, was sentenced on April 19, 1877, to twenty years at hard labor in Auburn, N.Y., State prison. Harris Greenthal, alias Brown, received a sentence of eighteen years, and Casper fifteen years. Harris and Casper were pardoned by Governor Cleveland in December, 1884, the “General” having been pardoned some months before. (See record of No. 84.) Harris’s picture is an excellent one, taken in March, 1877.

      Several of the personages profiled in Byrnes’ Professional Criminals of America have been written about extensively, either through autobiographies, biographies, or essays: Sophie Lyons, Langdon Moore, Jim Brady, George W. Wilkes, etc. The blog entries composing this project are too abbreviated to match the historical details that exist in those studies. This inadequacy was never more evident than in the case of Abraham “General” Greenthal, the leader of the so-called “Sheeny Mob” (“sheeny” being a derogatory term for Jews, especially emigrant German Jews.)

      Greenthal’s entire criminal career, genealogy, and Prussian-Jewish origins have been documented by Edward David Luft in an essay of astounding scholarship, “Stop Thief! : The true story of Abraham Greenthal, king of the pickpockets in 19th century New York City, as revealed from contemporary sources.”  Luft’s essay is all the more impressive given the elusive clues available: Greenthal was an adopted alias, and was often misspelled in newspaper accounts: Grenthal, Gruenthal, Green, etc.; and it was sometimes dropped by Abraham and his family in favor of “Meyers/Myers” or variant spellings of an earlier established family name: Leslauer (found as “Leslan” “Leslau” “Leslie,” etc. in some newspaper records)

      Greenthal and his gang of associates were pickpockets, sneak thieves, and fences. How extensive their network was is unknown, but the core of it consisted of Abraham, his wife, their daughters, and their husbands; and his brother Hirsch’s family. A leading figure of the gang, in addition to Abraham, was Hirsch’s daughter Augusta Harris, who acted as the main fence, or receiver, during the 1870s.

      Little more can be added to Luft’s study of “General” Greenthal, but Luft mentions his brother, Hirsch Harris, very briefly. A few records exist for this man: his prison intake and discharge papers; the 1870 census, and the 1880 census. Unfortunately, after 1884, traces of his family disappear.

      He was called “Hirsch Harris” by newspapers more frequently than any other name; but he was sent to Auburn prison in 1877 under the name Herman Brown. In the 1870 census, his name was transcribed (in an obvious error) as “Hanna Harris.” In 1880, he was listed as “Hermon Harris” (although he was actually still in Auburn at that point.) The family consisted of four girls: Augusta, Amalia, Hattie, and Lille; and a boy, Moses. Moses and Amalia were not listed with the family in 1880. Amalia was old enough to be out on her own, but perhaps Moses met an early death.

      Augusta was described in several articles as the leader of the Greenthal mob’s fence operation, mentioned in the same breath with Marm Mandelbaum (whom one article suggests pushed Augusta out of business using her political connections). Augusta was married in the early 1870s to Charles “French Charley” Perle, a pickpocket and thief. However, the two had a falling out, and a newspapers suggested they were divorced (“out of the courts”) in 1876.

      Newspapers also referred to a daughter Mary/Mollie, who may have been the same person listed in the 1870 census as Amalia. Mary/Mollie was said to have been the fiance of burglar Johnny McAlpine. Their romance would have been interrupted by McAlpine’s being sentenced to 20 years in Sing Sing in 1873.

      Chief Byrnes, in his 1995 revised edition, suggests that Hirsch Harris died “within a few months” as his brother, in 1889; however, an earlier article on the conviction of Abraham in 1886 states that Hirsch (under the name Harris Meyer) died on March 31, 1886.

#25 Horace Hovan

~ jpkntz

Horace Hovan (1852-192?), aka “Little Horace” — bank sneak thief

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-seven years old in 1886. Medium build. Born in Richmond, Va. Very genteel appearance. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, 150 pounds. Dresses well. Married to Charlotte Dougherty. Fair complexion. A fine, elegant-looking man. Generally wears a full brown beard.

RECORD. Horace Hovan, alias Little Horace, has associated with all the best bank sneaks in the country.

      In 1870 Horace, in company of a man that has reformed and is living honestly, and Big Ed. Rice (12), stole $20,000 from a vault in a Halifax (N.S.) bank. Hovan and this party were arrested, but Rice escaped with the money. The prisoners were afterwards released, as the money was returned to the bank.

      Horace was convicted under the name of W. W. Fisher, alias Morgan, for a bank sneak job in Pittsburg, Pa., and sentenced to two years and eleven months in the Western Penitentiary, at Alleghany City, on November 22, 1878. He was arrested on March 23, 1878, at Petersburgh, Va., with Rufe Minor, George Carson, and Charlotte Dougherty (Hovan’s wife). See remarks of picture No. 1.

