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#195 Joseph Rickerman

~ jpkntz

Joseph Baker (Abt. 1847-19??), aka Nigger Baker, Joe Baker, George Baker, Thomas Baker, Lannon, Graham, Bartholomew Hayes, George R. Tate, George Lehman, George T. Bradford, etc.–Pickpocket, Green Goods Operator

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-nine years old in 1886. Born in New York. Single. No trade. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 6 1/2 inches. Weight, 145 pounds. Black hair, hazel eyes, dark complexion. Generally wears a black mustache. Two vaccination marks on right arm.

RECORD. Joe Rickerman, alias “Nigger” Baker, so called on account of his very dark complexion, is a well known New York burglar and pickpocket. He is an associate of Will Kennedy, Joe Gorman (146), Big Jim Casey (91), “Poodle” Murphy (134), “Pretty” Jimmie (143), Jimmy Scraggins, and other well known New York thieves and pickpockets. He is pretty well known in all the Eastern cities, especially in Philadelphia and New York, where his picture is in the Rogues’ Gallery. He has served terms in prison in Philadelphia (Pa.), Sing Sing (N. Y.), and in the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island, and is considered a very handy man with a set of tools.

Of late years Joe has been traveling through the country, “stalling” for a gang of pickpockets. He was arrested in New York City and sentenced to three years and six months in Sing Sing prison for burglary, on September 15, 1881. His sentence expired on July 15, 1884. Rickerman’s picture is a good one, taken in November, 1878.

      Chief Inspector Byrnes made a misleading error in his entry on Joseph Rickerman/Baker: the man arrested and sent to Sing Sing on September 15, 1881, was not Rickerman/Baker, but a much younger man named Henry Baker, who was arrested in this instance under the name James Johnson. Henry Baker was born about 1862, making him fifteen years younger than Rickerson/Baker. This same Henry Baker was sent to Sing Sing in 1879, at age 17, under the name James Flynn.

      The man that Byrnes was talking about and depicts in a photo was obviously older; but also even more difficult to trace than Henry Baker. “Rickerman” appears to have been a one-off alias, given at just one of his arrests. The press usually referred to him by his underworld nickname, Nigger Baker–a label meant to mock his dark complexion.

      Without that one arrest date as a clue, there is little to go on to trace this man other than his nickname and the name Rickerman. A 1902 article on Baker claims that he was jailed in July 1868 under the name Richmond; and imprisoned again in 1874 and 1881; but none of these can be verified. The first documented presence of Baker can only be found in a round-up of 18 pickpockets working the New York City crowd during President Grant’s funeral in August 1885; among them was “George” alias “Nigger” Baker. Several additional arrests of Baker under that nickname for picking pockets occurred between 1885 and 1888.

      In the 1890s, like several of the Bowery gang of pickpockets, Baker moved in to “green goods” operations, in which gullible “come-ons” were lured to trade their good money for loads of supposed high-quality counterfeit notes, which through sleight-of-hand turned out to be nothing more than satchels full of sawdust or plain paper.

      Although law enforcement was often stymied in figuring out how to crack down on this devious confidence game, one man took it upon himself to lead the fight: Anthony Comstock. A Civil War Union army veteran with a strict puritan background, Comstock came to New York City in the early 1870s to work for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). Seeing firsthand the many immoral and corrupt influences that led young men astray, Comstock founded a reform organization called the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice.

      Comstrock’s primary target was obscene printed materials. Though a prude, Comstock was a profoundly influential and effective campaigner. Just a year after arriving in New York, Comstock lent his name to a federal law, the Comstock Act of 1873, that made illegal the use of the U. S. Mail to deliver “obscene, lewd, or  lascivious” material. Comstock was quick to broaden his definition of these terms to anything pertaining to sex, including any mentions of abortion, birth control, or venereal disease. Anecdotes suggest the law was even applied to medical text books. Wielding popular support, Comstock was hired as a special investigator for the United States Postal Service.

      Comstock took his role seriously, and cracked down on distributors of material he deemed unfit. In a narrow sense, his efforts yielded some good: he prosecuted medical quacks who preyed upon young, desperate women with worthless or dangerous solutions to their health issues. However, Comstock was anything but contained; he broadened his misuse of the mail to include gambling efforts–in the form of lottery tickets sold through the mail; and, eventually, to the circulars distributed by green goods operators.

      By working closely with local law authorities, Comstock used the federal mail fraud act to attack green goods operators on two fronts, by cracking down both on the “writers” who sent out mass-mailed circulars; and on the backers and turners who actually executed the swindle of the victim. Through the 1880s and 1890s, Comstock’s efforts winnowed the ranks of New York’s green goods operators. One of the last, strongest operations were those of backer Mike Ryan, who, prior to 1894, counted on protection offered by his political and police associates. Ryan was finally jailed in 1896, having been brought before the reforming Lexow Committee a little while earlier, thanks to Comstock.

      Comstock then sets his sights on the remaining members of Mike Ryan’s operation. At the head of the new gang was “George Lehman,” otherwise known as Nigger Baker. Baker had shifted the physical meeting place of the swindles to Allentown, Pennsylvania; though he was still headquartered in New York. Comstock’s indefatigable determination finally trapped Baker:

      As mentioned in the above article, Comstock personally sat in on Baker’s trial, both as a witness and audience to the proceedings. True crime author Jay Robert Nash related a story of that scene that serves as a epitaph for Baker, alias George Lehman:

      “Comstock delightedly sat day after day in court, reveling in his victory, until the con man was convicted for green goods swindles for the sixth time since 1896.

      “’Why don’t you go straight when you get out, George?’ Comstock asked the prisoner before he was led away.

      “’Don’t be silly,’ Lehman replied. ‘When you got a profession, you stick to it. It’s the only way to get ahead.’”

#157 William Peck

~ jpkntz

William Peck (Abt. 1860-1888), aka William Parker, John Bishop — Pickpocket

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Twenty-six years old in 1886. Born in New York. Single. No trade. Slim build. Height, 5 feet 9 inches. Weight, 140 pounds. Dark brown hair, hazel eyes, light complexion. Has two moles, and two scars from burns, on his right arm. Generally wears a small brown mustache and side-whiskers.

RECORD. Billy Peck is one of a new gang of pickpockets which are continually springing up in New York City. He is an associate of all the Bowery (New York) “mob” of pickpockets, and is considered a promising youth. He is known in Philadelphia, New York, Albany, Boston, and several other Eastern cities. With the exception of a short term in the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island, nothing is known about him, except that he is a professional thief.

He was arrested in New York City on January 3, 1885, in company of another pickpocket, named William Davis, for attempting to pick pockets on one of the horse-cars. No complaint was obtained against him, and he was discharged, after his picture was taken for the Rogues’ Gallery.

He was arrested again in Albany, N. Y., in August, 1885, during Grant’s obsequies, in company of a gang of New York pickpockets, locked up until after the funeral, and then discharged. He was arrested again in Boston, Mass., on December 21, 1885, in company of James Wells, alias Funeral Wells (150), and Jimmie Murphy, two other New York pickpockets, attempting to ply their vocation in Mechanics’ Hall, during one of Dr. W. W. Downs’s sensational lectures. He was in luck again, for, after having their pictures taken, they were escorted to the train and ordered to leave town.

This is a very clever thief, and may be looked for at any moment in any part of the country. He was arrested again in Hoboken, N.J., under the name of William Parker, on February 16, 1886, charged with attempting to pick a lady’s hand-satchel, and sentenced to three months in jail there. His picture is an excellent one, taken in December, 1885.

      Little more is known about William Peck than is listed in Byrnes’s entry. A man identified as Peck was captured in Bennington, Vermont in September, 1887, and jailed for picking pockets. This man, and two other prisoners (pickpocket William Perry and a local man–a rapist) confined in the city jail sawed off their cell door and dug a hole through a brick wall. That was the last heard of Peck, until Byrnes noted in his 1895 edition that there was a report that Peck had died in September, 1888–a year after his alleged escape. But in the Fall of 1887, a different criminal, Michael Hurley, was identified as the escaped pickpocket, not Peck.

      Peck’s nickname–“Peck’s Bad Boy” was taken from the humorous novels of George Wilbur Peck, starting with Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa in 1883. The stories centered around the pranks played by Hennery Peck on his father and others. Many of the episodes were more mean-spirited than harmless, and made references that were racially or ethnically biased. They were adapted as stage plays that were running continuously around the country throughout William Peck’s brief career.

