Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-07-11
GREATEST FORGER
CAREER OF M A. REAVIS
King of Confidence Men, Who Played a
Game Lasting a Quarter of a Century,
with 1880 900 Acres of Land
As the Stake.

William e. Curtis, writing from San
ia Fe to the Chicago Record, gave the
following sketch of a famous character:
James Addison Reavis, the king of
forgers, the most ingenious and auda-
cious swindler ever known in the Unit
ed States, who played a brilliant game
with u, 500, 900 acres of land as the stake
and lost, who fooled the ablest lawyers
and the sharpest financiers in the coun-
try, more recently known as convict No.
964 in the New Mexican ~penitentiary,
has lately been released from c%onfine-
ment. He served the term of two years
for which he was sentenced for forgery,
less his good behavior allowance, and
has gone to Denver, where his hand
some Mexican wife has been living-the
daughter of an ordinary Arizona
ranchero-who appeared in her hus-
bands schemes as "Her Exellentissimo
Dona Sofia Loretta Miceala de Peralta
Reavis, nee Maso y Silva de Peralta de
la Cordoba" ETC., etc. Her real name
" ts' eopiiin AIdoO, dilu oIlG WAS DOIH III
1862 on a ranch near the San Bernardino
mountains. Her mother was a common
Mexican woman, who could not read or
write, and her father was quite as igno-
rant. Yet, upon her beauty and natural
accomplishments Reavis built up a ro-
nance that brought him more than halt
a million dollars, but failed to carry
through the most audacious conspiracy
that has been conceived during the
present generation at least.
He worked at it with extraordinary
patience and skill for more than twen-
ty-five years. He not only forged a roy
al grant bearing the signature Of the
king of Spain and his ministers, but
also a series of wills, a large bunch OF
deeds, records of probate and other le-
gal proceedings, baptismal and mar
riage certificates, and, what was much
more difficult and daring, he invented
a long line of distinguished ancestors
for his peon wife, connected them by
ties of kinship with the royal house OF
Spain, secured a full set of their por-
traits, both in oil and on ivory minia-
lures, wrote their biographies, supplied
from his own brain correspondence that
had passed between them and distin-
guished ~personages of their time, and
surrounded them with such complete
and perfect evidences of existence that
men like Roscoe Conkling, ex-senator
Edmunds, Thomas F. Bayard, Robert
G. Ingersoll, Bourke Cochran and 9TH
ers were completely humbugged and
accepted his fictions for facts.
John w. Mackay, c. P. Huntington,
the late Leland Stanford, Charles
Croker and other famous financiers
furnished him money to carry on his
crime; the cabinet ministers Of Spain
and Mexico gave him their sanction and
assistance, and even prelates of the
Catholic church bore testimony to the
honesty and responsibility of the swim
dler and his bogus wife.
In all the annals of crime there can
not be found a more complete and com
prehensive conspiracy, and 1t cost the
government of the United States nearly
$25O,OO and several years of labor by
the department of Justice to expose the
fraud and send Reavis to prison for two
years.
Reavis was the son Of a farmer in
Henry county, Mo-, who wen into the
Confederate army during the civil war
and thereafter led a life of adventure
for several years in North, Central and
South America. He was a sailor and a
soldier, a clerk and bookkeeper, a street
a conductor, an insurance agent, a
drummer, and finally a real estate
agent in st. Louis. There he made the
acquaintance of a man named Willing
who hired him to investigate the gen.
uineness of an old Spanish grant for a
small piece Of property in Arizona. In
this inquiry Reavis learned the methods
and the laws of the old Spanish occupa-
ton, and his experience with the Will
ing claim seems to have suggested the
idea of getting up n for himself,
which he did on a most magnificent
scale.
After ten or twelve years of the most
ingenious and Industrious labor he
asked congress to confirm to his wife
the title to a tract Of land in New Mex
leo and Arizona nearly twice as large
as the state of Massachusetts,, about
forty miles wide and 300 miles long, and
containing a population Of 10000 or 40
900. The Santa Fe Railroad Company
recognized the justice of the claim be-
fore it vas acted upon by congress, and
paid him $55, 900 for a right of way
across his wife's property. The South
ern Pacific company not only paid a
greater amount for a right of way, but
its chief owners are said to have fur
nished Reavis from time to time not
less than $500, 900 to pay the expense Of
proving his title.
Several committees Of congress re-
ported f%avorably on the claim, and If II
had not been for the persistence with
which some of the settlers fought it the
title might have been confirmed by &
legislative act. Reavis, who spent 6
good deal Of time in Washington those
days, and lived with ostentatious ele.
gance at the Arlington hotel, had the
nerve to consent to an investigation by
the United States court Of claims, which
was never finished. In the midst Of the
proceedings the claimant was tried ant
convicted of forgery, and the great
structure he had spent SO much TIM
and skill in building collapsed like
house of cards. His distinguished at
torneys withdrew from the case, hi!
financial hackers %repudiated him, ant
a bill Of 100000 for board at the Hoff
man house, New York, still remains un