      Arrested again March 31, 1879, at Charleston, S.C., for the larceny of $20,000 in bonds from a safe in the First National Bank in that city. He dropped them on the floor of the bank when detected and feigned sickness, and was sent to the hospital, from which place he made his escape.

      Arrested again October 16, 1880, in New York City, for the Middletown (Conn.) Bank robbery. See records of pictures Nos. 1 and 3. In this case he was discharged, as the property stolen was returned. Arrested again in June, 1881, at Philadelphia, Pa., with Frank Buck, alias Bucky Taylor (27), for the larceny of $10,950 in securities from a broker’s safe in that city. He was convicted of burglary, and sentenced to three years in the Eastern Penitentiary, at Philadelphia, Pa., on July 2, 1881, his time to date back to June 6, 1881. He was pardoned out October 30, 1883, on condition that he would go to Washington, D. C, and testify against some officials who were on trial. He agreed to do so if the Washington authorities would have the case against him in Charleston, S.C., settled, which they did. He then gave his testimony, which was not credited by the jury. He remained in jail in Washington until May 10, 1884, when he was discharged.

      Hovan and Buck Taylor were arrested again on June 18, 1884, in Boston, Mass., their pictures taken, and then escorted to a train and shipped out of town. Hovan is a very clever and tricky sneak thief. One of his tricks was to prove an alibi when arrested.

      He has a brother, Robert Hovan (see picture No. 179), now (1886) serving a five years’ sentence in Sing Sing prison, who is a good counterpart. The voices and the manners of the two men are so nearly alike, that when they are dressed in the same manner it is hard to distinguish one from the other. Horace has often relied on this. He would register with his wife at a prominent hotel, and make the acquaintance of the guests. About an hour before visiting a bank or an office Horace would have his brother show up at the hotel, order a carriage, drive out with his (Horace’s) wife in the park, and return several hours later. Horace, in the interval, would slip off and do his work. If he was arrested any time afterwards, he would show that he was out riding at the time of the robbery.

      Horace Hovan is without doubt one of the smartest bank sneaks in the world. Latest accounts, the fall of 1885, say that he was arrested in Europe and sentenced to three years in prison for the larceny of a package of bank notes from a safe. His partner, Frank Buck, made his escape and returned to America. His picture is an excellent one, taken in 1884.

      While there may be no “born criminals,” Horace Hovan did take up thieving at an early age. He was raised in Richmond, Virginia to Irish parents: John F. Hovan and Harriet B. Rowe. 1864 was a momentous year for the Hovans; John F. Hovan disappeared, perhaps into the maws of the Civil War; Harriet gave birth to her fifth child, a daughter, Gennet; and Horace Hovan, aged 12, was arrested for pick-pocketing.

      Hovan was the scourge of Richmond for the next seven years, being arrested for: stealing soap; beating a black man; pick-pocketing; and robbing store tills. In 1868, at age 16, he jumped bail and fled the city. He and his two brothers stayed in Philadelphia for a while, but migrated back to Richmond in 1870. There, he married a local girl, Martha Abrams. By 1871, Horace had graduated to breaking and entering houses. Just days after his mother passed away, he was caught and held on $2500 bail–and likely jailed. Horace and Martha’s son, Horace Jr., was born in 1872, but died less than a year later. A daughter, Cellela, was born in 1873. Horace, by this time, was on the road working with other thieves, and sent back money to his wife who was living in Baltimore.

      In early 1873, Hovan and three partners (two of whom were John Price and Philly Pearson) stole from banks in Berks County, Pennsylvania and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Their method was “sneak thieving”–today known as “snatching,” i.e. a quick motion to grab objects and run away with them. In banks, this was done as bank customers placed bills on a counter; or as cashiers counted out money; or as distracted bank workers left papers unattended. Horace (unlike his brother Preston) never carried weapons, and never struggled when caught.

      The gang moved westward, and in late March broke into the Pittsburgh Safe Deposit and Trust Company, where they hit the mother lode. Hovan walked out with $50,000 in railroad bonds. The gang immediately went to New York City, where Hovan–posing as a “curbstone broker” (a broker who makes trades on the street)–tried to negotiate the bonds for cash. He was arrested and taken to stand trial at Pittsburgh under the name Charles G. Hampton. Hovan was jailed from late April to late October awaiting his trial. Johnny Jourdan appeared to testify on Hovan’s behalf, offering an alibi that Hovan had been in New York–but the jury discounted that. Hovan was sentenced to two years and eleven months in Western (Pa.) Penitentiary.

      Upon his release in 1876, Hovan partnered with “Big Ed” Rice and Bill “Snatchem” Henderson to rob the Bank of Nova Scotia in Halifax. Cleverly, they took advantage of an existing diversion–a circus parade:

      The three were stopped and detained, but were later released. Chief Byrnes incorrectly dates this robbery to the year 1870 (when Hovan was still in Richmond); many other sources repeated this error. The 1876 crime was the first bank robbery in the history of Halifax.