      However, within the criminal underworld, William Peck had another nickname: “Earsey.” A look at his Rogues’ Gallery photograph will explain why (note the shape of his hat brim):

      Peck’s two nicknames are both interesting. Many people who pick up Chief Byrnes’s Professional Criminals of America find the criminal nicknames to be one of the most memorable things about the book. There is a reason why Byrnes recorded many of the nicknames–they were used within the underworld to identify fellow criminals, when real names often were never known, and aliases changed at will. To get information from informants and witnesses, the authorities had to know whom these nicknames referred to. New York State finally began collecting criminal nicknames in an index file in the 1890s. By the late 1930s, the FBI had a criminal nickname database said to contain 80,000 names.

      There was a logic to many criminal nicknames, and it was not complicated. Many nicknames focused on a defining physical characteristic, even if it was a physical handicap:

  • Broken-Nose Tully
  • Deafy Price
  • Blink Kelly (one-eye missing)
  • Titters (James Titterington, a stutterer)
  • Brocky George (dirty or pock-marked face)
  • Four-Fingered Jack
  • Black Lena (dark-complexioned)

Or their notable behavior:

  • Roaring Bill (for his laughter)
  • Nibsey (for his self-importance)
  • Mysterious Jimmy (a man of few words)
  • Peppermint Joe (for his fondness of mints)

Or simply by height or girth:

  • Big Bertha
  • Big Tom
  • Little Horace
  • Little Rufe
  • Little Louisa
  • Long Doctor
  • Shang Quinn (or Campbell, or Draper; from Shanghaes, long-legged roosters)
  • Squib Dickson

Others used age to differentiate criminals:

  • Old Ike Vail
  • Young Julius
  • Old Bill Vosburgh
  • Old Man Hope
  • Pop White
  • Kid Affleck
  • Billy the Kid Burke
  • Kid Leary

Some were identified by where they came from or made their home:

  • Jersey Jimmy
  • Cincinnati Red
  • Boston Ned
  • Albany Jim
  • Worcester Sam
  • Dayton Sammy
  • Brummy (someone from Birmingham, England)
  • Cockney Jack

Others were identified by common ethnic slurs, even if misapplied:

  • Sheeny Mike
  • Dago Frank
  • Nigger Baker (not African-American)
  • Chink Mandelbaum (not Chinese)

Or by ethnicity:

  • French Louis Brown
  • French Gus Kindt
  • Dutch Pete
  • Irish Kate

A few were named for folkloric figures:

  • Old Mother Hubbard
  • Jack Sprat
  • Jack Sheppard
  • Peck’s Bad Boy

Some names refer to a certain criminal trait or incident:

  • Sealskin Joe (who was arrested with several furs)
  • The Diamond Swallower
  • Mollie Matches (who imitated a girl matchstick vendor to pick pockets)
  • Kid Glove Rosie (for her favorite shoplifting target)
  • Moccasin John (a house thief who used moccasins)

…or another talent:

  • Piano Charlie
  • Banjo Pete

#143 James Wilson

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James P. Wilson (Abt. 1844-19??), aka Pretty Jimmy, James Watson, James Anderson — Pickpocket, Green Goods operator

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-two years old in 1886. Born in United States, Married. No trade. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 6 inches. Weight, 155 pounds. Brown hair, hazel eyes, florid complexion. Has the following India ink marks on his person: a woman, in short dress, in red and blue ink, with bow and staff in hand, on right arm; another woman, in short dress, holding in her left hand a flag, on which is a skull and crossbones, on left arm; anchor on back of left hand; a shield between thumb and forefinger of left hand.

RECORD. “Pretty Jimmie” is an old New York pickpocket, and partner of Terrence, alias Poodle Murphy (134). He was arrested in Montreal, Canada, during the Marquis of Lome celebration, with a gang of American pickpockets, from whom a box of stolen watches was taken. He was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment there.

He was arrested again in New York City, and pleaded guilty to an attempt at larceny from the person of Stephen B. Brague, and sentenced to one year in State prison, on July 12, 1875, by Judge Sutherland, under the name of James Anderson.

Since 1876 Wilson and Murphy have robbed more people than any other four men in America. He was finally arrested in Philadelphia, Pa., on January 16, 1885, with Poodle Murphy (134), charged with robbing one Shadrach Raleigh, of Delaware, of $526 in money and $3,300 in notes, etc., on a Columbia Avenue horse-car, on December 24, 1884. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to two years and six months in the Eastern Penitentiary, on March 16, 1885. Murphy, his partner, who did the work, was sentenced to three years. There were four other charges against this team, which were not tried. His picture is a good one, taken in January, 1885.

      Few clues exist that point to the origins and final fate of Pretty Jimmy Wilson, but his career centered around the East Side of Manhattan; and later in life, the Stuyvesant Heights section of Brooklyn. Wilson may have once been a handsome boy, but as he aged, his hair thinned and he cultivated an enormous walrus mustache that covered his mouth, so that in adulthood the “Pretty Jimmy” name was a mockery. His tattoos were more elaborate than most criminals’, so he may have been a sailor at one time–or at least a river pirate.

      As Byrnes indicates, he was a senior member of the Bowery pickpocket gang led by Poodle Murphy. Murphy eventually branched out to be a major operator of the “Green Goods” confidence game. Not long afterwards, Pretty Jimmy also shifted his efforts in that direction, though it is not clear whether he was still partnering with Murphy.

      In 1906, when Jimmy was over 60 years old, federal Post Office Inspectors had him arraigned of charges of conspiracy to commit fraud via the mails. Two months later, the Washington Post published a long article (abridged here) mentioning that arrest under the headline “Green Goods Game is Melting Away Into the Misty Distance of the ‘Con Man’s’ Golden Age.” It offered a detailed overview of how that con game had evolved:

      “According to the police and the post-office inspectors, the green goods game is one of the few new things under the sun. It only came into being, they say, around the year 1870.

      “To make the man swindled an intending criminal himself by inducing him to buy supposed counterfeit money to pass on to his neighbors was the essence of the new scheme. And it was not long in developing into one of the most lucrative and persistent swindles ever known.

      “The most striking feature of the business during its early years was the ease with which its victims were swindled. There were no postal regulations then to prevent the operators from using the mails, and it was almost impossible to punish them under State laws. In consequence, the business progressed with an old-fashioned simplicity, grimly amusing to contemplate from a viewpoint twenty-five years distant.

      “The circulars advertising for sale counterfeit money, not to be distinguished from the genuine, were simply dumped into the mails by the hundred. The addresses of the leading lights of hamlets and towns not-too-distant from New York were bought by brokers, who then, as now, did a regular business in procuring them from patent medicine houses and other mail-order concerns.

Collection of Shayne Davidson

      “Then thirty circulars out of a hundred, as against twelve today, elicited replies. To these a second circular was mailed, enclosing a sample of the alleged counterfeit money, invariably a genuine $1 bill, with a recommendation that the customer test it on his friends and make sure that ‘it is as good as the genuine.’ He could buy counterfeit money just as good as that, $3000 worth for $500, $7000 worth for $750, and so on. Then all that remained for the victim was to come to New York and be robbed. [Usually by a sleight-of-hand substitution of a satchel full of real money for an identical satchel full of plain paper or sawdust.]

      “Not only ignorant country bumpkins, but intelligent men in every walk of life bit at the hook of the green goods men…the annual income of ten groups of them, operating from New York in the early 80’s, has been estimated by the police at upwards of $900,000…

      “Then, about 1886, came the passage of the Federal enactment making use of the mails with intent to defraud an offense punishable by eighteen months in jail and $100 fine; likewise, by giving the Postmaster General the power to issue  fraud orders. This was the first real blow, and up to a few years ago the only effective one, that had ever been struck at the game.

      “For a time it made all the operators practically give up business…The real effect of the new Federal law..was merely to invent a more ingenious scheme than ever. The chief new feature of the game was the use of the telegraph. This new feature was simply to arrange that the come-on should send his answers to the swindlers by wire instead of by mail.

      “The other radical improvement over the old scheme provided for a division of labor. Instead of being worked by one man or group of men in the good old fashion, the new scheme fell into the hands of two different parties of operators, quite unconnected, and headed by two men called in the parlance of the underworld the writer and the backer.

