6 tA 1 STORIES OF THE SECRET SERVICE BV Capt. Patrick D. Tyrrell > r; \ STORY No. 5 The Boscobel Koniackers an Account of the Capture ,and Convictton of the Band of |Counterfeiters Operating in Wiscon sin in 1878. * !'•»' By CAPTAIN PATRICK D. TYBBELI d tdiiipyright, 1905, by Marion G. Scheltlin.] It was one day in the early spring of the year 1878 that a young man sign ing the application form as "George C. King, No. 873 West Adams street, Chi cago, 111.," appeared at the money or der window of the Chicago post office asked for two money orders aggre of Canandaigua, N. Y. With -tiiip application he handed the clerk a srao note. The clerk made out the or :J«s, gave them and $25 to the appli cant and the latter disappeared. The rf4kipie day, in counting the cash re craved at the money order window, the : hi"f clerk encountered the SIOO note jijid became suspicious of its genuine ness. It purported to be a note of the ts&ue of the Revere national bank, of Bfljfcton. Being notified that such a note had befen received at the post office, I im mediately made an examination of it and pronounced it a counterfeit. I then totflik possession of the note and sub mitted it to Fred M. Blount, who was <#n cashier in the United States sub i r|nsury in Chicago, asking him to the government "counterfeit" stjgjinp on it. This he refused to do on ground that the note, in his opin ictfjj, was genuine. I pointed out many discrepancies between the note in hand aiul one known to be genuine, but Bjjjiunt claimed he had frequently no ticed discrepancies as great between tvw> genuine notes of the same issue. On his refusal to stamp the note I tofrk it to Thomas P. Tallman, cashier of; the Traders' national bank, whom I considered the most reliable expert in sufch matters in any of the city banks. Tallman spent two hours making a minute examination of the note, and at. the end of that time concurred in my original opinion that the note was counterfeit. Having been thoroughly satisfied in my own mind from the be ginning the note was spurious, I deem od' it important to trace it. From the office records the name and ad ilrpss given by the passer of the note were secured, and these were found to bajcorrect. J£ing was not at home when I called *t;his house, but from his wife I learn ed 'he had received a SIOO bill from A. J Williams, a friend of her husband's in Canandaigua, N. Y. The passing of (lift bill had been noted in my daily re pofct to Chief Brooks in Washington, anft as soon as I learned that the note has been received from the same man tojjtvhom the money orders purchased it had been sent, I suggested that eastern division of the secret serv -4c4; take up the New York end of the chain. tj?he following day I arrested King at the. La Salle street offices in which he v ag employed and found in his posses- a letter from his Canandaigua fssffind. The letter itself was an inno friendly missive, but in the en v#Pe was a separate note instructing Ks|jg to buy the money orders, keep for himself and to "keep his own counsel." In my mind there was no reasonable doubt that Williams, who jeweler, and King at least had sjuinjr knowledge that the note in ques tion was counterfeit. • • • In glancing back over a long line of records for the years 1878 and 1879, J select the foregoing incident as tin firtft thread the secret service picked up in the skein of events which afterward < omjerted east and west in a gigantic •'koajacklng" swindle that reached into the pnited States treasury building it aelfr j*nd I set it forth here merely on fc' cqfUnt of what it suggested rather thai! on account of its intrinsic impor i»ncv. A§ the present day, when the coun terfeiting of the nation's money is rap t'iljf, p tiling into the category of lost younger generation will won ()<r bt the extent of counterfeiting a ' iifrf of a < iinturjr ugo us indicated bj the tarrativts i have told and tlx- on<- I am about to relate. And it there be •t iftbniier on thin wore there will bt % 4£r wh«n I ta> that Nelauu i>ri r ;gs. Ben Boyd, Fred Biebush, "Pete" Mc- Cartney and a wore of others already mentioned were members of