      Hovan may have spent 1877 at home with his wife–she passed away in April, 1877. His remaining daughter, Cellela, died a year later, in 1878, at age 5. Hovan returned to New York and began relations with a new woman, Charlotte Newman Dougherty. She was the wife of Daniel F. “Big Doc” Dougherty, a bank robber who was sent to prison in 1868 for a fifteen year term.

      Charlotte Dougherty, Hovan, Rufus Minor and George Carson teamed up to steal over $250,000 in bonds from James Young, a Wall Street broker. They fled south, but were caught two months later in Petersburg, Virginia; some bonds in a tin box were found in Rufe Minor’s room. The quartet was brought back to New York, but all were released for lack of evidence.

      Hovan returned south to Charleston, South Carolina, and was apprehended while taking $20,000 from a bank; he feigned illness, was taken to a hospital, and escaped.

      He teamed up again with Minor, Carson, and Johnny Jourdan to steal a tin box containing over $60,000 from a Middletown, Connecticut bank on July 27, 1880. All were arrested by November, but tellers could only identify Jourdan.

      Byrnes summarizes Hovan’s next years succinctly:

      “Arrested again in June, 1881, at Philadelphia, Pa., with Frank Buck, alias Bucky Taylor (27), for the larceny of $10,950 in securities from a broker’s safe in that city. He was convicted of burglary, and sentenced to three years in the Eastern Penitentiary, at Philadelphia, Pa., on July 2, 1881, his time to date back to June 6, 1881. He was pardoned out October 30, 1883, on condition that he would go to Washington, D. C, and testify against some officials who were on trial. He agreed to do so if the Washington authorities would have the case against him in Charleston, S. C, settled, which they did. He then gave his testimony, which was not credited by the jury. He remained in jail in Washington until May 10, 1884, when he was discharged.”

      Regaining his freedom, Hovan returned to New York and formally married Charlotte Newman Dougherty (though her husband Big Doc was still alive). In 1885 he traveled to England with Charlotte and Frank Buck. He was caught stealing bank notes there and was thrown into an English prison for three years. After serving his term, he returned to North America via Canada. He was caught stealing from a bank in Montreal, but was released on bail, and fled to the United States. A month later, in December 1888, he and Walter Sheridan attempted to rob the People’s Savings Bank in Denver, Colorado. They were caught, made bail, and fled.

      Horace returned to Europe with his brother Preston in 1889. He and Preston had very similar looks, so one of their tricks was to have Preston publicly escort Charlotte around in hotels, at the same time that Horace was stealing from banks. Later, Horace could claim that he had been with his wife, a fact verified by many impeccable witnesses. In 1890, Horace and another American thief, Billy Porter, were arrested in Toulouse, France for burglary, but both only served a few months in jail.

      Horace and Charlotte lived quietly in England for the next few years, but in 1895 he was arrested in Frankfort, Germany. Charlotte died in England sometime during this period. From Germany, Hovan’s activities are unknown–it may be he was imprisoned there for several years. He returned to the United States in bad health sometime after 1900. Upon meeting detective Robert Pinkerton, he begged for help in finding an honest job. Pinkerton helped set him up as an elevator operator–a job he held for at least six or seven years. He was exposed by William Pinkerton in a newspaper article, bragging about his brother’s role in Hovan’s reform; this may have brought Hovan unwanted scrutiny.

      In 1913, newspaper reports claimed Hovan and his old partner Big Ed Rice were caught stealing from a bank cashier in Munich, Germany. Horace would have been 63, and Rice was older, 72. However, in 1923 an article appeared saying that Hovan was still in the elevator business, and was now a manager–and had been reformed for twenty years.

      After that 1923 mention, Hovan’s name in public records disappears. He would have been about 70 years old in 1923.

#83 John Jourdan

~ jpkntz

Johnny Jourdan (1850-1893), aka Jonathan Jamison, Henry Osgood, Jonathan E. Brown — Sneak thief

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-six years old in 1886. Born in United States. Married. No trade. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, 150 pounds. Light brown hair, dark eyes, dark complexion, long slim nose, pock-marked. Cross in India ink on left fore-arm; number “6” on back of one arm; wreath, with the word “Love” in it, on left arm.

RECORD Johnny Jourdan is a professional safe-blower and sneak thief, and has worked with the best safemen and sneaks in America, and has quite a reputation for getting out of toils when arrested. He was arrested in Philadelphia, Pa., and sentenced to four years in the Eastern Penitentiary in August, 1874, under the name of Jonathan Jamison. He was again arrested in New York City in November, 1880, and confined in the Tombs prison, charged with robbing the Middletown Bank, of Connecticut, in July, 1880, where the gang, Rufe Minor, George Carson and Horace Hovan, obtained some $48,000 in money and bonds. Jourdan played sick, and was transferred from the prison to Bellevue Hospital, from which place he escaped on Thursday, April 14, 1881.