      “The writer first got up the circulars and sent them out by the hundred. He kept the venal telegraph operators on his payroll to receive the telegrams from the victims. He arranged with other tools to get these dispatches, with the steerers to meet the victims. With that, his part of the game was finished. The backer now took hold.

      “He was the man who provided the roll of from $2000 to $10,000 in good greenbacks used as a bait. He hired the turner, the man to whom another steerer, also hired by him, brought the victim from the writer’s steerer to be swindled. The backer likewise hired the ringer who affected the rapid substitution of the green paper for the good money, if that was done, in the turning joint. He also engaged the tailers, who kept watch outside the turning joint while the victim was being fleeced, and the one who put him on a through train for home afterward.

      “Say the come-on was robbed of $1000. Half went to the writer, half to the backer. The backer paid a good rent for the turning joint, gave the turner who did the actual swindle a quarter of his pile, and his steerer, tailers, and ringer $5 or $10 each. The writer gave his telegraph operator $25 a month right along, and the steerers, usually broken-down crooks like the turner’s minor assistants, $5 apiece.

      “Thus writers and backers each made from $340 to $375 on the turn without coming anywhere near the reach of the arm of the law themselves. Both kept out of sight at all stages of the swindle”

      The only way that authorities could crack down on the practice was by attacking the practice from two directions. Undercover policemen were used to reply to the circulars and get as far as meeting the turner. They then arrested the turner (and, if lucky, the ringer, tailer, or steerer) and confiscated the roll of genuine money, dealing the backer a blow far greater than the profit he might have received.  To get to the writers, however, authorities had to track down the corrupt telegraph operators. From them, they could identify the address or person to whom the telegrams were delivered–and from that person, identify the writer.

      Pretty Jimmy Wilson was caught three times: in 1903 he was caught as a writer, traced to the address of a saloon where he telegraph messages were dropped. In 1905 he was captured as a turner; and in 1906 he was found with evidence suggesting he was playing both roles, exposing himself to more risk–perhaps more desperate for money. After serving a sentence of two and a half years, he was freed in the fall of 1908. Without an income or savings, Jimmy reverted to picking pockets. He tried his luck on a subway car, but when a victim felt his hand, other passengers leapt in to hold him. Unlike a streetcar where he might jump off, Jimmy had no avenue of escape on the subway–a contrivance that was just four years old. He was sent to the workhouse and was not heard from again.

      Pretty Jimmy had tried to adapt his practices to a changing world, but was a step behind.

#191 Julius Klein

~ jpkntz

Samuel Koller (1862-1926), aka Young Julius, Julius Klein, Sheeny Julius, Samuel Frank, Julius Heyman, Little Sam — Pickpocket, Shoplifter, Fence, Swindler

From Byrnes’s text:
DESCRIPTION. Twenty-four years old in 1886. Born in Germany. Single. Furrier by trade. Slim build. Height, 5 feet 7 1/2 inches. Weight, 122 pounds. Brown hair, hazel eyes, light complexion. Strong bushy hair. Has a mole on his left arm.
RECORD. “Young” Julius is a very smart young sneak thief and shoplifter. He is well known in a number of the Eastern cities, especially in New York and Boston, where he has served terms in State prison. He is a sneak thief well worth knowing.
He was arrested in New York City in June, 1882, for the larceny of a gold watch from a passenger on a Long Branch boat. He obtained $1,000 bail and was released. He was arrested again in New York City in October, 1882, for the larceny of $100 from a lady while she was admiring the bonnets displayed in a Sixth Avenue window. Although morally convinced that Klein was the party who robbed her, the lady refused to make a complaint against him and he was discharged.
He was arrested again in New York City on October 14, 1882, in company of Henry Hoffman (190) and Frank Watson, alias Big Patsey, two other notorious New York sneaks and shoplifters, charged with robbing the store of W.A. Thomas & Co., dealers in tailors’ trimmings, No. 35 Avon Street, Boston, Mass., of property valued at $3,500. All three of them were delivered to the Boston police authorities, taken there, tried and convicted. Hoffman and Watson were sentenced to three years in Concord prison, on November 24, 1882, and Klein to two years in the House of Correction.
Julius was arrested again in New York City on November 27, 1885, in company of Frank Watson, alias Big Patsey, charged with (shoplifting) the larceny of some velvet and braid, valued at $60, from the store of A.C. Cammant, No. 173 William Street. Both pleaded guilty and were sentenced to one year in the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island, New York, on December 17, 1885, in the Court of General Sessions. Klein’s sentence will expire on December 16, 1886. His picture is a good one, taken in April, 1882.

      Chief Inspector Byrnes updated his entry on Julius Klein in 1895 by noting only: “This man has reformed. He is now in business in New York City.” It is difficult to know whether Byrnes was dissembling for reasons known only to him; or whether he was truly misinformed as to Klein’s recent activities; or whether Klein–whose real name was Samuel Koller–convinced Byrnes of his efforts to reform.
      The pickpocket and shoplifter Julius Klein went to Europe with another shoplifter named Ella Roberts, and they were joined there by Mike “The Dude” Moriarty and Frank Lane. Lane, Moriarty, and Klein went to Paris and broke into a jewelry store. Klein and Lane were arrested and jailed.

      Klein was back in the United States by 1894, and from that point lived in New York as furrier under the name Samuel Koller. In July, 1894 he married Sarah Mandelbaum, the daughter of Marm Mandelbaum, who had died in Hamilton, Ontario in February of that year. Sarah had divorced her first husband, Ralph Weill. The whole surviving Mandelbaum clan descended on New York to celebrate her remarriage.
      In 1896, Koller operated a Raines Law hotel in New York City, conducted under a license that allowed him to serve liquor in late hours, as long as he had rooms to let and served food items. Even so, authorities cited him for offering board to sailors–which entangled him in more regulations designed to curb vice. Eventually he was fined in 1902 for running a “disorderly house”, i.e. a brothel.
      Koller then turned to a series of stunningly successful swindling operations, in which he ordered goods on credit, accepted delivery, and sold them to fences. He did this in a variety of ways: in one case (1909) he had an accomplice get a sales position with an reputable company–then fed orders through him, using planted phones and offices to satisfy his employers that the orders were real.
      In 1910, Koller bought a hardware company that was closing, the W. J. Nixon Co., that had few assets, but an excellent credit rating. Koller used that credit to buy goods, sold them at a discount to junk dealers, and appropriated the gains.
      The next year, Koller and another shady partner, Charles A. Seaton, started a company called the Broadway Bargain Company. At the time, there was already a very successful wholesale company called the Broadway Bargain House. Koller and Seaton contacted other companies, asking for samples and making orders of goods on credit, while the sellers all the time believing that they were dealing with the honest traders at the Broadway Bargain House. Their scam took in half a million dollars in goods–none of which was ever paid for. In this case, because the swindlers used the U. S. Mail to conduct their business, they were arrested on Federal charges. Koller plead guilty and received a one year sentence.
      In 1916, Koller tried to replicate the same scam by setting up a concern called the Latin American Trading Company. He induced investors to get the company going, using their good names to purchase good on credit. Post Office inspectors were dispatched to his office, but he fled down the building’s fire escape. He later turned himself in.
It seems that with this history, Koller should have been imprisoned for a long time. A witness to a Federal Judiciary committee offered this insight in 1916:
      “If you doubt it is possible to be persecuted, if you still doubt that Influence is a bar to justice, if you doubt that the laws of the Federal courts in this district are elastic and can be made to benefit the few who are on ‘the Inside,’ then read on, read on.
“The press of New York have many times exploited the career of the State and Federal protected criminal, Samuel Koller, a notorious dive keeper, crook, swindler, thief, and ex-convict, whose record of crime Is as long as your arm. Some readers may well remember his mother-in-law, the notorious Fagin and keeper of fences for the crooks of a decade ago, ‘Mother Mandelbaum,’ who was immune from arrest during her spectacular career in this city.
      “That the mantle of ‘Mother Mandelbaum’ has fallen upon Samuel Koller, and that he is enabled to pursue his criminal activities unmolested is no myth. That ‘Mother Mandelbaum’ exacted a promise from the police department of protection for her son-in-law, Samuel Koller, a legacy which, it is alleged, Koller has reaped the benefit at the hands of the United States and New York district attorneys In the past, Is a matter of record on the yellow ticket of the police department of the city of New York, which shows he can be arrested, but not indicted and prosecuted. Why not?
      “He has done time before the mantle of ‘Mother Mandelbaum’ had time to settle officially on his shoulders, but not of late years. Further reasons for Koller’s Immunity from arrest are that until lately mortgages upon his property have been held by a prominent detective and also a former deputy police commissioner of this city, and that a certain United States commissioner stands ready to defend his interests whenever called upon.”
      In his final years, Koller returned to keeping a hotel. He died in 1926.

