Swindlers

#108 James Lee

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James Lee [Kohln/Kohlen/Kölhen] (Abt. 1841-1904), aka B. Sharp, August Ortman, C. M. Tingle, Charles H. Ray, Frank Bell, David Cartwright, Morris Fleckenger – Custom House Officer Swindler

From Byrnes’s text:
DESCRIPTION. Forty-five years old in 1886. Born in United States. No trade. Single. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 9 3/4 inches. Weight, 175 pounds. Hair sandy, eyes gray, sandy complexion, reddish-brown mustache. Has a naval coat-of-arms, anchor and eagle, in India ink, on right arm.
RECORD. James Lee was evidently in the government employ, so well is he posted in custom-house matters.
He was arrested in New York City on April 23, 1882, charged by Mrs. C. F. Chillas, of Livingston Place, with defrauding her and thirty others out of $9.98. Lee claimed to be a custom-house collector, and would collect this amount and give the parties an order on the custom-house stores for a package which he claimed was consigned to them from Europe. In this case Lee was sentenced to two years and six months in State prison on May 5, 1882, by Judge Gildersleeve. His sentence expired on May 5, 1884.
He was arrested again in Baltimore, Md., on September 17, 1884, charged with swindling eight persons in that city under similar circumstances. In several instances Lee sat at the piano and played “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” while the ladies left the parlor to procure the money for him. He was again sentenced to three years in State prison on October 15, 1884. His sentence will expire April 14, 1887. Lee’s picture is an excellent one, taken in April, 1882.

Lee is first found in New York City in 1871, as a cited example of a rare species, a Tammany Hall Republican. Tammany Hall was the Democratic political machine that dominated New York City politics, but Lee was given a patronage job as a Custom House officer. Items in the New York Times suggest that he resigned from the Custom House to become a “henchman” of Police Commissioner Henry Smith. After Smith left his position as head of the police, reports began to surface about a swindler misusing the badge of a custom house officer: he would accost travelers disembarking from a ship with their baggage and demand that their baggage be surrendered to be taken away to be reinspected; and would inform the owners that they could call at the Custom House to retrieve their belongings. Of course, the baggage was never seen again.

By 1879, he swept through Brooklyn, going to targeted homes and informing the residents that packages from overseas were being held at the Custom House for them, but that duty taxes were owed. He often received about $10 per victim from this ruse. In 1881, he used his badge to impress a Brooklyn Customs officer coming from work; Lee claimed he was a ranking Customs House Inspector from Washington, D.C., and that many officers in Brooklyn would soon be laid off. Over drinks in a bar, Lee would suggest that he could use his influence to save the jobs; and incidentally, he needed a temporary small loan of $10. Lee was arrested and spent two years in the Kings County Penitentiary.
In August 1881, Lee flashed his badge at the New York residence of Surgeon-General William Hammond, with urgent news that First Lady Garfield insisted he come at once to Washington to take over care of the mortally wounded President. While breathlessly delivering this news to Hammond in the doctor’s study, Lee asked the doctor for a glass of bromide. Apparently, Lee’s plan was to steal valuables from the study while Hammond retrieved the glass, but Hammond never left Lee alone in the study.
In addition to using his Custom House badge, Lee’s other trick was to go to a new city and claim that he was a writer from a leading New York newspaper, and would appreciate if local theater managers and rail ticket offices could “accommodate” his needs for gratis services.
Back in New York in 1882, Lee went back to bullying residents in their homes over unclaimed packages from the Continent. This time, he was arrested by Byrnes and his detectives, after first giving aliases of “B. Sharp” and “Frank Bell.” Byrnes discovered that he had bilked as many as twenty people with the fake bills of laden between mid-1881 and April, 1882. James Lee was sent to Sing Sing to serve two and a half years, commuted to May, 1884.
As Byrnes indicates, upon his release, Lee went to Baltimore and played the same game, resulting in his arrest and imprisonment in Maryland. Once he regained his freedom in 1887, he moved to Milwaukee and added a new twist to his game; now he used bogus telegrams to inform people that packages awaited them. In September, 1887 he was caught at this practice and sentenced to 18 months in Milwaukee’s House of Corrections.
Undaunted, Lee merely slipped down to Chicago after his confinement in Milwaukee ended. He victimized many well-to-do residents there with his routine, which cleverly included approached newly-married rich women, suggesting a gift of vases was being sent to them from Europe. Thinking it to be another wedding gift, the women would gladly pay the duties on the receipt Lee handed them. Lee was arrested, but later released after his victims failed to positively identify him.
Lee next went to Cincinnati, Ohio, and posed as August Ortman. After playing his con on many people, he was finally capture. Interviewed, he gave this account: “I served in the Eighty-Seventh, New York, in the Twenty-Fifth, New York, and in the Fourth, New Hampshire. I was in the Union army for four years and was made a sergeant. For sixteen years I lived the life of a sailor. I was a custom house inspector in New York under the late ex-President Arthur for three years and nine months.”
Inspector Byrnes cited the above in his 1895 edition, but it’s likely a fabric of lies. Lee spent only a few months in 1871 as a Customs House inspector, not years–and not during President Arthur’s tenure. He could not have served in the Civil War and have spent sixteen years as a sailor–he had been thieving continuously since 1871.
Moreover, his name was not Ortman. When sent to Sing Sing in 1882, he listed a family contact: a brother-in-law, Louis Bickel of Alton, Illinois. Bickel’s wife was Mary, nee Maria Norberta Kohln, according to her son’s birth record. A baptism record from Germany exists for a female with the same birth date from the same village, with the name Maria Josepha Kölhen. In both cases, these records may have been transcribed in error or based on phonetic spellings; but the family name was likely Kohln/Kohlen/Kölhen (which perhaps was Byrnes source for saying one of Lee’s aliases was “Coleman,” an alias that never appeared in print.)
After serving time in Ohio, Lee gravitated back to Chicago, keeping his last alias, August Ortman. He left the world with a mystery as his legacy:

Lee’s murder was never solved.