      In the fall of 1884 Jourdan made up a party consisting of Philly Phearson (5), Johnny Carroll, “The Kid” (192), and Old Bill Vosburg (4). They traveled around the country, and did considerable bank sneaking. They tried to rob a man in a bank at Rochester, N.Y., but failed. They followed him from the bank to a hotel, and while he was in the water-closet they took a pocket-book from him, but not the one with the money in it. Phearson and Carroll escaped. Jourdan and Vosburg were arrested and sentenced to two years and six months for assault in the second degree, by Judge John S. Morgan, on June 15, 1885. Jourdan gave the name of Henry Osgood. He is well known in all the principal cities in America, and is considered one of the cleverest men in America in his line. His picture is a very good one, taken in 1877.

      Although Johnny Jourdan and his sisters Margaret (Maggie) and Josephine were said to have come from a good family, all three were well immersed in the New York City criminal underground. As yet, the parents have not been identified. One sister, Josephine Jourdan, married Francis “Frank” J. Houghtaling, a clerk for the Jefferson Market Police Court (where Johnny once said he worked as a janitor). This was a Tammany Hall patronage position, used to collect bribes. Houghtaling was exposed, and forced out of his position.

      The other sister, “Maggie” Jourdan, became an infamous figure in New York City after aiding in the escape of William J. Sharkey, a burglar, gambler, and minor Tammany Hall politician. Sharkey killed a man over a gambling debt and was held in the Tombs, the city detention center, during his trial. Maggie and another woman sneaked in some women’s clothing to him, which he donned and exited the jail using one of the women’s passes. At the time, it was called the most daring jailbreak in America. Sharkey fled to Cuba where Maggie joined him; but after he mistreated her, she returned to New York.

      Maggie later married a famous Irish-American music hall singer, William J. “Billy” Scanlan. After his death in 1898, she married Scanlan’s agent, the wealthy New York City impresario, Augustus Pitou. Maggie Pitou lived out her life as a member of New York City’s elite, dying in 1938.

      Her brother Johnny, alas, had a much worse and shorter life. As a teen, he was arrested as a New York pickpocket. In 1871, he stole $2000 in stamps from a Bridgeport, Connecticut post office; two years later he was tracked down and arrested for this crime, but escaped conviction. He migrated to Philadelphia and was quickly arrested for burglary, under the alias Jonathan Jamison. For that crime, in 1874 he was sentenced to five years in Eastern State Penitentiary. He was recommended for a pardon in 1876, but it was refused; it was granted a year later, in 1877 (per a note in his 1885 Sing Sing record).

      After his release, in 1880 he teamed up with Rufus Minor, George Carson, and Horace Hovan to rob a bank in Middletown, Connecticut. He was caught and convicted in 1881, but after being transferred from jail to Bellevue Hospital to have malaria treatment, he escaped from the guards and went on the run.

     Jourdan’s whereabouts between his escape in April 1881 and 1884 are unknown. Byrnes states that in 1884 Jourdan joined Bill Vosburgh, Philly Pearson, and Johnny “The Kid” Carroll to roam the eastern states as bank sneak thieves. Jourdan and Vosburgh were caught trying to steal from a man outside a Rochester, New York bank in April 1885. Johnny Jourdan was sent to Auburn prison and later transferred to Sing Sing to serve a two and a half year sentence.

     Once again, he disappeared after his release from Sing Sing. Writing in his 1895 revised edition, Byrnes says that Jourdan died in England in the fall of 1893, with $10,000-$12,000 on his body. A few years later, a different source said that he had died penniless in a Southhampton, England hotel, year unknown.

     [Note: A complication in researching the career of Johnny Jourdan, criminal, is the prominence of a New York police officer (Captain, later Superintendent) named John Jordan, who died in 1870; and that the spellings Jourdan/Jordan were often used interchangeably.]

#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.

#63 August Palmer / # 189 Herman Palmer

~ jpkntz

August Palmer (1858-19??) and Herman Palmer (1851-19??), burglars and safe-crackers

From Byrnes’s text on August Palmer:

DESCRIPTION. Twenty-nine years old in 1886. Stout build. German, born in United States. Married. Cigar-maker. Height, 5 feet 10 inches. Weight, 180 pounds. Light hair, gray eyes, round full face, fair complexion.