#73 Frederick P. Grey

~ jpkntz

Frank Sutton (Abt. 1854-????), aka Fred P. Gray, Frank Smith, Big Frank Norton, William Gray, George Perry – Thief

From Byrnes’s 1886 edition:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-two years old in 1886. Born in United States. Medium build. Single. No trade. Height, 5 feet 10 inches. Weight, 165 pounds. Brown hair, blue eyes, light complexion, brown mustache, and a thin growth of brown beard. Large ears.

RECORD. Grey, or Gray, is no doubt a clever burglar, from the fact that he was one of the “Johnny Dobbs” gang, that gave the authorities all over New England so much trouble in 1884. He is from the West, and is not very well known in the Eastern cities.

He was arrested in Lawrence, Mass., on March 3, 1884, in company of Johnny Dobbs (64), Denny Carroll, alias Wm. Thompson, alias ” Big Slim” (147), and Tommy McCarty, alias Day, alias Tommy Moore, alias “Bridgeport Tommy” (87). See record of No. 64 for full particulars. Kerrigan, alias Dobbs, and Carroll pleaded guilty. McCarty and Grey stood trial, were convicted, appealed their case without avail, and were finally sentenced to ten years each in State prison, at Concord, Mass., on February 11, 1885. See record of No. 87. His picture is an excellent one, taken in March, 1884.

From Byrnes’s 1895 edition:

Grey was arrested again in Brooklyn, N.Y., on March 16, 1895, under the name of Frank P. Sutton. He was in company of one Charles Johnson, who is said to have served a term of four years for burglary in California. A number of burglars tools were found in their rooms in Brooklyn. They were wanted for a number of post office robberies throughout the country. His second trial resulted in his acquittal on June 19, 1895. He was then delivered to the authorities of Matteawan, N.Y., who wanted him for an alleged post office robbery in that place. Later on he was admitted to bail.

      Chief Byrnes’s 1895 edition went to press with Frank Sutton’s trial for a post office robbery in Dutchess County, New York, still pending. There is little doubt that Sutton was a professional criminal well-versed in covering his tracks with aliases, tight lips, and good lawyers. His real name and family history are still unknown, as is his fate. However, details of the crime that took place at Matteawan and its subsequent trial shine a bit of light on the character of Frank Sutton (the name he was most often known by).

      On the night of February  5, 1895, three burglars entered the small town of Matteawan, New York and robbed a hardware store, then broke into the post office and blew open the safe there, using so much dynamite that the whole front of the building collapsed into the street.  On their way out of town they knocked down a watchman with a sandbag, then encountered a policeman, Officer Marshall Snyder, who emerged from a doorway two houses down from the post office. A short, thick-set man, supposed by authorities to be a thief named Charles Johnson, spotted the officer, pointed a pistol at him, and told him to get back inside the house. Snyder hesitated, and Johnson fired at him. The bullet went through Snyder’s mouth and into his neck, just missing his spinal column, and Snyder fell onto his back just inside the doorway. He was stunned, but conscious.

      After a few seconds, a taller man leaned over Snyder and struck a match. “Are you much hurt?” the taller man asked with concern. Snyder’s mouth was full of blood, and he could not reply. The stranger lit several more matches, examining Snyder’s wounds. Over the tall man’s shoulder, Snyder saw the short, stocky man who shot him looking on anxiously. The tall man said to his partner, “You had no business to shoot this man. We may get in trouble for this.”

      The shorter man snorted, “There will be trouble enough if you stay here much longer.” The taller man acknowledged that remark, and leaned over to take Snyder’s revolver and handcuffs. “You won’t be needing these tonight.” Then the burglars disappeared.

      Police had no clues to identify to perpetrators, but as arrests were made of burglars in New York City, over the next few weeks, a check was made against the descriptions that Snyder and other residents of Matteawan had offered. In March of 1895, Charles Johnson and Frank Sutton were arrested in Brooklyn for possessing burglar’s tools. There had been a recent string of burglaries in Brooklyn, but the case against Johnson and Sutton there was weak. Officer Snyder, still healing from his gunshot wound,  was brought down to the city and identified Frank Sutton as the taller burglar, the one who was concerned over his injury. Snyder invited other Matteawan residents who had seen the supposed burglars in town just before the robbery to take a look a Sutton, and they agreed he was one of the culprits.

      Frank Sutton was transferred to the Dutchess County jail in Poughkeepsie to stand trial for the Matteawan robbery. Following him from Brooklyn to Poughkeepsie was a “handsome, well-dressed” woman who claimed to be Sutton’s wife. One newspaper reported that she had been the wife of a Cleveland lumber dealer who decided to leave her husband and accompany Frank Sutton on his adventures.

      Sutton was tried in June, 1895. He entered court finely dressed, wearing jewelry, and well-groomed. Officer Snyder was placed on the stand to testify, and under cross-examination began to waiver in his certainty that Sutton had been the tall man. Snyder’s doubt was enough to discharge Sutton. As the courtroom cleared, Sutton’s companion rushed over to Snyder and thanked him profusely.

      Sutton walked out of the Dutchess County jail a free man, vindicated by sworn testimony. Had he been found guilty, he would have returned to his county jail cell to await sentencing before being transferred to a State prison. However, he might have had a backup plan in mind in that event. After Sutton had left town, the sheriffs found in his cell a piece of soap on which he had made impressions of jail warder’s keys; and behind the tin sheeting of the tiles in the prisoner’s wash room, they found: nine saws, two door keys, three handcuff keys, and three files. One of the door keys fit the main cell block door, and another would have opened Sutton’s leg shackles.

#57 Daniel S. Ward

~ jpkntz

Albert C. Ward (1841-1912), aka Daniel S. Ward, Capt. Dan Ward, N. W. Page, A. C. Wood, V. C. Ward, Andrew J. West, Colonel Sellers, William H. Morgan, H. W. Keller, etc. — Swindler, Forger

Link to Byrnes’s entries on #57 Daniel S. Ward

      Chief Byrnes’s entry on Daniel S. Ward wastes no time in making the sensational claim that Ward was a suspected Confederate agent involved in the attempt to burn New York City on Election Day in November, 1864. However, after tracking Ward’s activities during the Civil War and for the forty years following the war, a pattern emerges of a boastful, homeless, friendless alcoholic dedicated to one purpose in life: swindling others. No sane military authority would have trusted Ward in any capacity. At most, Ward might have heard gossip of the incendiary plot, and in turn blabbed about it while in his cups. He was sent to jail at New York’s Fort Lafayette on Election Day, 1864, but was released soon afterward.

      Albert C. Ward was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1841 to David S. Ward and Martha Ann Wood. Martha was the second wife of David S. Ward, and Albert was her first child with Ward (she had also been married earlier). David S. Ward died in 1851 (when Albert was 10); Martha then married for the third time to wealthy carriage-maker Thomas W. Harding in 1858.

      At the onset of the Civil War, Albert C. Ward joined the Indiana Volunteers of the Union forces. In January 1862, while in Washington, D.C., Ward found a like-minded young soldier from a New York regiment to carouse the town with, and they wandered from bar to bar. Finally, when both were drunk, Ward knocked his companion down with a stick, grabbed his pistol, and fired it near the man’s face while he was on the ground. Then he stole $280 the soldier was carrying. Ward was traced to Baltimore and arrested. He was tried and convicted, and sentenced to eight years in prison. However, Albert’s mother and step-father interceded on his behalf, and he was granted a pardon by President Lincoln.

      By the following year, 1863, Albert C. Ward was in Louisville, Kentucky (perhaps with relatives, since his mother was originally from Kentucky). He was arrested in June of that year for “obtaining $10 by false pretenses.” He was detained for trial for four months on $500 bail. Finally, when his case came up in January 1864, it was decided not to prosecute him, and he was discharged.