#105 Solomon Stern

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Solomon Stern (1854-19??), aka Samuel Stern, Saul Stern, William Stern, William Stearns, William Stone, Isaac J. Stern– Bogus check swindler

From Byrnes’s text:
DESCRIPTION. Thirty-two years old in 1886. Jew. Born in United States. Single. Book- keeper. Slim build. Height, 5 feet 3 1/2 inches. Weight, 115 pounds. Black hair, gray eyes, sallow complexion.
RECORD. Solomon Stern is the son of very respectable parents. He was arrested in New York City on June 29, 1883, charged with obtaining large quantities of jewelry, etc., from merchants by means of bogus checks.
The story of Stern’s downfall is interesting. In the spring of 1882 he became attached to a woman in an up-town resort in New York City. He was then a salesman in his father’s store, and resided at home. His salary was small, his father being a strict disciplinarian and an unbeliever in the fashionable follies of young men. Young Stern had little spending money, and in order to gratify his inamorata began stealing from his father. He purchased diamonds for her and paid her board at a seaside hotel. Her tastes were very expensive, and her demands on Stern for money very frequent. He began going every Sunday morning to his father’s store, and always went away with a roll of costly woolen cloth. An inventory of stock was taken, and the father discovered that he was being systematically robbed. More than $5,000 worth of woolens had been stolen. Mr. Stern soon found that his son was the thief, and discharged him. He also turned him out of his home. When this occurred the young man had become a confirmed drinker. Stern was still infatuated with the woman, and was determined to get money to supply her demands. He endeavored to borrow from his acquaintances, but without avail. Then he went to his mother, but she discarded him, and his paternal uncle also gave him the cold shoulder.
It was then he resolved upon a career of crime. He wrote his mother’s name to a check of $650 which he gave in payment for some diamonds to C. W. Schumann, of No. 24 John Street, New York City, on September 24, 1882. The check was on the Germania Bank. He sold the diamonds, and with his companion went to Baltimore, where he stayed until all his money was spent. When the woman wanted more he returned.
On December 16, 1882, he obtained a sealskin sacque with a $250 worthless check from Henry Propach, a furrier, at No. 819 Broadway, New York, and three days later a precious stone worth $525 from A. R. Picare, a jeweler, of Fifteenth Street, New York, whom he paid in similar fashion. When the police got on his track he went out of town again. He didn’t return to New York until January 6, 1883, when he swindled Joseph Michal, of No. 150 Ewen Street, Brooklyn, out of $800 by giving a worthless check in payment for jewelry. There were four complaints against Stern. He pleaded guilty to one of them, and was sentenced to five years in State prison by Judge Gildersleeve, on August 3, 1883, in the Court of General Sessions, New York City. His sentence will expire on March 3, 1887. His picture is a good one, taken in June, 1883.

      In recounting the crimes of Solomon Stern, Inspector Byrnes presents a human story of character shortcomings, in which a wayward youth is lured into crime to satisfy the wants his demanding mistress. While it’s possible that the gist of this story may true, its plausibility recedes when considering facts of which Byrnes was unaware: Solomon Stern had been presenting bogus checks starting (at least) four years earlier. He had been arrested in both Hartford, Connecticut and Buffalo, New York; and had been sentenced in 1878 to three years in the Connecticut State Prison.
Given these facts, it seems more likely that Solomon Stern’s compulsion to lay down bad checks had other causes, such as a gambling addiction. There’s no evidence that he had any training from professional check forgers. Indeed, his efforts seemed pretty clumsy, did little to hide his identity, and were fairly sure to result in his capture.
      In November 1878, Solomon went to Hartford, Connecticut, for the alleged purpose of representing his father’s clothing firm as a salesman. He was introduced to several businessmen there, and returned a week later to resume his activities. He went to one of his new contacts, a jeweler, and showed him a check written out to his father’s firm from one of their clients, and explained that he needed this check cashed there in Hartford in order to conclude a separate business deal. His new friend obliged, and Stern took part of the payment in cash, part in diamonds, and part in a new check for the remainder. After Stern left, the jeweler’s suspicions were aroused, and he investigated. Stern was tracked down, arrested, and jailed. In December 1878 he was sentenced to three years in the State prison for fraud.