the west- contingent only, while in the east was a corresponding number just as skilled and iust as active. The connections between east and west crossed and interlaced, until they formed a figurative free-masonry of counterfeiting reaching from ocean to ocean and from Canada to the gulf. For this condition there was a most obvious explanation. We whose hairs are gray will remember when the ne cessities of government during the war of the rebellion compelled the issue of hundreds of millions of legal tender of new and various kinds. These issues were made hastily, being demanded by the exigencies of the kaleidoscopic fi nancial situation, and were imperfect to an extent that would now be consid ered ridiculous. Much of the new currency issued dur ing the war and the existence of the state banks was not only defective in the engraving, but was printed on pa per which could be easily duplicated by a clever chemist. Scrip was in use, and the government product, from the en graver's standpoint, was not of a high character. In short, the large spawn of "koniackers" that did so much un lawfully to inflate the currency of the country from 1850 to 1880 were bred by temptation arising from defective national currency—defective from the artisan's viewpoint. The eastern and western crowds op erated largely each for itself without the help of the other, but the resources of the east were drawn on when the western counterfeiters needed a new plate or material not obtainable in their own bailiwick, and the easterners frequently came west for similar ac commodations. "Coney" floated in the east was frequently traced to the Mis sissippi valley or farther west, and some of the most troublesome imita tions we ever had to deal with in the west were the handiwork of eastern ar tisans. With this explanation I will take up another thread in the story of "The Boscobel Koniackers." • • • Some time before my story opens A. L. Drummond, chief secret service op erative in charge of the New York di vision, had run across plates for the manufacture of scrip which he had traced to the hand of Kale Ellis, a western product, and as desperate a "LIB BACK, OR I'LL KILL, YOU!" counterfeiter as ever dodged the secret service. Drummond and VV. W. Ken noch, another operative, both had been sailors, and, through furnishing infor mation to the revenue officers concern ing certain smuggling operations, had been appointed customs officers in New York. From this work they went into the secret service. Woods was then chief of the service and had sent Drummond to Wisconsin to hunt down Ellis, the maker of the scrip plate. Drummond caught up with his man and Ellis lied, with the secret service officer In close pursuit. The counterfeiter ran to the Pecatonica riv er, plunged in and swam to the other bank. Drummond, seeing his man es caping, fired at him in midstream, one of the bullets clipping away the lobe of Ellis' right ear. making a mark of identification that became known to every man in the secret service. In his flight Ellis had carried with him the plates from which the scrip was being made, and, knowing he could not be convicted unless the plates were found in his possession, he dropped the package in the river as he swam for his life. With remarkable pres ence of mind, while bullets from the officer's revolver were clipping the wa ter all around him, Eliis mentally took such accurate bearings of the spot as which he dropped the package that he was able afterward to recover it. He reached the opposite bank ex hausted. Drummond followed him over and searched him. but found him "clean"—that is, without tangible evi dence of his guilt in his possession. Aware he could not make a case that would hold in court against Ellis, Drummond let him go, but not until the counterfeiter had delivered this message for the benefit or all of us: "If any secret service man ever again tries to take me I'll kill him on sight." • • • Ellis was known throughout the serv ice as a man of ureal determina tion and disrega; d of consequences when it came lo keeping his r.kin whole, and his sworn threat to Drum mond made hint a man to be feared un less we took hint unawares, i was comparatively young In the nervier then and very ambitious. 