      Ward later claimed to have been a member of Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan’s raiders, who harassed Union forces along the northern Kentucky border. There is no evidence this was true; or that he was ever a member of any Confederate unit.

      After the effort to start fires at several New York hotels failed in late November, 1864, newspaper reports surfaced that General Dix, the military commander in charge of defending New York, had been warned of such a plot early in November by information from a man named Ward. Ward was briefly detained at Fort Lafayette, and then released. This claim has not been officially documented, so once again it may have been nothing more than an idle boast by Ward.

      On April 5th, 1865, Ward was arrested as a suspicious character in Baltimore. He admitted to being a former rebel soldier, but said he had deserted. In 1866, Ward was found in Bergen County, New Jersey and in New York City, defrauding hotel keepers and soliciting loans that were never repaid. He was still at it in 1871, in a typical Ward adventure:

      Ward was sentenced to 2 and a half years in Sing Sing in 1895. He was jailed again in Indianapolis in 1898 and in 1907 in Chicago. He tried passing forged checks again in Boston in 1908, and was sentenced to another three years. Afterwards, he returned to Indianapolis and died there in 1912, at age 71. To the end, he insisted he had been a member of the “Confederate Army of Manhattan” that had tried to burn down the city in 1864.

#203 Albert Wise

~ jpkntz

Albert Wise (Abt. 1843-19??), aka Jacob Sondheim, Sheeny Al, Jew Al, A. H. Loudon, Al Wilson, Albert Simpson, Charles H. Whittemore, Albert Williams, James T. Watson, Adolph Gephart, Edward Pinter, Arnold Metzany, Emile Hemlin, Otto Henry, etc. — Pickpocket, sneak thief, confidence man

Link to Byrnes’s entry for #203 Albert Wise

      Al Wise is credited with originating an astoundingly lucrative “big con” called by various names, including The Alchemist, The Philosopher’s Stone, and Gold Sweating. While it is likely the game was not created by Wise, he became its most famous and successful practitioner. As the names above implied, Wise played the role of a scientist who had perfected a chemical reaction capable of adding a third or a half to a given weight of gold. His victims supplied him with piles of gold, rumored to be as much as $200,000 at a time.

      Al Wise started as a much humbler crook: a pickpocket and sneak thief, working on teams with others of that ilk, and disposing of some of the loot through the New York fence, Marm Mandelbaum. He was romantically involved with Black Amelia, sister of Black Lena, at some point in the 1860s and 1870s, but by the mid 1880s had fallen out both with her and with (exiled in Ontario) Marm Mandelbaum.

      Byrnes alludes to the reports that Wise’s 1882-1883 arrest and conviction in Buffalo was contentious. In a letter sent to the Pinkerton Agency in 1886, Wise claimed that Mandelbaum, Black Lena and Black Amelia, and New York Detectives had conspired to frame him for the Buffalo check forgeries, fearing that he was about to inform on them. However, at his trial, he had a parade of witnesses claim he was in New York City at the time of the forgeries; but wrote to the Pinkertons saying he had been in St. Catherine’s, Ontario. Wise said the forgeries were done by George Wade Wilkes’ gang. Another rumor–which has the scent of credibility–is that Wise was fingered by a partner in the forging scheme, who was upset that Wise had not given him a fair share. Wise was capable of passing forged papers; he had done so in Boston in 1875.

      Wise was arrested in Boston in 1880 for that 1875 forgery. With him at the time was a con man identified as his brother, but named G. H. Simpson. Simpson was also arrested, but not for forgery–Simpson was nabbed for running the Alchemist con game.

      Wise was in jail for the Buffalo forgeries from 1883 to 1886. During that time, in 1884, the Alchemist con was run (unsuccessfully) by a man named Ettlinger in Cincinnati.

      It was only in the late 1880s that Wise, now free from prison, was identified as the man running the Alchemist con. He did so first in New York City; then in Baltimore, bringing in $100,000. From Baltimore, Wise headed across the Atlantic to Europe, emerging as “Dr. Edward Pinter.” This was when Wise made his most famous sting. He was rumored to have swindled members of the Rothschild family; the Duke of Cambridge; and King George of Greece–but none of these instances are backed up with facts. However, one rumored con appears to be more believable. It was later described by the New York Herald:

      “In July of this year [1891] Edward Streeter, a well-known Bond street jeweler, was summoned to Claridge’s by the Duke of Edinburgh [Prince Alfred, second son of Queen Victoria] to meet Count Kearney and the American Chemist, Dr. Pinter. The Duke told Streeter, in strict confidence, that Dr. Pinter had made one of the most wonderful discoveries of the age, in that he was able by means of a chemical process known only to him to add from one-third to one-half to the weight of gold. Dr. Pinter had performed this feat in the presence of the Count and himself, the Duke said, having on three different occasions melted a sovereign in his crucible, adding a powder to it, and producing a lump of gold that weighed each time one-third more than the original metal, that had been found genuine by competent assayers. [Hint: the mystery powder was gold dust]

      “Further, the Duke informed Streeter, the Count and himself had agreed to hand over £40,000 in gold to Dr. Pinter, which he was to increase in weight, the three to divide the additional value equally, but that the doctor had insisted that he first make another test in the presence of some skilled metallurgist. The Duke had selected Streeter to serve in that capacity.

      “Streeter was a hard-headed person. While he was flattered by the mark of confidence that a member of the royal family had placed in him, he was aware that some mischief was afoot, and, in violation of his oath of secrecy, for which he may be pardoned, he proceeded from Claridge’s hotel direct to Scotland Yard, after making arrangements with the eminent chemist for a test of his discovery the following day. The jeweler told the story of the scheme for the augmentation of the bulk of gold to Inspector Littlechild.

      “”Does this Dr. Pinter wear side whiskers?’ the inspector asked.

      “‘Yes, he does. Why do you ask?'” responded Streeter.

      “”Because I have just received a letter from Detective Golden of the New York police, telling me to be on the lookout for this very man,’ said Littlechild. ‘He has been operating the same game in the United States.’

      “The inspector produced Golden’s letter, which had contained a photograph of Al that was at once identified by the jeweler as the counterfeit presentment of the self-styled Dr. Pinter. It did not take long to plan a trap for the eminent chemist, though neither the Duke nor the Count was let into the secret. The next afternoon, when Dr. Pinter came to make his test in Streeter’s workshop, in the rear of the great establishment in Bond street, two detectives were concealed in the room. The Duke of Edinburgh, as it happened, was detained at home by a rather severe illness, but his friend Count Kearney and the chemist drove up to Streeter’s together in a smart brougham. Dr. Pinter was allowed to put 10 sovereigns into a crucible with his marvelous powder, and then the detectives stepped out from their place of concealment and arrested him.

      “And now Scotland Yard was in a predicament. If Al was brought to trial the name of the Duke of Edinburgh would be involved, and it is no part of English policy to make a member of the royal family a butt for ridicule. Consequently, Sondheim [Al Wise], under the name of Edward Pinter, was allowed to plead guilty to an attempt to swindle Streeter and was given three months’ imprisonment. He laughed when sentence was pronounced. Count Kearney seemed tremendously shocked when he was told of the previous career of his dear friend, and he left England soon after the other’s arrest.

      “To explain the opportune arrival of Golden’s letter it is necessary to go back a year or more in Sondheim’s career. He had been sentenced to five years in Auburn prison in 1883 for swindling the Merchants Bank of Buffalo, and had spent some time in Germany and Austria growing his whiskers, playing many kinds of confidence games, picking pockets and robbing shopkeepers after his release. He returned to New York in the spring of 1890, however, wearing German clothes, a German hat and German shoes, and with a German accent, although he could speak English perfectly. He put up at the Morton House, where he soon became known as Prof. Albert Wise, scientist, late of Heidelberg University.

      “Although a man of learning, the professor was also a convivial person, and he soon became on intimate terms with Messrs. Shook and Collier, who spent much of their time in the Morton House, next door the the Union Square theater. Indeed, the hotel was then under Shook’s management. They found the German professor an entertaining companion and also a profound philosopher, and gradually he let them into the secret of a discovery he had made that would revolutionize the wealth of the world–a chemical process for increasing the bulk of gold! Finally he rented the basement of a house in Great Jones street between Lafayette place and the Bowery and demonstrated to their satisfaction that he could do what he said he could.