      Stern learned little from that experience. After his release from Connecticut, he returned to employment in New York, and made the acquaintance of a tailor hailing from Buffalo, New York. In November, 1881, Stern went to Buffalo and looked up this tailor. He went to his store and ordered a fine suit, to be delivered to his New York address, paid with a forged check. The tailor’s bank required him to verify the check, and the fraud was uncovered. Buffalo authorities believed that Stern had been active in other cities, such as Chicago, under the aliases William Stern, William Stearns, William Stone, and Isaac J. Stern, Jr. Since the check that was forged was on a New York City bank, a New York City detective was sent to Buffalo to take him back to face charges.
      It appears that those charges were dropped, and young Solomon was free to continue his exploits, which pickup up with Byrnes’s recitation of his crimes in 1882-1883. Byrnes, writing in 1886, indicated that Stern had been sent to Sing Sing on a five-year sentence and would be released in 1887.
      Alas, upon his release, Solomon went straight back to swindling. He took $2000 worth of jewelry from a store in New York using a bad check, and then went to Baltimore to try to exchange some of the stones. He was captured in that city and returned to New York, where he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to eight years in Sing Sing beginning in January 1888.
      Stern was released in October 1894. Now finally, Solomon Stern appears to have quelled his demons. He married Rachael Block in 1897, and re-entered the specialty clothing business. After the death of his wife (after 1915), Solomon lived with his younger brother Jacob, and they continued together in the necktie business.

#99 David Swain

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David Swain (Abt. 1844-19??), aka Old Dave, James A. Robbins, James A. Roberts, James G. Allison — Swindler, bunco steerer

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Forty-two years old in 1886. Born in New York City. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 9 inches. Weight, 180 pounds. Light brown hair, blue eyes. Ruddy complexion. Wears full sandy beard and mustache. Married. Scar on forehead over left eye. Part of an anchor in India ink on right fore-arm.

RECORD. Swain is one of the sharpest, meanest, and most dangerous confidence men in the business. He has no favorites, and would rob a friend or a poor emigrant as soon as a party with means. He may be found around railroad depots or steamboat landings, and is well known in all the Eastern cities, especially Boston, Mass., where, it is said, he has a mortgage on the Eastern Railroad depot.

Swain was arrested in New York City on July 17, 1873, for grand larceny from one Edward Steinhofer, of Brooklyn. He was committed to the Tombs prison on July 18, 1873, but was shortly afterwards delivered over to the Albany, N.Y., police authorities, and taken there upon an old charge. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in the Albany Penitentiary, at the Court of Quarter Sessions, in Albany, on September 20, 1873. His time expired in March, 1876.

Swain passed considerable of his time in and around Boston, Mass., when out of prison, and has fleeced many a poor victim there. In August, 1883, he robbed two poor Nova Scotians, man and wife, out of $150 in gold, all the money they had saved for years. He was finally arrested in Boston, Mass., on December 12, 1884, for robbing the Nova Scotians, whose name was Taylor. He lay in jail there until May 23, 1885, when he was brought to court, where he pleaded guilty to the charge, and was sentenced to two years in the House of Correction.

Swain has been working these last few years with George Gifford, who was arrested in Brooklyn, N.Y., on March 15, 1886, for swindling one John Reilly by the confidence game, and sentenced to four years in the Kings County Penitentiary on April 30, 1886. He has also served a term in Boston, Mass., for the same offense. Young Gifford is the son of Harry Gifford, a very clever old confidence man, who died a short time ago. Swain’s picture is a good one, taken in 1881.

David Swain’s criminal career dates back to, at the least, August 1868, when he (along with a partner) was caught at a New York  railroad depot using the old gold brick swindle. In 1872, Swain’s name was invoked as the man engaged to burglar Ed. Johnson’s sister. Johnson, Dave Cummings, and Mose Vogel had been arrested for a bank robbery attempt in Jersey City, New Jersey, and while in jail implicated Jersey City’s Chief of Police and a detective as being in on the robbery. Johnson’s highly amusing testimony mentioned his sister and Swain.

As Byrnes mentions, Swain was arrested the next year for a swindle in Albany, and was sentenced in September of 1873. About six months after getting out of prison in New York, Swain was caught robbing a hotel room in Philadelphia. He was sentenced in thirteen months in Eastern State Penitentiary.

Swain was known to have worked at various times with George Gifford; George Affleck; and Walking Joe Prior.

In 1881, he showed up in Boston, but was arrested on suspicion and told to leave town. Byrnes recounts what happened to Old Dave when he ignored that warning–he was arrested in Boston in 1884 and was shuttled between jail and prison until 1887.

In 1892, Dave was caught pulling swindles on travelers at a rail depot in Chicago.

An article written in 1905 by the Columbus, Ohio Chief of Police described Dave as now being a dangerous bunco operator. In 1909, Dave was detained in Montreal, Quebec for vagrancy–an offense often used to get pickpockets and swindlers off the streets.

A David Swain died on Staten Island in 1914 that might have been Old Dave, but there is no definite evidence linking this Swain (and his family) to the notorious con man.

#191 Julius Klein

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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.

#57 Daniel S. Ward

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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.

#98 Franklin J. Moses

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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.

#41 Charles Fisher

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Charles H. Tisher (Abt. 1848 – 192?), aka James Farrell, Henry Mason, James Smith, Charles Palmer, Charles H. Fisher, J. B. Ford, etc. — Forger

Link to Byrnes’s entry on #41 Charles Fisher

      Chief Inspector (later Superintendent) Byrnes, as seen in other REVISED entries, was often unaware of his profiled criminals’ full records, sometimes including incidents that occurred during his tenure. With his entry on Charles Fisher, there’s a further problem: he appears to be confusing two different individuals; the historical records supporting the details he describes can not be one person. Both men were German immigrants, tall, with good English; but one was nearly ten years older than the other; and one was an inept burglar, while the other was a masterful forger.