1 decided that Kills w 'i* in my territory, and a he was a particularly dam i row cus tomer, besides having > raped from one of the best operatives in the depart ment, II would lie much to my credit it I captured hiui. and at the tame time would ritt th public ol a sagacious couuterft iter. CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 1906. By syntematlc "piping" and thetis« of "st<K)l pigeons" 1 learned in the early part of 1875 that Kills was one of a band of "coney" men wiio were run ning off a big issue of scrip iu the town of Boscobel, in the central western part of Wisconsin. Despite the studied and artful secrecy of the counterfeiters it is true that sel dom was a big Issue of "coney" floated without the secret service having some intimation of the forthcoming eveni. The "shoving" of an issue was always preceded by the absolute retirement of the manufacturers aud the mysterious activity on the part of the dealers. In other worus, the coming event got into the wind, aud, while we may have had no definite knowledge whatever, we could scent the approaching issue in cases by keeping in touch with the dif ferent men who were always under sus picion. In this case it was learned that Napoleon B. Latta, a wealthy French farmer living 15 miles from Boscobel, had contracted with the lSllis crowd for all the "coney" they could furnish him of a certain standard of excellence. We even got so far into the secrets of the "coney" men as to learn that Latta was to pay 35 cents in genuine money for each dollar of representative currency, which, by the way, was an unusually high price, as the market quotation in those days for a good quality of "co ney" was 17 cents on the dollar. In the spring of 1878, therefore, I went to Boscobel. Registering at the hotel under a false name and from a small town in Missouri, I kept pretty much to myself and out of sight. In order to keep the landlord from be coming inquisitive, as the landlards of hotels in small towns are prone to do, I asked him a number of questions con cerning the opportunity for successful ly loaning money on farms In the vicin ity. These questions had the desired effect of preventing others from ask ing me questions which I might arouse suspicion by not answering. • • • In the engraving department 9f the United States government there is an elaborate system of screens, reflectors and shades by which is obtained the pe culiar soft light necessary to the en graving of plates from which currency is printed. By counterfeiters this sys tem must be imitated as closely as limited facilities will permit, and I believe to this day I could pick out any house in which counterfeiting was be- ing carried on in any town of such size as would allow an inspection of all the houses. Boscobel was not so large but that it was easy to locate the rendezvous of the counterfeiters. As usual it was on the outskirts of the town and its nearest neighbor was 100 yards away. There was but one house beyond it on the street. The house was a two-story frame structure. The peculiar arrange ment of the curtains on the second floor told the tale without any other information. Malcolm Robinson and his wife oc cupied the house by themselves, accord ing to the belief of the townspeople. The facts were, however, as revealed by investigation, that Robinson and his wife occupied the lower story and Kaie Ellis and Franklin J. Brown the upper story. The three men were counter feiters. Robinson was the "manufac turer" of the Boscobel crowd. Brown being the printer under Robinson's di rection. Ellis was the engraver, as 1 have previously told, but at that par ticular time he was also aiding in the ivork of running off the issue for the use of "Nap" Latta. Brown and Ellis seldom went down stairs, and were never seen by the neighbors, their meals being served them upstairs by Mrs. Robinson. The little exeVcise they got was taken un der cover of the night. The life of the counterfeiter st his busy times is not a bed of roses, by any moans, for it requires the utmost concentration and application of effort. The longer the delay in producing an issue the greater danger of discovery, and such a task, once begun, is followed with tremendous diligence until the output is in the hands of the dealer and the genuine coin of the realm safely in the hands of the manufacturers of the "coney." • • • I took some time to satisfy myself as to the exact conditions prevailing In and around the Jiobiusou residence. 