RECORD. August Palmer is a brother of Herman Palmer (189), both desperate New York burglars. They, in connection with Robert Clifford, Peter Wilson (deceased), and John Anderson, alias Little Andy, all expert burglars, succeeded in doing considerable work in and around New York before their capture. The Palmer brothers are expert safe burglars. August Palmer and Peter Wilson (who was shot and killed at Chester, Pa., while committing a burglary on May 2, 1884) were arrested in New York City on June 8, 1880, for an attempt to rob the safe at the pawnbroker establishment of Patrick Ganley, in Division Street, in which there was at the time $15,000 worth of jewelry, etc. Wilson was bailed out, and escaped conviction for lack of evidence. Palmer, at the time of his arrest, lived with his wife, Mary Steele, in Seventy-sixth Street, near Third Avenue, New York. The detectives searched his rooms, and concealed behind a mirror they found three pawn-tickets, which represented an amethyst ring, a gold watch and chain, and a pair of opera glasses, which, when redeemed, were at once identified as part of the property stolen from Meyer’s pawn-shop, No. 528 Second Avenue, which was burglarized on the night of April 30, 1880. The safe was torn open, and its contents of jewelry, etc., valued at $6,000, carried away by August Palmer and associates. August was tried in the Court of General Sessions for the Meyer burglary, convicted, and sentenced to five years in State prison on June 28, 1880.

      At the time that August’s home was searched and the pawn-tickets found, there was also found two pieces of silk dress goods, that were stolen from Mannassa L. Goldman’s dry-goods store on Canal Street, New York. The store was entered by burglars on Christmas-day, 1879. August’s wife claimed the silk, and she was sent to the penitentiary for having stolen goods In her possession. Palmer was arrested again in New York City for assaulting a party who gave evidence against his brother Herman, and sentenced to three years for assault In the second degree, on September 19, 1884. His sentence will expire, if well behaved, on January 14, 1887. Palmer’s picture is a good one, taken in 1880.

From Byrnes’s text on Herman Palmer:

DESCRIPTION. Twenty-nine years old in 1886. German, born in New York. Single. Shoemaker and carpenter. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, 167 pounds. Light hair, small gray eyes, light complexion, thick lips. German appearance. Hair inclined to be curly. A good, stout lump of a man. Has plenty of nerve.

RECORD. Herman Palmer is a brother of August Palmer (63), both of whom are well known in all the Eastern cities, especially in Philadelphia and New York, where they made a specialty of blowing open pawnbrokers’ safes. They are both expert safe burglars, and have a quick and noiseless method of opening a safe in a very short time. Herman has served terms previously in Sing Sing prison and on Blackwell’s Island, N.Y. He was arrested in New York City on February 17, 1881, charged with robbing a safe in Meyer’s pawnshop, at No. 528 Second Avenue, on the night of April 30, 1880, of $6,000 worth of watches and jewelry. His brother August was arrested in this case, tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years in State prison at Sing Sing, N.Y., on June 28, 1880. Herman was discharged in this case, as there was no evidence against him. He was arrested again in New York City on July 19, 1884, charged with burglarizing a hardware store at No. l011 Third Avenue, on July 17, where he obtained $800 worth of silverware. For this he was convicted of receiving stolen goods, and was. sentenced to four years in Sing Sing prison on August 12, 1884. Ferdinand H. Hoefner, who had bought $200 worth of the stolen property from Herman, and who was used as a witness against him on the trial, was assaulted and terribly beaten by August Palmer, Herman’s brother. For this August was sentenced to three years in State prison, for assault in the third degree, on September 19, 1884, Herman’s sentence will expire on August 12, 1887. His picture is an excellent one, taken in February, 1881.

      Chief Thomas Byrnes created separate entries for the Palmer brothers, but their activities were often related, and both were dedicated burglars who spent most of their adult years in prison. When Byrnes wrote of them in 1886, they were barely a third into their criminal careers–but afterwards, they changed little in their methods and the inevitable arrests that came with those techniques.

      Little is known of their origins. Byrnes said both were born in the United States, of German heritage. However, they appear in no census ledgers; only in Sing Sing admission records. Their mother’s name was noted as Josephine Palmer, but the father is unknown.

      August, seven years the junior of Herman, was the first to be attract police attention, in 1876 at age 22. Perhaps the best way to show the full sequence of events might be a timeline with these points:

  • 1876 March — August arrested while stealing from a silk merchant. Sent to Sing Sing for eighteen months.
  • 1878 July — Less than a year after his release, August is sent back to Sing Sing (under the alias William Johnson) for two years and six months.
  • 1879 December-1880 June — Released early, August Palmer burgles a silk merchant in December, a pawnshop in April, and in June is caught trying to rob the safe of another pawnbroker. His residence is searched, and pawn tickets are found linking him to the earlier crimes. He is sent to Sing sing for five years.
  • 1881 February — Herman is arrested for suspicion that he had a role in the April 1880 pawnshop robbery, but is released for lack of evidence.
  • 1884 July — Herman is arrested and convicted for stealing $800 of silverware. A man to whom he sold some of the goods, named Hoefner, testifies against Herman. Herman is sent to Sing Sing for four years.
  • 1884 August — Released a year early from his five year stretch, August Palmer tracks down Hoefner and beats him to a pulp. He is sent to Sing sing for three years for assault.
  • 1887 August — Herman is released one year early after serving three years.
  • 1887 October — August Palmer, recently release after serving his sentence for assault, is caught during a burglary and sentence to Sing Sing for five years.
  • 1888 and 1889 — Herman Palmer arrested and released; then arrested, tried and acquitted of a string of burglaries.
  • 1891 May — August Palmer released a year early.
  • 1892 March — Herman Palmer alias George Smith; and August Palmer, alias Charles Smith, arrested trying to open the safebox at a butcher shop. Both are sentenced to ten years in Sing Sing.
  • 1898 September — Herman Palmer released from prison, with 3 years 6 months taken off his term.
  • 1901 October — August Palmer arrested in Ottawa, Ontario and sent to prison for seven years
  • 1902 February — Herman Palmer arrested on suspicion of robbery of a restaurant safe.
  • 1909 December — August Palmer and an accomplice arrested in Springfield, Massachusetts for burglary. In January, 1910 he is sentence to an 8 year term in the Massachusetts State Prison. Herman is mentioned as currently serving a five-year term in Sing Sing.