      Byrnes describes the 19-year old youth who was arrested for larceny in October, 1876 and sentenced to two years and six months in Sing Sing. He was released early, in October 1878, and then was unable to find work. Starving, he broke a window to get arrested, and was brought before Judge Otterbourg, who investigated his circumstances and showed him mercy, raising funds for him to travel west.

      That was one Charles Fisher, and he has not been traced further.

      However, while this young man was behind bars in Sing Sing, another man–Charles H. Tisher, alias Fisher, alias Palmer, etc., was already plying his trade as a forger. All the facts presented by Byrnes from that point forward align with the career of this man, not the young , repentant thief. Moreover, Charles H. Tisher had a remarkable criminal career, that until now has never been recounted.

      Charles H. Tisher appeared for the first time in Philadelphia, in early 1874, as the co-proprietor of a new enterprise, the Mercantile Bureau and Independent Collection Agency Company. Initially, it appeared to be a legitimate enterprise: a private collection agency, an industry which had recently started in the United States. Tisher had respectable attorneys as partners, but the daily management of the business was left in his hands. In early 1875, he appeared in Jersey City, New Jersey, with a plan to expand the company’s services to the New York market. He solicited both investors and new customers; and then was charged with embezzlement. Most of the charges against him were dropped, but he was jailed for months and minor charges stuck, so his business was ruined.

      He reappeared in February, 1878, when he was arrested in New York with an accomplice, Charles Burton, alias John Richardson, for committing small check forgeries. Their apartments were searched and police found all the implements of a forging operation: type, small presses, dies, engraver’s tools, inks, blanks, etc. Also found were letters proving him to be the same Charles H. Tisher arrested in Jersey City in 1875. Tisher and Richardson later plead guilty, and gave evidence against three other conspirators, including Ike Hoffman (Isaac Schoan, alias John Jones); Charlie Edmunds alias Loring, and George Luxton. After nearly a year of legal maneuvers, Tisher was sent to Sing Sing in February, 1879, for a term of two and a half years.

      Upon his release, he hooked up with another forgery operation headquartered in Chicago. They victimized banks in the city until the gang was captured in early 1882. This time, the member gave their names as John Bush alias Hatfield; John Miller alias Morton; and William Lawrence alias Vaughan alias Livingston. Tisher turned States evidence against the others, and was released and told to leave the state.

      Tisher appeared next as Charles Fisher with a gang of forgers in New York, in company with Walter Pierce, alias Potter; Charles J. Everhardt alias Marsh Market Jake, alias Samuel Peters; and Charles Denken. They were rounded up in November 1885. Fisher was now recognized as the operation’s leader, and refused to make any statement in court. This time, Tisher was given a stiff sentence: ten years in Sing Sing.

      Tisher formed another check-forging gang upon getting out of Sing Sing in 1892, this time composed of Robert Wallace alias Arthur Dearborn; William Hartley alias William Boland; and Lizzie Turner, alias Sheeny Rachel. They swept through the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in early 1895, then attacked banks and merchants in San Francisco, then moved on to Cincinnati. Pinkerton detectives traced the gang to Baltimore. Tisher used the alias J. B. Ford. He was taken from Baltimore to Cincinnati on a requisition, and made a daring escape from jail while awaiting trial.

      Tisher then headed to England. While there, he frequented a saloon that was a burglar’s hangout, and was swept up with others during an 1897 police raid. Rather than reveal his identity, Tisher allowed himself to be jailed for burglary under the name Edward Simpson. However, while ensconced in the Wormwood Scrubs prison, he was recognized. He was extradited to New York, and then taken back to Cincinnati, where he had broken jail. This time, in late December 1897, he was taken to the Ohio State Prison to serve three and a half years.

      Upon his release, Tisher and his acknowledged wife, Rachel Hurd alias Lizzie Turner, went back to England. Tisher, under the name Henry Conroy, was arrested there in October, 1902, for stealing from letter boxes–a favorite activity of his was stealing checks from envelopes and raising their amounts, and forging signatures. He was sentenced to two years hard labor. Rachel was arrested with him, but released for lack of evidence.

      After serving his time, Tisher was freed, but in July 1904 was taken once again. This time he was sentenced to ten years. Apparently he was released early, because he was back in New York City by August, 1910, when he was arrested for attempted forgery under the name Charles Wells. He was sentenced to two and a half years at Sing Sing. He was released in August, 1912. He was given an annuity by the American Banking Association on the promise that he would never forge checks again.

      He was sent back to Sing Sing in May, 1914, for one year and eight months, again for forgery. In 1920, when he was about 74 years old, Charles Tisher (as Charles Fisher) was named as the leader of a forgery gang working in Philadelphia. He was the penman that signed checks stolen by his accomplices, who had obtained jobs as janitors and elevator operators in business office buildings.

      In 1923, he was arrested in New York for using a nickel slug to cheat a subway turnstile. He was sentenced to serve ten days. Tisher did not end his career on that sad note. In 1924 he was caught up as a minor member of notorious post office hold-up gang that had reaped millions from one coast to another, headed by Gerald Chapman.