1 hail not forgotten Kale Ellis' littlo pleasantry iu regard to the probable fate of any secret service men who at iempt"d to capture him. and I did not intend to take any more chances thaa ni'C' -ary when it came to planning lor the event. I Jut the time soon came when It Ki-etned certain no mistake ••■mill be made in raiding the Itobinson house. ITo lie Continued.l Mlsfltt. Hill What madf the breach bet nveti >ou ami yyur tailor? Jill Breeches. Vonkers Stat<suiuu. TERRIBLE SCALP HUMOR. Head Covered with Humor Sores, with Loss of Hair—Another Speedy Cure by Cuticura Remedies. "All my life I had been troubled more or iess with humor in my sculp, but about a year ago it became worse, and my scalp was covered with little sores, which itched so it nearly made me crazy ; my hair also began to get dry and tall out. I tried all kinds of hair restorers with no effect, and I was nearly discour aged; but one day I was reading in a pa per what the Cuticura Remedies had done for scalp diseases, and decided to make a trial. I got a cake of Cuticura Soap, a box of Ctitiiura Otntment and Cuticura Resolvent Pills. J. used them according to directions, and soon noticed a differ ence; the tiny sores on my scalp began to heal, the itching stopped, and my hair began to grow thick. I have used only the one cake of Soup, one box of Ointment, and one vial of Pills, and now T have no humor on my scalp and my hair is soft and silky. Miss Mayzie C. Atkins, Box 32, East Orleans, Mass., Mar. 19, 1905." Upside Down. "So rou don't believe in College edu cat ion "No, sir. After graudation I nearl; starved to deafch practicing law." "But you look prosperous now." "Yes, sir. I went into vaudeville and made a fortune balancing a barrel on my feet while standing on my head." —Detroit Free PMSS. «. As Soon as Spring Comes the need of Garfield Tea is keenly felt. This wonderful herb medicine purifies the blood, cleanses the system, clears the com plexion and insures a natural action ot the liver, kidneys, stomach and bowels. Good for young and old, at all seasons. Somewhat Different. "T nay, old man," said Joaliem, "did you ever see a cakewalk?" "No," replied Soberleigh, "but I've seen a cheese that might have walked if the cage door had been left open."—Chicago Daily News. — Ladies Can Wear Shoes One size smaller after using Allen's Foot- Ease. A certain cure for swollen, sweating, hot, aching feet. At all Druggists, 25c. Ac cept no substitute. Trial package FREE. Address A. S. Olmsted. Le Roy, N. Y. No Simple Life. He (guardedly)—Do you believe the old saying that two can live as cheap as one? Sho funreservedlyV* -Yes, if they are a cheap couDle to begin with. —St. Louis Post-Dispatch. How to cure Biliousness, Stomach Dis orders, Chronic Constipation, Bladder, Liver and Kidney Irregularities, take Spanish Cross Tea for a month. 25c a package. "I have here a model," said the in ventor to the manufacturer, "of an ap pliance that is sure to have a large sale if it is put on the market." Do your clothes look yellow? If so, use Red Cross Ball Blue. It will make them white us snow. 2 oz. package, 5 cents. The man who spends his money as he makes it may argue that a bird in the hand is worth a whole aviary in the hands of his executors. An instantaneous cure for Rheumatism, Neuralgia, Toothache, Headache, Lame ness, Backache, is Dr. Bayer's Penetrating Oil. 25c a bottle. Take no substitutes. Many a man who would scorn to ac eept money is bribed with flattery and doesn't know it. Clear white clothes are a sign that the housekeeper uses Red Cross Bail Blue. Large 2 oz. package, 5 cents. Some people lave themselves almost to death. A COLD