The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1880-12-08
A NOTED GAMBLERS LUCK.
]. H. Greene's Career of Adventure,
Wealth and Perjury.
A Singular Story of the Ups and Downs of
n Gamblers Life-RestltutiOn to His
Victims, and Want in Old Age
His Share i'm Anti
Gaming Legis-
IatIon.
rPhiladelphia Press.l

philadelphia Press.l
Over thirty years ago Jonathan II. Greene
was known as one OF the most expert gamb-
lers in the country. He was familiar with
all the arts calculated to deceive even the
most skillful, and had the faculty of win
ming money wherever he went. Possessed
of fair education, he supplied what was
deficient by natural shrewdness, quickened
by rough knocks from heartless world,
and he passed as a man of learning His
skill with cards was almost phenomenal, and
in the fifteen years he devoted to gamblinghe
He came in contact with the most noted
professionals of his day; he visited all the
principal cities of the Union, passing as a
man of means. which he spent like prince
and dressed in the most fashionable attire;
his society was cOurted and he was popular
with ali whom he met. To-day he lives in
a small house in the lower part of the city,
which is not even supplied with the neces-
saries of life, with family of seven children
looking 10 him for support. and destitute OF
the means of supplying them. In fact,
Jonathan Greene, who once had a bank ac-
count which could be reckoned by thou
sands, is a supplicant for charity. His fam
lily have barely the means TO keep body and
soul together. In personal appearance
Greene is striking. Tall and compactly
built, with an eye but little dimmed by his
seventy years of life, rich, melodious
voice. and a bearing that tells one who has
in times gone by associated with those who
were gentlemen, in bearing, at least.
HIS CAREER.
The career of Greene has been a remarka-
BILE one. First he acquired reputation as a
professional. and then he became known as
one of the most ardent advocates of the
laws enacted in Pennsylvania, New York,
Maryland and Ohio to make gambling
criminal offense He was born i'm Marietta.
Ohio. in July. 1873 in what was know as
the Campus Martius, a stOckade built by the
colony that had emigrated TO Marietta
County. His father had emigrated there
with his family of six children. four others
having been born there, of which Jonathan
was the youngest. His father had been
soldier in the Revolution, and was an archi-
tect and builder. 1t was he who drew the
plans and built the Blennerhassett Mansion,
twelve miles below the Muskingum River,
in Virginia, occupied by the man so init
mately associated with Aaron Burr, whose
Intimacy with his wife in after years gave rise
TO asuit that scandalized society. The family
soon after moved into the Territory of Indi-
ana, and here, when he was six years old,
his mother died. ION her death-bed," said
he, "she asked me never to drink intoxi-
eating liquors / gave her my word, and in
a few minutes she died, with her hand upon
my head. and blessing upon her lips. That
pledge | have never broken" And he in
voluntarily brushed tear from his eye
From that time until he was sixteen years
of age, he became wanderer his associates
being the Indian tribes that then held pos
possion of the Western country, the princi-
pal ones being the Cherokee, ChOctaw and
Creeks most of the time being III the Red
River as high up as Fort Towson, going up
the Red River, and cutting way through solid
RATS 10 get there. 1t was while leading this
Wild, careless life that he acquired his taste
for gambling, and on returning to his old
home in 1881, then grown 10 respectable pro-
portions, he launched forth into the current
that has carried so many down to ruin.
CARD SHARPER.
Bat success met him at every point, and
he soon became looked upon as a gambler
from whom ii was an honor TO win stake
He could read the cards by the backs almost
as readily as by the face; he was the first
man to deal the cards from the bottom of the
pack, and he was the inventor of four of the
advantage" boxes used in faro. Following
this up successfully for twelve years, his
winnings were naturally large and his oper-
atoms extended to all the principal cities of
the United States. Coming to Philadel phia
in 1885, he met a party of well-knOwn gam
blrrs, among whom were Pendleton, of
Washington; Campbell, of Baltimore, and
Hopkins. of New York, all experts He
played with them three consecutive days,
and walked out of the saloon at Sixth and
Chestnut streets richer by $4,000 than when
he entered. In 1912 he renowned the gam
ing table and decided To lead more honor
able life. Beginning in this city. he started
on a lecturing tour and went TO Harrisburg,
where, after a heavy outlay of money and
much time he had passed the gaming laws
now on the statute books. On the rostrum
he exposed the tricks OF gambling and
startled his audiences by the adroitness
with which he handled the cards. After
having the law passed in this State he went
To Kentucky, then To New York, then to
Ohio and Maryland, where he had similar
laws enacted. During the course of his
lectures here a weli-known professional
from South Carolina named Freeman de-
nounced him as fraud, a cheat, and hum
bug. He insisted that Greene could not do
the tricks he claimed. and challenged him
to pablicly debate the subject. This Greene
accepted, and the Chinese Museum, then at
Ninth and Chestnut, was selected AZ the
place. Rev. William Elder acted as Mod
orator. and on the platform were Rev. John
Chambers. Leonard Jewell and DIR. William
Gibbons. For three days the debates con-
tinued. and when il closed, and Greene won
Il signal victory, Freeman was so much inn
pressed with the force of thearguments used
that he renowned the profession and be-
came one of Greene's most ardent support
ers. "And not only that" said he, ''all his
gambling tools were presented TO me, which
still have in the house"
MAKING RESTITUTION.
When he gave up the business he made
restitution of all he had acquired while in
it In Woods County, Virginia, be gave to
different parties 10, 600 acres of land; in Gin
cinnati he gave away number of very
valuable houses and lots. and in other cities
he gave tn people vast fortunes. BY his lee
lures he made but little; by the sale of his
book, entitled Greene on Gaming" he
made less. and series of misfortunes has
reduced him to penury. His work on
gaming is acknowledged by experts to be
the most thorough expose of tricks of gam
blers that has appeared in print. He has
for two years past been arranging series
of letters the subject. which hetproposes
to collate under the head of Sixty Years
Gambler" which will he interpreted with
anecdotes of famous men of the green table
which have never yet appeared i'm print. 81
...ea l. L