#58 Hugh L. Courtenay

~ jpkntz

Sydney Lascelles (1856-1902), aka Sidney Lascelles, Hugh Leslie Courtenay, Marcus LaPierre Beresford, Charles Pelham Clinton, John Reginald Talbot, Robert Raymond Arundel, Harry Vane Tempest, Charles J. Asquith, Lord Dennison, etc. — Impostor, Swindler

Link to Byrnes’s entries on #58 Hugh L. Courtenay and #344 Sid. Lasalle (1895)

      Sydney (Sidney) Lascelles (a name as good as any of his aliases) spent his whole life fooling people–a trait that continued for years after his death. Either through sloppiness or doubt, Superintendent Byrnes profiled Lascelles twice as two different people: once in his 1886 edition, under the entry for Hugh L. Courtenay; and again in 1895, under the name “Sid. Lasalle.” Biographical details that linked these identities had been published in newspapers in the 1890s; and also revealed in Lascelle’s very rare published autobiography, From wealth and happiness to misery and the penitentiary by “Walter S. Beresford.” However, because later writers and editors relied heavily on Byrnes as a source , many accounts of the exploits of Sidney Lascelles begin in the 1890s, missing the first sixteen years of his remarkable career.

      Lascelles first appeared in San Francisco in February, 1875 as “Lt. Harry Vane Tempest, Royal Navy” accompanied by another young man named Park, a member of the British army. They attended social affairs and racked up a large hotel bill, but apparently received a letter with enough money to settle their bill. Continuing eastward by ship, Lascelles was next heard from in Cuba, where he went by the title “Lord Hay.” As would become his pattern, Lascelles always assumed names that could be found in Debrett’s Peerage. Little is known of his activities in Cuba, other than that he did not conduct himself honorably.
      The New York Times later published his subsequent movements [note that the year 1878 should read 1875]:

After a hiatus of three years, Lascelles reappeared in America still engaged in his same act:

      Lascelles was sent back to Utah, where he was tried and acquitted for lack of evidence. However, he was brought back to New York to face charges of forgery in England. He was put on a ship to cross the Atlantic, and was convicted in an English court in June, 1881. He was sentenced to three months hard labor at Clerkenwell prison, then shipped to an West Indies colony.
      In 1887, Lascelles reappeared in America as John Reginald Talbot, and insinuated himself in society circles in Newark, New Jersey. This time, he condescended to admit his finances were low, and obtained a job at the Westinghouse Electric factory. However, within a short time, they fired him for laziness. By March, 1888, he was found in Troy, New York, working in a dye factory as “John R. Temple.” He was recognized while attending theater, pickup up by police, and told to leave town.
      Lascelles turned his luck around over the next eighteen months, and by December 1889 was headed back to England aboard The City of Paris ocean liner, quartered in the richest stateroom, wearing the finest clothes, and dining with the captain. For the first time, he used the name Sidney Lascelles, son of the Earl of Harewood. He soon went broke at the ship’s poker table, and was saved by a Brooklyn businessman who covered his check. Once ashore, the Brooklynite discovered Lascelles’ check was bogus, but by chance spotted him in a hotel and confronted him. Lascelles broke down in tears and begged for mercy, handing over all the jewelry he had.
      The next year, 1890, found Lascelles in Algiers, where he met an American widow, Susannah Lilienthal, and her 22-year-old daughter Maud. Mrs. Lilienthal was the heiress of C.H. Lilienthal, a tobacco magnate. Maud was entranced by the dashing Sidney Lascelles, with his soft tenor voice, his gaiety, his singing, and his quick wit. Though equally charmed at first, Mrs. Lilienthal suspected something amiss with Lascelles, and took Maud back to New York. Sidney followed. Upon learning Lascelles was in New York, Mrs. Lascelles took Maud and fled west to Sewickley, Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh. Lascelles followed them, got in touch with Maud, and convinced her to elope. They were married on February 2, 1891.
      At around the same time, Lascelles had forged a check in order to buy into a Georgia mining operation. He was arrested and taken to Georgia to face trial, and was eventually convicted. He was released on a $5000 bond during appeal. During that period he broke up with his wife, despite the fact that she had provided his bail. Eventually his conviction was upheld, and he began serving a seven year sentence in 1892. During his time at a prison lumbering camp, Lascelles penned his autobiography, which was published in 1893.
      He was pardoned in 1897, and promptly married another wealthy young woman, Clara Pilkey. He was well-liked in Georgia despite his crimes, and found a position with a town handling their utility contracts.
There were rumors that his dishonesty drove him out of Georgia, and that he went to Mexico and Texas with his new wife, burning through her money.
      He turned up in Asheville, North Carolina in 1902, seriously ill with tuberculosis. He died within a few weeks. Lacking funds from anyone for a funeral and burial, Sidney then began his strange afterlife, becoming a local legend as a funeral home prop.
After many years, Lascelles body was claimed by his first wife, Maud Lilienthal, who had the remains cremated and spread in the Potomac River. Maud later settled in Asheville.
      There are many references, beginning in the 1870s, suggesting that Lascelles started his life as the son of a gamekeeper on the estate of the Earl of Devonshire. Other suggested that he was the illegitimate son of a lord. In his autobiography, he claimed to have been born in Australia, and had lived in both India and China. Nothing concerning his origins has been verified.