      “Anyone who ever knew ‘Shed’ Shook and Jim Collier will admit that they were as shrewd men of the world as New York has ever produced. Nevertheless, they were completely carried away by the promise of enormous wealth that Professor Wise’s discovery offered, and they raised $5000 between them, which they brought in gold to the Great Jones street basement and deposited in the vat of chemicals that the German scientist had installed there. He informed them that it would take two or three weeks for the process of augmentation to be completed, and a padlock was placed upon the door of the basement and the key given to Shook.

      “Shook and Collier hobnobbed daily with Prof. Wise in the Morton House until 24 hours before it had been decided to unlock the basement door and take out and weigh the gold, and then the scientist disappeared from the hotel, leaving his baggage behind him. Hence the two investors unlocked the door in Great Jones street and let the supposed chemicals out of the vat by themselves, only to ascertain that the $5000 in gold had vanished. They found evidence that someone had entered the place by a rear window and knew that it could have been none other than the German professor.”

      In 1903, Al Wise was caught picking pockets in Urbana, Ohio, and was sentenced to five years in prison under the name Otto Henry. While in the State Prison, Wise contributed stories about his adventures to the Ohio Penitentiary News, a prisoner newspaper. Unfortunately, runs of the paper from those years have not survived. About the same time, a Cincinnati newspaper started printing short stories written by “O. Henry,” and some people guessed that Al Wise was the author. [He wasn’t; but another former convict, William Sydney Porter, was].

      Upon his release, Al Wise indicated he had had enough of America, and told people he was going to back to Germany. He was not heard from again.

#98 Franklin J. Moses

~ jpkntz ~ 1 Comment

Franklin Israel (J.) Moses (1838-1906), aka Ex-Gov Moses — Swindler, Politician

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-four years old in 1886. Born in South Carolina. Lawyer. Married. Slim build. Height, 5 feet 8 1/2 inches. Weight, 130 pounds. Dark hair, turning gray; blue eyes, sallow complexion, large Roman nose; generally wears a heavy mustache, quite gray. Dresses fairly. Good talker.

RECORD. Ex-Governor Moses, of South Carolina, graduated from Columbia College, and served as private secretary to the Governor of South Carolina for two years. At the close of the war of the Rebellion he was one of the first of any that were conspicuous in the State to submit to the Reconstruction Act; and he was, after serving as Speaker of the House two years, made Governor, holding that office for two years. His father, an estimable man, was at one time Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Carolina. Shortly after his term of office expired, Moses started in victimizing friend and foe alike. An account of all his swindling transactions would fill many pages. Below will be found a few of his many exploits.

He was first arrested in New York City, and delivered to the South Carolina authorities on September 17, 1878, for making and uttering a forged note in South Carolina for $316. When he arrived there he was placed on parole, and allowed to escape. He was arrested again in New York City on October 3, 1881, for defrauding Major William L. Hall out of $25. For this he was sentenced to six months in the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island. He was arrested again in Chicago, Ill, on July 27, 1884, for false pretenses, but the case was settled up. He was arrested again in Detroit, Mich., on October 12, 1884, for swindling the Rev. Dr. Rexford, under the name of Thomas May, and sent to jail for three months.

He was again arrested in Detroit, upon the expiration of his three months’ sentence, on January 27, 1885, by Boston officers, for swindling Colonel T. W. Higginson, of Cambridge, out of $34, under false pretenses. He was brought to East Cambridge, Mass., and pleaded guilty in the Superior Criminal Court there on February 11, 1885, and was sentenced to six months in the House of Correction. He was brought from the House of Correction on May 29, 1885, on a writ, and arraigned before Judge Aldrich, of the Superior Criminal Court, and committed for trial for swindling, in February, 1884, Mr. Fred. Ames out of $40; ex-Mayor Cobb, $40; Dr. Bowditch, $20; Dr. Henry O. Marcy, $20; and Mr. Williams, a bookseller, $20. Moses pleaded guilty again to these complaints on September 25, 1885. He was finally sentenced to three years in the House of Correction on October i, 1885, by Judge Aldrich. His sentence will expire, allowing him full commutation time, on May 10, 1888.

When the ex-governor was arraigned for sentence in Boston, his counsel, John B. Goodrich, Esq., said that he wished to state to the court the remarkable circumstances of the case, not for the purpose of extenuation, but because of the qualities of the man, and consider if something could not be done to restore him to his former place in the community. Judge Aldrich said: “If I were sitting in another place than upon the bench, I should think, after listening to the remarks of the counsel for the defense, that I was listening to a eulogy of some great and good man.” The judge, continuing, said he would rather see a member of the bar starve before he would commit a State prison offense. He himself would suffer cold all day, sweep the streets, before he would go into a gentleman’s house and commit such offenses as those charged. The defense made for the prisoner the judge characterized as trivial, and said it was time such frauds were stopped. He did not see what good it would do to send him to any of the reformatory institutions. He felt that a severe sentence ought to be imposed upon the prisoner, and therefore sentenced him to be imprisoned in the State prison for three years.

Moses’ picture is an excellent one, taken in March, 1882.

      For a country desperately in need of political leadership, Franklin J. Moses proved himself to be the worst possible man at the worst time in the nation’s history. He was a dashing young Southern aristocrat with absolutely no impulse control, who through luck, charisma, ambition, and pandering quickly ascended to the position of Governor in Reconstruction era South Carolina. That part of his story is well-documented in places like Wikipedia;  an R. H. Woody article from 1933, “FRANKLIN J. MOSES, Jr., SCALAWAG GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1872-74“; and a more sympathetic recent book by Benjamin Ginsberg, Moses of South Carolina.

      Chief Byrnes provided a good summary of the Ex-Gov’s troubles with the law from the time he arrived in New York City until his imprisonment in Massachusetts. However, neither Byrnes nor any contemporary newspapers mentioned his second marriage in 1878 to Emma Rice; and the birth in 1880 of a daughter. However, it appears that the new Mrs. Moses had no patience for her husband’s arrests, and that the marriage dissolved.

      While in the Massachusetts State Prison, Moses was taken to the prison hospital suffering from opium withdrawal. By 1888 he claimed to be free of the drug. After leaving State Prison, Moses moved to Winthrop, Massachusetts, located on a peninsula in Massachusetts Bay near Boston. There he resided in a cottage and for the next ten years lived a relatively quiet life as the owner of the local Winthrop newspaper. However, it was not rewarding, and Moses sold the paper in 1898, leaving debts. He was taken to court over advertising money he took for ads that never ran.

      Once again down on his luck, in January 1902, Moses paid for an overcoat with a bad check; then pawned the overcoat. He gave a long, passionate speech when brought to trial for this offense, once again mentioning his past drug habit. He was sentenced to the detention facility on Deer Island, which was the skip of a stone from Winthrop.

      After regaining his freedom, Moses became associated with Boston publisher/financier Cardenio F. King. King later wrote an account of how a miserable, poorly-clad Moses appeared one day on his doorstep, asking for charity from a fellow southerner. This account appears in King’s 1908 book, The Light of Four Candles, which is a history of King’s feud with Boston financier Thomas W. Lawson.

     Both King and Lawson amassed wealth through dubious means: Lawson by manipulating stocks within a particular market (he was especially successfully with trading copper mine companies); and King by enticing small investors into ventures offering uncertain returns, such as the Crowther-King Oil Corporation. King, as publisher of the financial newspaper, the Boston Daily Tribune, appears to have opened hostilities by advising his readers not to follow Lawson’s example of “frenzied” stock trading. In response, Lawson–who was far wealthier–began a campaign to frighten off King’s small investors. Lawson was a popular figure: an outspoken lover of sports, horses, yachts, and the good life; and a critic of corrupt financial practices. He was a flamboyant figure, much like the business magnate Ted Turner presented himself as seventy-five years later.

      In his last years of life, Franklin J. Moses became a pawn in the battle between King and Lawson. By King’s account, out of pity he gave Moses a clerical job in his office, and said that Moses performed his duties quietly and competently for over a year. In October 1906, Moses told King that his eyesight was failing, and that he could no longer do clerical work. King says that he then assigned Moses to travel and meet with his clients, to give updates to them and present further opportunities for investment.

      While this sounds perfectly innocent, what financial speculation concern would bring into their office a man who had bankrupted an entire state, and who had been jailed half a dozen times for swindling? C. F. King had to have known Moses’ long history.

      Not long after Moses assumed his new responsibilities of meeting with King’s clients, King discovered that many of them were showing up asking for their money back. Upon investigation, King learned that Moses had been advising them that King was on shaky standing, and that they needed to divest from his companies. He also learned that Moses had been observed meeting with King’s arch-enemy, Thomas W. Lawson!

      King had Moses meet him in his office to confront him with his treachery, but in the middle of their meeting King had to step out into another office to greet a visitor, and Moses escaped from the room. King was later told that Moses had been plotting to leave forged papers in King’s office that would criminally implicate King. King also heard that Moses had recently  flashed a roll of seven one-hundred-dollar bills.

      Before King could confront Moses again, word came that Franklin J. Moses had been found dead in his rooms, asphyxiated by an unlit gas lamp.

      Police investigated, and found a sheath of papers in Moses’ room. The District Attorney who examined them later said the papers were not evidence of any crime. Some thought his death was an accident; King and others believed Franklin J. Moses committed suicide, driven by remorse over his recent betrayal of King.

      Thomas W. Lawson suspected that Moses had been murdered:

      The mystery, such as it was, was never solved. [Was there any evidence of renewed opiate use?]

      Moses’ death remains: an accident…a suicide…or a murder. C. F. King later went to jail for swindling his investors, and Thomas W. Lawson later lost his fortune.

#37 Albert Wilson

~ jpkntz

Albert C. Wilson (Abt. 1842-1894), aka Al. Wilson, Edward R. Marshall, W. H. Hall — Counterfeiter, Forger

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-four years old in 1886. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 6 1/2 inches. Weight, 170 pounds. Brown hair, slightly bald on top of head; wears light brown mustache and whiskers, generally cut short. Prominent nose, which is inclined to be hooked. Has a gunshot wound on back of left fore-arm; also a small scar half an inch long on lower lip, which runs down from corner of mouth, left side. Speaks in a calm, easy tone. Born in State of Louisiana.

RECORD. Al. Wilson is well known in many of the Eastern cities as an expert burglar and shoplifter, and has served two terms of imprisonment for the above offenses. He afterwards became an expert negotiator of forged paper of every description, and was known to the authorities of several cities as a member of “Brockway’s Gang of Forgers.” He also was identified with George Wilkes, George Engles (deceased), and Charley Becker, with whom he left for Europe in the spring of 1880, for the purpose of negotiating forged circular notes. This scheme failed, and he returned to America about August 15, 1880.

Wilson was arrested in New York City on October 18, 1880, and delivered to the police authorities of Baltimore, Md., charged, in connection with Henry Cleary, George Bell (193), and Charles O. Brockway (14), with forging and uttering checks amounting to $10,051 on the Merchants’ National Bank and the Third National Bank of Baltimore, Md., on July 16 and 17, 1880. One check for $2,160, another $3,901, and another of $1,300, were drawn to the order of J. Hunter and others, and, with the forged signature of J. H. Fisher, were presented at the Merchants’ National Bank; and a check for $1,394, and another for $1,296, drawn to the order of J. W. Kimball, and bearing the forged signature of Middleton & Co., of Baltimore, were presented at the Third National Bank. All five of these checks were paid on presentation. Wilson pleaded guilty to two cases of forgery, and he was sentenced to two years on each indictment (making four years in all), on November 3, 1880, by Judge Pinkney, at Baltimore, Md.

Shortly after his release from prison in Maryland he was arrested in Milwaukee, Wis. (June 26, 1884), under the name of Edward R. Marshall, charged with attempting to pass forged fifty-pound Bank of England notes. As he had failed to get rid of any of them there, he was delivered over to the Chicago (Ill.) authorities, who wanted him for disposing of some of the same notes. He was taken to Chicago, and escaped from a police station there on July 5, 1884, and went to England, where a gang was organized consisting of George Wilkes, George Engles, Charley Becker, Shell Hamilton, William Bartlett, Edward Burns, Edward Cleary, George Bell, and himself ; and, as above referred to, they entered into a gigantic scheme to flood France, Germany and Italy with forged circular notes, full particulars of which appear in the record of George Wilkes. A reward of one hundred dollars was offered for his arrest by the chief of police.

Al. Wilson, alias W. H. Hall, registered at St. Lawrence Hall in Montreal, Canada, on May 18, 1885, and on May 19 he went to the Bank of British North America and asked the manager of the bank to cash him a letter of credit for fifty pounds on the Union Bank of Scotland. He said that “he had fifteen hundred pounds more which he would like to have cashed in a few days.” The manager became suspicious and detained him, and sent for an officer, who arrested him when leaving the bank. One Robert Fox, a Scotchman, was arrested with him. He is about fifty-five years old. Height, 5 feet 7 1/2 inches. Weight, about 190 pounds. Stout build. Gray hair. Side whiskers and mustache, generally dyed black. Very bald. Sharp features. Round shoulders, and slightly stooped. Fox did not attempt to pass any of the letters of credit, but when arrested a large package of the letters was found on his person. He tried to destroy them, but was prevented by the officers. Wilson claimed that all the letters belonged to him, and that Fox had nothing to do with them. Wilson pleaded guilty on June 6, 1885. Fox was tried and found guilty on June 9, 1885. On June 13, 1885, Wilson was sentenced to twelve years in St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary, and Fox was sentenced to six years. Wilson’s picture is an excellent one, taken in 1880.

      Chief Byrnes was attuned to the fact that there were two men using the name “Al Wilson” active as forgers in the 1880s, and correctly assigns crimes to the older man, born about 1842. In his 1895 edition, Byrnes mentions that this Al Wilson was discharged from the Montreal prison in November, 1893, returned to New York City, and died a short time later.

      This aligns with the death of one Albert C. Wilson, a Civil War veteran, hospitalized at Ward’s Island, and later buried at Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn. This soldier enlisted at Albany in 1861 at age 19. His first term of service was as a private; he ended the war as a Second Lieutenant in command of African-American troops in the 3rd Regiment of the Colored Heavy Artillery.

      While the above is mainly speculation, an earlier reference to Al. Wilson appears to fit the character of man described by Byrnes. In 1871, in the aftermath of an escape by several prisoners, the New York Sun looked into the state of the management of Sing Sing prison:

      “It is well-known here to-day that for nearly the full term of the present agent’s administration, the real governor of the prison has been Casper C. Childs, the chief clerk, who has made a fine fortune out of the pick–I mean perquisites of his office. Agent Russell is looked upon as a nonentity, as far as the management of the prison is concerned, but is thought by most of the good citizens to have been shrewd enough to feather his nest at least as warmly as his subordinate.

      “Another fact equally patent to the people here who have dealings with the prison authorities is that the business of the institution is conducted in a great measure by Al Wilson, a convict who has served five years, and hopes to be released in 1874. This man is a sharp fellow, of good education and excellent address. He was sentenced in 1866 to eight years for counterfeiting.

      “Since his entrance into the prison he has been a pet, and has been subjected to but few of the mortifications and hardships which fall to the general lot. Wilson smokes fine cigars, wears a fine mustache and a head of elegant black curly hair. The cigar, the mustache, and the hirsute adornment are  strictly prohibited by the prison rules, but Mr. Wilson has somehow been enabled to override the rules and indulge his sartorial tastes to their fullest extent–except, let me say, in the matter of trousers. The agent requires him to wear the regulation stripes; and Mr. Wilson, in return for the favors granted him, accepts the trousers as a compromise.

      “He is assistant to the chief clerk, and by means only known to himself, but guessed at by others, since his incarceration, made a larger fortune than he could have possibly secured by his clumsy evidences of want of respect to the legalized currency of the country. He is the happiest man in the prison, except the chaplain and the chaplain’s clerk, of whom more hereafter.

      “A short time ago a citizen of Sing Sing called at the office of the prison to collect a bill due him on account of services rendered or goods furnished. He inquired of the attendant: ‘Where is Agent Russell?’ ‘Gone to New York.’ ‘Where is Tom Croton, the head keeper?’ ‘Gone off.’ ‘Where is Casper Childs, the chief clerk?’ ‘He’s away.’ ‘In heaven’s name, then, who is in charge of the prison?’ ‘Al. Wilson.’

      “And to Mr. Al. Wilson, the convict clerk, the citizen paid his respects and presented his bill. The claim was duly examined, and the citizen received a check for the amount, drawn on the Sing Sing Bank, and signed ‘C. C. Childs, per Al. Wilson.’

      “‘Is this check good?’ said the citizen, glanced at the striped integuments of the clerk. ‘Present it at the bank and see,’ said the convict. “My signature is as good there as anybody’s.’

      “The check was presented and paid.”

      For reasons unknown, Al. Wilson is one of the few criminals profiled by Byrnes that had “wanted” bulletins produced that have survived:

#39 Robert Bowman

~ jpkntz ~ 1 Comment

Robert Gillman Stockton (Abt. 1841-????), aka Robert Bowman, J.C. Hale, J. C. Bowman, George Munroe, J. C. Hogan — Thief, Forger

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-six years old in 1886. Height, 5 feet 9 1/2 inches. Gray eyes, gray whiskers and mustache. Complexion medium. Stooped shoulders. Looks hump-backed. High forehead. Bald on front of head. Scars on bridge of nose, back of neck, and between the shoulder-blades. Born in New York. Weight, 140 pounds.

RECORD. Bowman was an associate of Wm. H. Lyman, a notorious forger, who died in prison in 1883. Both of them were sent to Clinton prison, New York State, for four years and six months in August, 1878, for forgeries committed in Catskill, N.Y. Bowman and Lyman were again arrested at Hudson, N.Y., on September 16, 1881, and taken to Fitchburg, Mass., where they were sentenced to prison for three years for forging drafts on the American Express Company, at that place. They were also charged with raising drafts that were drawn by the National Bank of St. Albans, Vt., on the Park Bank of New York City. Also with forging a draft, on September 5, 1881, on Clipperly, Cole & Haslehurst, Troy bankers. When arrested $1,200 in money was found on them.

Bowman was arrested again in Chicago, Ill., on January 14, 1886. About January 6, 1886, a man giving the name of J. F. Hall, presented to the Floyd County Savings Bank, of Charles City, Iowa, a draft payable to himself, purporting to have been drawn by the First National Bank of Joliet, Ill. Hall also had a letter of introduction from the Joliet bank; the draft was deposited to his credit, and on January 9, 1886, he wrote to the Floyd County Bank from Chicago, enclosing his receipt for the draft, and asking that the money be sent to him by the United States Express. It was sent, and when Hall called for it he was arrested and recognized as Bowman. One of the detectives went to Fort Wayne, Ind., where Hall had lived, and captured the latter’s valise, in which was found a large number of counterfeit checks and certificates. It was estimated that Bowman and his gang had defrauded the banks in the western country out of $50,000.

Bowman’s case in Chicago, Ill., was nolle prosequi, by Judge Rogers, on June 1, 1886, because the State’s attorney was unable to obtain sufficient evidence to convict him of the forgeries committed there. He was discharged, and immediately re-arrested and taken to Vermont, where he was committed for trial, charged with having committed forgeries on the First National Bank of Brandon, Vt., the Vermont National Bank, the Rutland County National Bank, of Rutland, Vt., and the Farmers and Mechanics’ Bank of Burlington, Vt. These forgeries were committed in 1881, by Bowman and Ned Lyman, and amounted in the aggregate to $30,000. Bowman’s picture is a good one, taken in 1886.

      There are many curiosities and inconsistencies in the career of forger Robert Bowman, starting with his real name and origins. So much printed about Bowman was wrong or unsubstantiated, it is difficult to say much about his life prior to 1877, when he was arrested with penman William H. Lyman for forgeries committed in Catskill, New York.

      Bowman shared a background that led to his association with counterfeiter and burglar Gilbert “Gib” Yost. Yost had once been an Erie Canal boatman, as Bowman was said to have been. Yost peddled counterfeit currency at stops along the canal, but soon graduated to burglary work. He rubbed shoulders with the famous New York burglars of the 1870s, in particular Billy Porter and Johnny Irving. [Several articles on Bowman refer to the notorious burglars known to Yost and Bowman were “James Barnes” and “Alexander McGregor,” two names with no other underworld credentials.] When not working with burglars, Yost returned to his home in Fonda, New York.

      Meanwhile, Bowman likely met penman/swindler William H. Lyman in Auburn prison in the late 1860s/early 1870s. Lyman and Bowman, along with another man named John Fraley (or Freeleigh) from Fonda, New York, committed a series of forgeries at Catskill, New York in June, 1877. After they were arrested, it was said that Gib Yost tried to break them out by smuggling tools to Bowman, but that they were discovered under his cell mattress. They were finally tried in August, 1878 and found guilty. Both Lyman and Bowman were sent to Clinton State Prison in Dannemora, New York on sentences of four and a half years each.

      They were released in August, 1881–and then in the space of twenty days committed check forgeries at banks in Troy, New York; Fitchburg, Massachusetts; and several in southern Vermont. They were arrested in Hudson, New York. At first they were taken to Fitchburg to be prosecuted, but it was decided that there was a better case at Troy. In September, 1881 they were convicted and sent back to Clinton State Prison for another four and a half years. William H. Lyman died behind bars in November, 1883. Robert Bowman was discharged on December 3, 1884.

      Between 1884 and early 1886, Bowman was rumored to have accompanied George Wade Wilkes and Frederick “Little Joe” Elliott on a check forging tour of the upper Midwest and Pacific coast. Bowman’s role was to serve as the middleman between the penman and the check passers. Wilkes and Elliott were arrested in March, 1886.

      Robert Bowman was arrested in Chicago in June, 1886 on charges of check forging. However, the evidence against him in this case was weak, and the judge threw out the case. Pinkerton detectives immediately took him into custody and conveyed him to Vermont, to face charges on the forgery cases from 1881. Bowman was convicted on those charges in March 1887 and sentenced to four years in the Vermont State Prison.

      After he got out from Vermont, Bowman joined a check forging team that included Richard “Big Dick” Lennox, Joe English, Charles Becker, Richard Davis, and Daniel Beneycke. To quote from Byrnes’s 1895 edition:

      “They began operations in 1892 at Minneapolis, and worked in Duluth and St. Joseph. They became alarmed and went to Europe, and remained there until the fall of 1893, when they returned and went to Providence, R. I., where they raised two checks of $14 and $18, to $1,400 and $1,800, and passed them on the Industrial Trust Co., and the Merchants’ National Bank. Their custom is to remain in a place just long enough to raise and pass two or three checks, and being successful in Providence, they went to Boston, thence to Buffalo, Cincinnati, New Orleans, back to Philadelphia, and then to Milwaukee, where the police “ got on to their little game,” and drove them out of the town. The swindlers then fled to Albany, N. Y., where Becker and English left Lennox and Beaumann [Bowman] and went toward Boston.”

      Between 1893 and 1896, one by one, members of this gang were captured and jailed. In 1894, reports about Bowman presented a conundrum. In early June, an elderly check forger was arrested in Des Moines, Iowa, and gave the name “James Wilson.” He was tried, found guilty, and sent to prison on a twelve-year sentence. The Illustrated Police News confidently reported that this man was none other than Robert Bowman, but in reality it was Joe English.

      Then, in August 1894, Boston detectives arrested a man who gave his name as “Alfred G. Highton” for presenting forged altered checks. The police authorities, as well as the local Pinkerton representative, positively identified Highton as Robert Bowman. They were later proven wrong: Highton was the man’s name, though he was a notorious confidence man and floater of worthless checks.

      Bowman, it appears, was still raking in money with master forgers Charles Becker and James Cregan–until those two were arrested in the summer of 1896. Bowman, instead of working to gain the freedom of his companions, fled to England with a reported $1,000,000 of the gang’s earnings. For a while, he lived comfortably in the southwest suburbs of London and operated pubs, but lost nearly all his money through mismanagement or bad habits.

      Bowman then started to write letters from England to William and Robert Pinkerton. In the 1880s, he had agreed to be an inside informer for the Pinkertons, but fed them bad information. William and Robert believed that Bowman wrote from England to see if it would be safe for him to return to America, but the Pinkertons held a grudge against him for his treachery, and instead urged British officials to keep a close watch on Bowman.

      Bowman was desperate to get back in the game, and decided to come back to the United States in 1904, when Charles Becker got out of prison in California. William Pinkerton got wind of the return and said, “If there is any way in God’s world to get him in the penitentiary, I would like to do it. I never knew a more contemptible, dirty thief.” Bowman approached Becker once Becker returned to New York, but Becker had no interest in further forgeries. Where Bowman turned after this rejection is unknown.