The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-08-14
KNEW BR0CKWAY WELL
4 MERIDEN MANS RECOLLECTION
or THE NOTORIOUS FORGER.

He Worked Close to Him in New Haven
Years Ago and Saw Some of the Good
Money That He and His Pal Got In Ex-
change for COunterfeIts.
Yesterdays Merlden Journal says;
Walter Stickney, the veteran carriage
builder on Mill street, says that he
has to smile when he sees in some of
the state papers articles which an
nounce that William r. Brockway, the
notorious New York forger, was a
student at Yale college, etc.
Mr. Stickney knows the counterfeiter
as well as he does his most intimate
friend in Meriden, and relates many
anecdotes of Brockway's career in New
Haven. Brockway, Mr.. Stickney says,
came to New Haven from some place
along the Connecticut river (probably
ESSEX, and went to work learning the
copper plate printing trade at Cor
hams.
This was along in the forties and
Mr. Stickney was learning the carriage
building trade at shop owned by a
man named Hoadley, the same man
who built the Hoadley building in the
Elm City. Brockway was not the
handsome, keen, bright, intelligent,
studious young man that the reporters
have so wildly pictured as attending
Yale college.
He was, so the Meriden man states
only an ordinary, common, every day
mechanic. In those good old days OF
state banks, the whole of the green
backs issued by the New Haven banks
We're printed at Gorham's. The old
| bee Hive bank so called because there
was picture of a bee hive over the
door, sent SO many sheets of bank note
| paper to Mr.. Gorham and would have
returned an equal number of crisp lega
| tenders.
Mr.. Gorham kept the copper plates or
which the bank notes were printed
a messenger from the bank or his office
carrying the bank note blank paper
or the printed notes between the two
places. Cupidity got the best o.
Brockway and, in some surreptitiout
manner, he got hold of a quantity o.
| the Identical paper used by the "Bet
Hive bank" now known as the New
Haven bank.
1t was then very easy for him t
print as many notes as he desired from
his employers copper plates. Brock
way was blessed with wife who wac
an expert penman, and she it was wht
| forged the name of the bank official!
to the queer" The president of tn,
bank, now deceased, was named Den
nison, and the president and cashier
were wont to sign their own names t.
the printed bank notes brought bacl
from Gorham's office.
| Mrs. Brockway was so adept at thu
business that President Dennison coulc
not tell his signature from her forger,
| of it.
| Brockway, Mr.. Stickney and anoth
er New Haven young man who was ais
learning the carriage business at Hoad
ley's, used to spend their evenings
playing poker This third man is still
/
old citizen there
! Brockway and Mr.. Stickney's frient
would take trips to unknown point
about so often to get rid of the spuriou
money. On their return from a western
trip they would flash good greenback
in front of Mr.. Stickney's dazzled eyes
| Everything went on swimmingly TO
some time until the counterfeit note
on President Dennison's bank began t.
float back. They began to come in il
such large quantities that the bank ha,
to call in it's entire circulation and star
off again with new notes. This wa
the only course as the real notes coul,
not be distinguished from Mr. and Mrs
Brockway's cunning work.
Meanwhile Mr.. Stickney had told MI
Hoadley of the rolls of bills shown b,
Brockway and Mr. Hoadleys employe
and naturally both came to the con
clusion that somebody was either crook
ed or else they had found a stack o
convenient greenbacks. Mr.. Hoadle
dropped hint in President Dennison'
ear, and the officers were put on tn
case.
One morning the police called at MI
Hoadley's office with a warrant for tn
arrest of Brockway's pal" AS tn
man was working on a particular piec
of work the police were told to wal
three days until the work was complet
ed. Before the time was up Brockwa
| shifted danger and fed out of the state
The accomplice of Brockway was nev
er arrested. Mr.. Stickney next heard o
Brockway in Hudson, N. Y, where h
has been with a gang of counterfeiters
Since Brockway left New Haven MI
Stickney, who worked twenty-five year
there, never once met him. When 4
New Haven Brockway lived on Georg
street.
1 HORSE 0FE