#94 James White

~ jpkntz

AKA James White (181?-????), aka Pop White, Doc Long, James Allen, James Adams, James Dunn, William Wills, Walter Wells, etc. — Pickpocket, grifter, hotel thief

From Byrnes’s text:
DESCRIPTION. Seventy years old in 1886. Born in Delaware. Painter by trade. Very slim. Single. Height, 5 feet 8 inches. Weight, about 135 pounds. Gray hair, dark-blue eyes, sallow complexion, very wrinkled face. Looks like a well-to-do farmer.
RECORD. Old Pop White, or “Doc” Long, is the oldest criminal in his line in America. Over one-third of his life has been spent in State prisons and penitentiaries. He has turned his hand to almost everything, from stealing a pair of shoes to fifty thousand dollars. He was well known when younger as a clever bank sneak, hotel man and confidence worker.
He is an old man now, and most of his early companions are dead. He worked along the river fronts of New York and Boston for years, with George, alias “Kid” Affleck (56), and old “Hod” Bacon, and was arrested time and time again. One of their victims, whom they robbed in the Pennsylvania Railroad depot at Philadelphia in 1883 of $7,000, died of grief shortly after.
Old White was discharged from Trenton, N.J., State prison on December 19, 1885, after serving a term for grand larceny. He was arrested again in New York City the day after for stealing a pair of shoes from a store. He pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to five months in the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island, in the Court of Special Sessions, on December 22, 1885.
Pop White’s picture is a good one, taken in July, 1875.

     Pop White’s real name and origins have been lost, along with most of his criminal history. He was adept at using a variety of aliases, and reticent in speaking with lawyers, detectives, and reporters. The July 1875 photo in Byrnes’s collection can not be linked to an arrest record; the earliest account found about White is an 1878 arrest in Philadelphia as Walter Wells, alias Doc Long. At that time he was already recognized as an old thief.


      As perhaps the oldest criminal listed in Byrnes’ Professional Criminals of America, it may be that Pop White could have told more stories of 19th Century crooks than anyone else; he might have been a fascinating character–but he was tight-lipped, and his crimes were small: stealing from hotel rooms, pickpocketing, small cons, etc. He was a classic grifter. The last misdeed of Pop White was in 1893, when he was arrested in Philadelphia and sent to the county prison for 90 days.

      By far the most notable exploit of Pop White occurred ten years earlier. In March, 1883, there was a robbery of $7000 in gold coins stored in the valise of a man named as Jesse Williams, described by newspapers as a 70-plus-year-old farmer from Orange County, New York, who was traveling south to purchase new farmland. Williams took a train from New York to Philadelphia, and stood by for his connecting train in the gentlemen’s waiting area of Penn Station. There he was approached by two other older gentlemen, who engaged him in conversation; these two were Pop White and his partner, George Affleck. White put down his baggage and steered Williams into the station’s saloon, assuring Williams that his baggage would be safe if he left it next to his. Upon coming out of the bar, Williams discovered that his satchel–containing the gold–was gone, and so was Affleck. Pop White soon vanished, too.

      White and Affleck were tracked to New York, where Byrnes’s detectives arrested Affleck and his wife. The satchel of Williams’ was found in Affleck’s hotel room, but only $1000 was left. Affleck claimed another $1000 had been deposited in banks. White was caught a few months later in Boston, and jailed there. The victim, Jesse Williams, said that the $7000 had been his life’s savings; after lawyer expenses he got back just $940.

      Six months later, eastern newspapers reported that Jesse Williams had died of grief. It seemed to be a clear example of the heavy human cost caused by habitual criminals, and Thomas Byrnes made it the center of his profile of Pop White.

      Little more can be said about the career of Pop White…but it turns out that there was much more to the story of his most notable victim, Jesse Williams.

      In March, 1883, right after the robbery and arrest of Affleck was reported, people in Orange County, New York asked each other if they knew of Jesse Williams, and why he might be carrying around $7000. It was a minor mystery for quite a few days until a Port Jervis (Orange County, NY) newspaper discovered that the man’s full name was Jesse Williams Jennings, who had indeed been born in Monroe, Orange County, but who had moved to a western state over fifty years earlier.

      Jesse W. Jennings had moved to what was then the frontier of America, the state of Indiana. Here is what A History of St Joseph County Indiana wrote about him in 1907:

      Jesse W. Jennings, deceased, was numbered among the earliest pioneers and leading agriculturists of St. Joseph county, whom to know was to esteem and honor. He was a native of the Empire state of New York, born in 1809, the son of James Jennings. In his native commonwealth Jesse W. Jennings learned his trade of shoemaking, and during his early manhood he went to Cleveland, Ohio, where he was married to one of the city’s native daughters, Mary Ann Pearse, her birth occurring in 1811. In 1830 Mr. Jennings came to St. Joseph county, Indiana, entering and taking up his abode on a farm in Clay township. He subsequently returned to Cleveland, but afterward again made his way to St. Joseph county and to Clay township, where he cleared a farm and continued its improvement and cultivation until failing health caused him to remove to South Bend. He later, however, bought the old county farm in Center township, but a short time afterward returned to his old place, there remaining until he became the owner of a farm in Portage township, which now consists of four hundred and fifty acres. At one time his estate consisted of over six hundred acres. His reputation was unassailable in all trade transactions, and by the exercise of industry, sound judgment, energy and perseverance he won a handsome competence, of which he was well deserving. During his later life Mr. Jennings traveled a great deal, and his death occurred in Cleveland, Ohio, but his remains were brought back and buried in the city cemetery of South Bend. He was the father of seven children, four sons and three daughters, but only three of the number grew to years of maturity. Mrs. Lucy Farneman, the fifth child in order of birth, now resides on the farm in Portage township which was formerly the David Ulery farm, and was also the Stover farm. The tract consists of one hundred and fifty acres of rich and fertile land. Mr. Jennings gave his political support to the Democratic party, and had fraternal relations with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He enjoyed the confidence of all with whom his dealings brought him in contact, and he was regarded as one of the representative citizens of old St. Joseph county.