BROUGHT IT ON. Severe Congestion of the Kidneys Soon Cured by Doan's Kidney Pills. Richard M. Pearee, a prominent busi ness man of 231 So. Orange St., Newark, N. J.f says: "Working 1 nights during bad weather brought on a heavy cold, aching of the limbs §and pain in the back and kidnej'S. Srvere congestion of the kid neys followed. Be sides the terrific ach ing there were whirl ing headaches, and I became exceedingly weak. My doctor could not help me, and I turned to Doan's Kidney Pills, with the result that the kidney congestion disappeared, and, with it, all the other symptoms. What is more, the cure has lasted for eight years." Sold by all dealers. 50 cents a box. Foster-Milburii Co., Buffalo, N. Y. THE BEST COUGH CURE | Many a lonesome and expensive S 2 trip to Florida, California or the 2 4 Adirondacks haa been saved by m v the use of 0 \Kemp's Balsams i the best cough cure. If this great 4 m remedy will not euro the cough, no m medicine will, and then all hope $ £ rests in a change of climate —but w J try Kemp's Balsam first. J J Sold by all dealers at 25c. and s<k. MOTHER CRAY'S J-n4 SW££Y FO WtiERS FOR GHSLOREM, C *' " r t 'i' in 1 " r " ,ur ru|| ""**< / Wiimueh Tiuuhl,,, Ti'i'tttiiiu i '•» I« <• r «le rl, >1 lt<a>iny j Tli<»jr HrrrtU N .• 11l IMI n 11...11 H. At all liruMH >co. 11 t| » 11..i.,.,pum|.1u Mil',l,, /d.lrt, kc* Yorkcitjr.>A. S. OLMSTED, Lc 3or. N.V. v <a \it ynti:!m> < I m: mit EPILEPTIC FITS Ir.ateit Blhotiii'. If not mr.,l « II rrfmi.l vour '* '■ >"* l iltf :» t write li> , I. if •pniii|.iiuU ui. | term v No one «au 1. •TAS. T. CItONt Y, M. n„ Unias NiiUbil ttak Builiiai. . tUlliMStiS, OttiU. I Lloyd. | iWE have the best stocked general store in the OOTID ty M and if you are looking for re liable goods at reasonable j| prices, we are ready to serve g you with the best to be found. H p Our reputation for trust- fi 8 worthy goods and fair dealing jj; is too well known to sell any I jj but high grade goods. jj I Oar stock of Queensware and jj] | Ohinaware is selected with flj great care and we have some p of the most handsome dishes Ij | ever shown in this seotion, k B both in imported and domestic p Rj makes. We invite you to visit |1 W us and look our goods over. Ji u I I I 1 1 IB I Balcom & Lloyd. J LOOK ELSEWHERE BUT DON'T FORGET |! || THESE PRICES AND FACTS AT Ij I Laß AITS I I! M 11 M M M h We carry in stock . ~^| kg the largest line of Car- . l *1 | J pets, Linoleums and S£_ f] E3 Matting's of all kinds , «W El ever brought to this , MffilEl 112? town. Also a big line '■:*!&#&*; Uof samples. - JMEEI A very large line ot '-FOR THE PI Lace Curtains that can- _ . _T~77_ri;.. - £§ m XrcVrThfpHce COMFORTABLE LOD6ING u Art Squares and of fine books in a choice library jjjjjj Rugs of all sizes and select the Ideal pattern of Globe- M kind, from the cheap- Wernicke "Elastic" Bookcase. est to the best. Furnished with bevel French M N plate or leaded glass doors I jj M Dining Chairs, I ro * s««-e »* I j|jg M Rockers and GEO. J. LaBAR, I ** ftjfl High Chairs. Bole Agent for Cameron County. fcjN A large and elegant • - J fi line of Tufted and Drop-head Couches. Beauties end at bargain prices. M fci It M S3O Bedroom Suits, CIC f-10 SVdeboard, quar- ffOH * solid oak at tcred cak 4>uU J? |2B Bedroom Suits, COI $32 Sideboard, quar- COC *5 Pi solid oak at 4)ZJ tered oak 41/J ** $25 Bed room Suits, C *)fl f"-2 Sideboaid, quar- Clc N N solid oak at J)ZU J it red oak, W N A large lino of Dressers from I Chiffoniers of all kinds and M N $S up. I a 1 prices. J* # ** —.—.— n &.5 The finest line of Sewing Machines on the market, bij II the "DOMESTIC" and "ELDRJLGE.' All drop- JJ £2 heads and warranted. A fine line of Dishes, common grade* and China, in fj sets and by the ]>iece. PI As I keep a full line of everything that goes to &V M make up a good Furniture stoie, it is useless to cuum- H crate them all. Please call and see for yourself that lam telling Kg y you the truth, and it you don't buy, there is no harm kg Mdone, as it is no trouble to show koods. ?? h M !i GEO. J .LaBAR. \\ UNDEHITAIiIISTCr.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers