Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-05-31
HOW THE JOB WAS DONE
A COunterfeiteI' story OF Work I'm
the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing.



eff you want to see man who can tell
you about some of the crooked business
that has been done in the Bureau of En-
craving and Printing, can show you
one" said detective to q Sun reporter.
Then he LED the way to dingy base
ment of lodging house on the east side
amid cluster of tenements and saloons.
A feeble lamp lighted the interior. Sit
ting by an old table was a man who
once had been handsome. He was tall,
well built, and had long, bushy beard.
His eyes were blue, his nose was rather
large, but well formed. His complexion
was fair. His voice was smooth, and he
had the air of a man who had seen bet
ter days Assured by the detective that
he would not be betrayed the man said:
81 have seen the time when l did not
mind going out to spend $500 in a night
That was when we did the greatest job
| of putting ont counterfeit mOLey that
was ever done in this country, and when
we worked the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing. There was lots of money put
up and it was long job, but we worked
it successfully. 1t took us over a year,
and we spent $4,000 on it.
"Hank Hall, Josh Miner and Peter
Smith were the men who put the job up.
Their plan was to get some of the genu-
inc work out of the Bureau of Engrav-
ing and Printing. This was about 1866.
They got Minnie Langdon, her husband,
Ned Langdon, and her father-in-law to
go to work in the bureau. The Lang
dons were plate printers, and the plan
was to get them to steal lead impressions
of the genuine plates of the 730 Treasury
notes and other government plates.
They worked year in the bureau, and
took out parts of the work at various
times. These lead impressions were
used as matrix from which to make
electrotype plates,
81 recOllect well the day when Minnie
Langdon brought the lead impression of
the Z 30s and compound interest notes
to New York. She gave it to me- and 1
gave her 81, 500 cash. We had been
supplying her and her relatives with
money all the time they were at work in
the bureau. After we got the lead i'm
preston it took three or four months to
get the plates ready, but when they were
done the notes printed from them were
as good as the genuine. They were, in
fact, printed from copies of the genuine
plates.
"The very first day the counterfeit
was issued we put out $500, 600 of them
in the city of New York alone. We
found no difficulty in passing them any
where. Banks, bankers, brokers, level
ers, store keepers, everybody to whom
they were offered took them without
suspicion. The same operation was
repeated elsewhere. The whole thing
was done very quickly. and the country
was flooded with $500, 900 of the counter.
felt money before it was discovered.
Some of the biggest bankers in New
York, among others Jay Cooke and Fix
d Hatch, took them unsuspectingly. Ii
was three days before the counterfeit was
detected. Then there was trouble
'The way the thing came out was by
the capture of Chick Treat in the oil
regions in the act of passing some of the
money. Hank Hall and some of the
others were with him. Then Col. VIM.
p Wood, Chief of the Secret Service
Department, discovered the plot, traced
out the gang, and arrested four of us,
including the Langdons and myself.
1.-THE bankers had passed some of the
money on the Treasury Department, and
eminent officers did not detect it until
long after the bankers mad got their
money. There was big lawsuit, and
long trial grew out of this counterfeit.
The bankers refused to refund, and in
sisted that the notes were genuine. They
brought experts to swear that they had
worked in the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing, and knew the work to be
genuine. The bankers made hard fight
of it, but they were beaten. and had to
refund, think, about $50, 000 This was
saved to the government by the efforts of
Col Wood.
"How is it that 1 am not afraid to tell
the story? Well. you may say this, that
l knew too much about how the work was
got out of the bureau for the govern
ment 10 be very hard on me. They were
glad to let up on me very easy. The job
was a success from beginning to end,
and paid us well for all the trouble we
had in getting 1t through Most of the
gang got of with very little punishment.
Minnie Langdon turned States evidence.
Her husband died not long after he got
his share of the money. The old man
Langdon was, believe, at work in the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing when
he was arrested