      This complimentary biographical sketch, however, glosses over some of the more turbulent aspects of Jesse’s later years. By the late 1870s, Jesse and his wife Mary Ann Pearse were divorced. As part of the settlement, she obtained a large piece of land adjacent to his, which she leased out to tenant farmers. She then remarried to a second husband. Jesse, apparently, believed the terms of his settlement with Mary Ann entitled him to some of the income from the lease, and this gave rise to a dispute both with his former wife and the tenants. Meanwhile, Jesse also was getting tired of living alone with no cook.

      In the spring of 1879, Jesse asked his itinerant farmhand, a 19-year-old youth from Western Pennsylvania, to go back to Pennsylvania and pick out a young woman for him to marry. The young man went, solicited one of his neighbors, and she began a correspondence with Jesse. They traded letters, and Jesse sent his picture (he was 70; she was 20) and proposed to marry her–if she would come to Indiana and he liked her. She refused. Jesse turned elsewhere, and proposed to a female cook working in a local restaurant. She accepted, and Jesse gave her cash to get a wedding dress. But Jesse started to have second thoughts–thinking perhaps it was his money that she wanted–and broke off the engagement. In the fall of 1879, she sued Jesse for breach of promise.

      At about the same time, Jesse’s temper boiled over concerning his wife’s neighboring lease. On December 2, 1879, a barn on that property burnt down to the ground, along with two horses, five cows, and machinery, altogether valued at $2500, but only insured for $1000. It was immediately apparent that the fire was a case of arson. Jesse’s young farmhand was arrested and thrown in jail, where he gave evidence that Jesse himself had started the fire. Officials then arrested Jesse and threw him in jail, too. At that point events spun out of control, and were later written up and printed as far away as Brooklyn:

      Jesse W. Jennings was let out of jail on bond for the arson charge. In a civil action, he was forced to pay $1500 in damages. Nearly a year after these legal troubles, in February, 1881, four brick block buildings in South Bend, co-owned by Jesse, burnt down to the ground, resulting in a loss of $40,000. Jesse was re-arrested in May, 1881 for skipping out on his first bail bond a year earlier. He was able to once again buy his release on a $4000 bond, which people seemed to think he would also skip out on. They were right: in November, this second bond was forfeited. He had wasted $5500 to avoid facing charges.

      Where Jesse was between early 1881 and March, 1883 is not known, but it’s likely that he opted to stay away from Indiana, perhaps permanently, taking his nest egg of gold coins with him.

      And then he met the man known as “the Fagin of America,” the grifter, Pop White. And so, when the victimized Jesse explained events to police, he identified himself as “Jesse Williams” hailing from Orange County, New York–and not as Jesse W. Jennings of St Joseph County, Indiana. Now nearly out of cash, Jesse left Philadelphia with his $940 and went to stay with a nephew in Cleveland, Ohio. Inspector Byrnes and the eastern newspapers said the Jesse died of grief from being victimized. The Cleveland coroner, however, only found indications of heart disease.

      After Pop White’s last jailing in early 1893, he ended his criminal career and retired to a flat in New York City. The Illustrated Police News reported that he lived quietly, and on pleasant days was seen strolling on Sixth Avenue with his small Scotch terrier. He was said to visit his old haunts in the Union Square neighborhood, “…and likes to tell the story of his life to anyone who will listen to it.” Sadly, those stories are lost.

#122 Bertha Heyman

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Bertha Schlesinger (Abt. 1853-1901), aka Bertha Heyman, Bertha Kerkow, Bertha Stanley, Big Bertha, etc. — Swindler

From Byrnes’s text:

DESCRIPTION. Thirty-five years old in 1886. Born in Germany. Married. Very stout woman. Height, 5 feet 4 inches. Weight, 245 pounds. Hair brown, eyes brown, fair complexion. German face. An excellent talker. Has four moles on her right cheek.

RECORD. Bertha Heyman’s maiden name was Bertha Schlesinger. She is a native of Koblyn, near Posen, Prussia. Her father served five years in prison there for forging a check. She was married twice, first to one Fritz Karko, when she first came to this country in 1878. After living in New York a short time they went to Milwaukee, where she was afterwards married to a Mr. Heyman, although her first husband was still living. She has been concerned in a number of swindling transactions, and has the reputation of being one of the smartest confidence women in America. In September, 1880, she was sued in the Superior Court of New York City for obtaining by false pretenses $1,035 from E. T. Perrin, a conductor on a palace car, whom she met in traveling from Chicago. She was arrested in London, Ontario, on February 8, 1881, in company of one Dr. J. E. Cooms, charged with defrauding a Montreal commercial man out of several hundred dollars by the confidence game.

      Bertha, in her last years, preferred to be known by her nickname, Big Bertha, and used it to publicize her stage appearances and the honky-tonks that she managed in Spokane, Butte, and other cities. One reason for that decision is that it eliminated the necessity of having to explain the many married names she had accumulated. She was born in Kobylin, Prussia (now Poland), not far from Breslau. On one marriage record she listed her parents as David Schlesinger and Ernestine Frankel. She once gave an interview that offered a version of her early career, much of which can be verified:

      “Fred” was Friedrich Kerkow, a partner in a very small bank in New York that served German-speakers. Fred’s story is that he first saw Bertha working as a cleaning woman, and was entranced by the pretty young girl. They married in November, 1870, when Bertha was still a teen. The marriage lasted many years; they moved together to Milwaukee in 1875 to open a millinery store–likely an ambition of Bertha’s more than Fred’s. Did Fred abandon her in Milwaukee? He never offered his version of events. In 1877, Bertha remarried to a traveling suspender salesman, John Heyman. They maintained the millinery store in Milwaukee for a short while, but Bertha and Heyman moved to a more expensive residence, where Bertha soon gained a reputation for entertaining young German actresses and the men wishing to meet them. Unpleasant rumors caused Bertha and Heyman to decamp to New York City in the spring of 1880.

      On the way to New York from Chicago, Bertha struck up conversation with a Pullman palace train car conductor, and convinced him that she had many wealthy assets in need of management, and enticed him to quit his job and take over as her estate manager–but first she needed $1000 in cash to settle some matters. The conductor, Mr. Perrin, thought it was a good opportunity, and lent her the money. Upon arrival in New York, Bertha encamped in a series of luxury hotels and ran up bills, retaining a respected lawyer to advise her. Soon both the conductor, Mr. Perrin, and the lawyer, Mr. Botty, were forced to take legal action to recover the money and services they had invested in the pretend-millionairess. Mr. Botty was the person that Bertha later claimed had informed her that she was an heiress; while Mr. Botty claimed that she was the one that first contacted him.

      It was at the onset of this imposture and legal woes that husband number two, John Heyman, left Bertha. As Chief Byrnes mentions, there always seemed to be a shadowy male con man feeding Bertha’s ambitions by providing forged checks and phony bonds offered in security for cash; in New York, this figure had the name of “J. E. Cooms” (aka Coombs, Combs). When the pleas of Mr. Perrin and Mr. Botty were joined by a Mrs. Schlaarbaum of Staten Island, who claimed that Bertha had stolen jewelry from her boarding house, Bertha and Cooms fled to Canada. They were arrested there for perpetrating a fraud and retreated back to New York.

      Once again in New York, Bertha took rooms in a boarding house on Staten Island, where she was arrested for stealing a watch from her landlady. She was tried and convicted in October, 1881 for the watch theft, a term she served in the New York Penitentiary. She was freed in June of 1883. Bertha was then put on trial for her earlier swindles in New York, and was returned to prison on August 30, 1883. Finally, the time she owed New York authorities expired in April, 1887.

      Within a year, Bertha reappeared in San Francisco as “Bertha Stanley,” accompanied by a young man she introduced as a son, William H. Stanley (who may have been the same person as Dr. J. E. Cooms). In San Francisco, she approached a leader among the Jewish community, Rabbi A. J. Messing, whom she had known as a child in Prussia. She explained to the Rabbi that she had married a gentile, a Mr. Stanley of LaSalle, Illinois, now deceased. Mr. Stanley had left her a fortune, but she now desired to marry within her faith and asked the Rabbi’s help in finding a suitable husband. Messing introduced her to members of the Beth Israel synagogue, including his unmarried brother-in-law, Abraham Gruhn. Gruhn was entranced by Bertha, despite her now-ordinary looks and heavy girth.

      Within days, Gruhn and Bertha were heading a lavish engagement party, at which Bertha’s fake son “Willie” asked Gruhn for $500 to overcome his objections to his mother remarrying. Bertha wore a great quantity of diamonds, which were paste; but their display gave “Willie” the opportunity to suggest to several women that he could take their jewelry and reset the stones in the latest fashion, such as those Bertha wore. Gruhn also presented his betrothed with more jewelry. Within days, Bertha and Willie had pawned all the jewelry they had received, along with Gruhn’s cash, and headed south toward Los Angeles. Gruhn and Messing, after a day or two, slowly realized they might have been swindled. They approached the San Francisco police, who showed them Bertha’s picture in Byrnes’ book.

      Detectives traced Bertha and Willie to San Antonio, Texas, where the pair was arrested. They were brought back to San Francisco to stand trial for larceny. Gruhn, who still had a soft spot for Bertha, tempered his testimony against her, forcing the prosecution to focus their efforts on Willie Stanley. The court proceedings attracted overflow crowds–a fact not unnoticed by Bertha. In the end, after prevailing in both a civil and criminal suit, she was acquitted; while Stanley was found guilty of obtaining goods under false pretenses, and was sentenced to just six months.

      Bertha considered opening another millinery shop, but instead accepted an offer to appear on the stage of a low-brow opera house.  Her act consisted of posing in scenes recreating her scandals in San Francisco; followed by her posing in classical scenes in flesh-colored tights. She attracted larger-than-usual crowds eager to see “Big Bertha.” Over the next year, she took her act on the road throughout the West Coast, sometimes adding an appearance as a collar-and-elbow wrestler, willing to take on any comer. As she traveled, she attracted new admirers who presented her with gifts and offers of marriage.

      During this period, reporters tracked down her first husband, Fritz Kerkow, who was now operating a popular cafe in Los Angeles. Bertha went to the cafe to meet him, and later only said that Kerkow had broken down in tears.

      By 1893, Big Bertha was not only appearing on stage, but also managed honky-tonk theaters in Spokane, Washington; Bakersfield, California; and Butte, Montana. These dives presented entertainments that are hard to imagine today:

      Bertha died in Chicago in May, 1901, while managing a similar type of dive in that city.