      Mercifully, that is where the record of the Palmer Brothers ends. If they emerged from prison alive, they chose not to conduct business under their given names; and likely were no longer recognizable to any active police detectives.

      Theirs was a sad history, made interesting only by their kinship. Whatever forces shaped them had the same effect on both.

#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.

#2 David Bliss

~ jpkntz

Thomas W. Lendrum (1847-1904), aka Dr. David C.  “Doc” Bliss — Thief

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-nine years old in 1886. Born in United States. Married. Doctor. Slim build. Height, 5 feet 8 1/2 inches. Weight, 135 pounds. Light colored hair, turning gray. Gray eyes, long face, light complexion. Has a hole on the right side of his forehead.

RECORD. The “Doctor” has a fine education, and is a graduate of a Cincinnati Medical College. He is a southerner by birth, and at one time held a prominent government position. He was caught stealing, however, and was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. Through the influence of his friends he was pardoned, but again drifted back to evil ways. He is pretty well known in most of the eastern cities, and is considered a very clever sneak thief.

      He was arrested in New York City on the arrival of the steamer Providence, of the Fall River Line, from Boston, on December 21, 1880, in company of one Matthew Lane, another thief. They had in their possession a trunk containing $2,500 worth of silverware, etc., the proceeds of several house burglaries in Boston, Mass. They were both taken to Boston by requisition on December 31, 1880, and sentenced to two years each in the House of Correction there.

       Bliss was arrested again in New York City on April 7, 1883, for the larceny of a package containing $35,000 in bonds and stocks from a safe in an office at No. 757 Broadway, New York City. After securing the package of bonds he started down stairs, and on his way dropped into another office, the door of which was standing open, and helped himself to $100 in money that was lying on one of the desks. All of the bonds and stocks were recovered, after which the “Doctor” pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to two years in Sing Sing prison on April 12, 1883. His time expired on January 11, 1885. Bliss’s picture is an excellent one.

   Thomas W.  Lendrum, Doc Bliss, by David Birkey. http://cargocollective.com/dbillustration

      Chief Thomas Byrnes did not devote more than four paragraphs to petty thief Doctor Bliss, but still managed to give Bliss more credit than he deserved for his fabricated background. Bliss may have attended a medical college, but there’s no evidence that he ever practiced medicine, as Byrnes claimed. Byrnes also states that Bliss “at one time held a prominent government position.” Byrnes also may not have been aware that “Bliss” was just an alias.

      According to Allan Pinkerton II, Bliss’s real name was Thomas W. Landrum (with an “a”), though Pinkerton also repeated the stories that Bliss had graduated Cincinnati’s College of Medicine, served in the Confederate army, and came from a prominent Southern family.

      In truth, Bliss’s real name was Thomas Warren Lendrum of Covington, Kentucky, son of John Buckner Lendrum. J. B. Lendrum held the office of city clerk of Covington for many years, and in 1869 pulled some strings to get his son Thomas a job as a night clerk in the Louisville post office. This was the “prominent government position” and the “prominent Southern family.”

      Thomas W. Lendrum never practiced medicine outside prison walls; it would be generous to concede that he may have attended medical school in Cincinnati, but no evidence of that has yet surfaced.

      His criminal career almost never happened. In 1868, at age 21, he was ice skating on the Licking River and fell through, nearly drowning. He sank several times before being pulled to safety by other skaters.

      His position as post office night clerk allowed him the opportunity to purloin letters and keep whatever he found inside the envelopes. It did not take long for authorities in the post office system to notice a problem in Louisville. Lendrum was watched, and was arrested in 1871 with eleven letters in his coat; he also had $1,100 in the bank; several gold watches; and a reported mistress. This was accomplished on an annual salary of $900. He was convicted for this larceny, but was pardoned early.

      Lendrum had adopted the name “David C. Bliss” by 1880. [It is interesting to note this date, because a year later, in 1881, everyone in the country knew of a “Dr. Bliss”–Dr. Willard Bliss, the Army doctor who kept President Garfield alive for three months following his assassination shooting. So Lendrum, to his credit, can not be accused of capitalizing on that unfortunate fame.]

      In 1880, Lendrum and an accomplice, Matthew Lane, were caught returning to New York from Boston with a satchel of stolen silverware. That earned him a two year prison sentence.

      Most of Lendrum’s crimes were too small to merit notice in newspapers, but in 1883, he went into a New York publisher’s office and extracted $35,000 in securities from a safe. Once again, he was sent to Sing Sing for two years. By one account, his medical school experience earned him the job of prison medical orderly.

      In late 1892, Lendrum was arrested with 16 others in a New York “fence” establishment, where thieves brought stolen goods to dispose of. While stuck in the city detention center, the Tombs, for the month of December, Lendrum magnanimously sent a letter and a donation to the New York World’s Christmas Tree fund for hungry poor children.

      Arrested with Lendrum, on that occasion, were two women, Sarah Elsie Byrne and Lillian Stevens. It was reported that Bliss (Lendrum) had been living with Byrne for some time. A year later, Lendrum and Lillian Stevens were arrested for shoplifting a sable fur from a store in Boston; and months later, for stealing hair tresses from a wig-maker in New York.

      In 1900, Lendrum was picked up in St. Louis for shoplifting an overcoat. He was found to be wearing a coat with many secret pockets, and a vest with reversible sides that could change color with a simple re-buttoning. A few months later, he was arrested again in Chicago.

      By 1903, Bliss was 57 years old. He was arrested in Baltimore for stealing a satchel belong to a messenger for a Baltimore Bank. Six months later, he passed away while in the Baltimore City jail. Just before his death, he made an offer the leave his meager fortune to the Volunteers of America, a charitable group. However, the will stating that wish was not witnessed properly, so Lendrum’s last attempt at goodness fell short. They did not want his money anyway.

#4 William Vosburg

~ jpkntz

William H. Vosburgh (1827-1904) alias “Foxy” “Old Bill” — Bank thief, burglar, confidence man

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Fifty-seven years old in 1886. Born in United States. Can read and write. Married. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 10 inches. Weight, 170 pounds. Hair, dark, mixed with gray. Gray eyes. Light complexion. Generally has a smooth-shaven face.

RECORD. Vosburg is one of the oldest and most expert bank sneaks and “stalls” in America, and has spent the best portion of his life in State prisons. He was formerly one of Dan Noble’s gang, and was concerned with him in the Lord bond robbery in March, 1886, and the larceny of a tin box containing a large amount of bonds from the office of the Royal Insurance Company in Wall Street, New York, several years ago.

      Vosburg was arrested in New York City on April 2, 1877, for the Gracie King robbery, at the corner of William and Pine streets. He had just returned from serving five years in Sing Sing prison. In this case he was discharged. On April 20, 1877, he was again arrested in New York City, and sent to Boston, Mass., for the larceny of $8,000 in bonds from a man in that city. He obtained a writ in New York, but was finally sent to Boston, where they failed to convict him.

      On June 10, 1878, he was arrested in New York City, charged with grand larceny. On this complaint he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to fifteen months in the penitentiary, by Recorder Hackett, on December 28, 1878. He did not serve his full time, for on May 3, 1879, he was again arrested in New York City, with one John O’Brien, alias Dempsey, for an attempt at burglary at 406 Sixth Avenue. In this case he was admitted to bail in $1,000 by the District Attorney, on May 17, 1879. The case never was tried, for on September 23, 1879, he was again arrested, with Jimmy Brown, at Brewster’s Station, New York, on the Harlem Railroad, for burglary of the post-office and bank. For this he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to four years in State prison at Sing Sing, on February 19, 1880, under the name of William Pond, by Judge Wright, at Carmel, New York. Brown never was tried.

      After his release he claimed to be playing cards for a living, when in fact he was running around the country “stalling” for thieves. He was arrested in Washington, D.C, on March 4, 1885, at President Cleveland’s inauguration, for picking pockets. Through the influence of some friends this case never went to trial. He then started through the country with Johnny Jourdan (83), Philly Phearson (5), and Johnny Carroll, alias The Kid (192). On April 1, 1885, the party tried to rob a man in a bank at Rochester, N.Y., but failed. They followed him to a hotel, and while he was in the water-closet handled him roughly and took a pocket-book from him, but not the book with the money in it. Phearson and Carroll escaped, and Vosburg and Jourdan were arrested, and sentenced to two years and six months each for assault in the second degree, by Judge John S. Morgan, on June 15, 1885, at Rochester, N.Y. Vosburg’s picture is a good one, taken in March, 1885.

      No less an authority than the New York Times labeled Bill Vosburgh (often spelled Vosburg, as Byrnes did) “the Father of Modern Criminals.” Typically, Byrnes’s recitation of Vosburgh’s career begins in 1877, but he was active close to thirty years earlier. He was a bank sneak, but also a pickpocket, burglar, and con-artist.

      Byrnes did not reveal any of Vosburgh’s fascinating family connections. Vosburgh was born in Albany New York to a prominent family; it was said his grandfather fought in the Revolution; his father in the War of 1812, and that his uncle was Albany’s Postmaster. These figures were never named, but an educated guess is that his uncle was Isaac W. Vosburgh, son of William Vosburgh and Mary McDonald.

      More interesting are Old Bill’s in-laws. He married Mary Ann Sturge, the daughter of an old English pickpocket and thief, Bill Sturge. Mary Ann had a sister, Rebecca “Becky” Sturge, who married twice. Her first marriage was to Daniel “Dad” Cunningham, a small, short-tempered fighter and gambler. A year after Cunningham died, Becky remarried to Langdon W. Moore, aka Charley Adams, one of the most famous bank robbers of the nineteenth century.

      Vosburgh was also mentioned as being a brother-in-law to bank thief Preston Hovan (brother of Horace Hovan). However, it has not yet been discovered how they were related–or whether these sources just confused Preston Hovan with Langdon Moore due to an alias they both used, Charles Adams.

      One of Bill Vosburgh’s daughters (Emma or Rebecca) married sneak thief Harry Russell, who ran in the same gang of 1890s post office thieves with George Carson and Joe Killoran.

      In the late 1890s, Vosburgh enjoyed regaling reporters with the exploits of his criminal career, noting the crimes that were now too old to prosecute; ones for which he had been acquitted; and ones that sent him to prison–but avoiding mention of the successful crimes that might still incriminate him, such as his tutelage of pickpocket George Appo (subject of Timothy Gilfoyle’s book, A Pickpocket’s Tale )

      He told a story of becoming a criminal after taking a packet of money he was entrusted to deliver and losing it at an Albany gambling resort; in desperation he sought help from a known thief, Flemming, who used Vosburgh to help rob a grocery store owner. They then partnered to rob “every grocery store in Albany.”

      However, Vosburgh never told reporters about his more infamous adventures with Flemming–robbing the family vault of the Van Rensselaer family for silver buried with the corpses.

      See Paula Lemire’s account, “The Night In Question Was Dark and Slightly Stormy.“

      Vosburgh then went with his new pals to New Orleans, and once there began to specialize in robbing the staterooms of Mississippi riverboats [there was good reason why Herman Melville set his novel The Confidence Man on a riverboat–they were magnets for thieves.]

      By 1857, Vosburgh’s name appeared in the National Police Gazette as a known criminal. In the early 1860s he was said to be a member of Dan Noble’s gang of bank sneak thieves. He was implicated in 1866’s infamous Rufus Lord bond robbery (in Byrnes’s book, the year of this is incorrectly given as 1886), but never arrested; the same year he was also implicated in the robbery of the Royal Insurance Company on Wall Street; both of these heists were said to be directed by Dan Noble.

      In 1873, Vosburgh was caught trying to rob a diamond broker of Springfield, Massachusetts. He was convicted and sent to prison, then released in early 1877. In April of that year he was arrested for stealing bonds from Gracie King, but was discharged for lack of evidence. A few days later he was arrested in Boston for stealing $8000 in bonds, but was tried and acquitted.

      He was again arrested in New York for Grand Larceny in June, 1878; and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. Vosburgh spent the years 1880-1884 in Sing Sing under the name William Pond for the robbery of the post office and bank at Brewster’s Station, New York.

      A few months after his release, he was caught as a pickpocket in the crowd during Grover Cleveland’s inauguration in March, 1885. He was released, but was discovered the next month in Rochester, New York, attempting to rob a man leaving a bank. At that time he was touring with Johnny Jourdan, Philly Pearson, and Johnny “The Kid” Carroll. Vosburgh was convicted and served a term in Rochester until 1888.

      From 1888-1895, Vosburgh tutored pickpockets and acted as a “steerer” for con-artists running the “green goods” scam, in which yokels visiting the city were convinced to buy a large stack of counterfeit bills, thinking they could multiply their investment ten-fold.

      In November, 1895, Bill was picked up for fleecing a Nebraska farming visiting New York out of $500 in a “green goods” scam. However, he made a deal with the city District Attorney Goff to testify in a case against the New York City Sheriff, Tamsen, alleging that Tamsen mismanaged his jail. Vosburgh took the stand and told several amusing stories about visiting his son-in-law, Harry Russell, in Tamsen’s jail and bringing him 3 revolvers and a bottle of whiskey. Russell and two of his post-office robbery gang accomplices escaped from the jail. Many newspapers criticized Goff for accepting Vosburgh’s questionable testimony.

      Vosburgh died in April, 1904. Some accounts said he was buried in Bronx’s Greenwood cemetery; others in Brooklyn’s Woodlawn; neither cemetery has him listed in their online burials database.