The Alamogordo news. (Alamogordo, N.M.) 1899-1912, 1900-09-27
Eighteen Years of Persistent Work
to Perfect His Immense
Land Steal.
THE FORGERHS OF PRINCE REAVIS
Pulled Wool Over the Eyes of Robert G
IngerSOll and Other Lawyers of
National Repute-The
Reavis of Today.

A tall, thin, gray-haired, haggard
man, who lives in lonely, squalid cab
in home in the outskirts of Albuquerque
New Mexico, where he earns pittance
by looking after bunch of horses
along the Rio Grande, has been the
boldest, most remarkable character in
the southwest, and very likely the most
daring forger the United States has
ever known. Senator Teller, of Colora-
do, said recently that this poor, broken,
prematnrely old man has been the most
extraordinary criminal of modern times,
and Robert G. Ingersoll wrote few
years ago that this same man was the
most remarkable legal fabricator he
had ever heard of.
He is James Addison Reavis. or as the
people of that region used to know him.
Prince Reavis. Through eighteen years
of persistent schening, ceaseless activ-
ity and never tagging perseverance, he
built up fraudulent title to 13,40O. 900
acres of the most valuable strips of land
in Arizona and New Mexico.
A dozen of the leading LAWYERS of
America believed his claim to be unas-
sailable, and for time it seemed as If
he would soon be vested with the right
to the property he claimed. The aver
age career in forgery is limited to doz-
en-, or possibly score of checks, drafts
or negotiable notes. But here is man
who forged long deeds in Spanish, in
serted fabricated documents in ancien t
and guarded public records, invented
royal Spanish cedulas, manufactured
wills a century or more old, fabricated
detailed probate proceedings during the
eighteenth century, altered the alcaldes
records at Guadalajara, Mexico. and the
old cathedral records now kept in Mad
rid, Spain. He got up old and beauti-
fully colored documents on parchment,
showing the births and baptismal re
cords of thirty-three ancestors, from
Seville, Spain, in 1904, to Monterey,
Mexico, in 1916. He gave each aBces-
tor an individuality, presenting lot of
traditions concerning different ones.
In this he exhibited as much art as the
novelist does in conceiving a book full
of characters. And he did this so in
geniOusly, and worked out the plot so
finely, that lawyers of national reputa-
tion believed that his chain of evidence
was fiawless.
The court of private land claims
unanimously rejected Reavis' claim.
The same day he was arrested for con-
spiracy and was speedily tried. Mrs.
Reavis went on the witness-Stand. I'm
der searching cross-examination she
broke down and confessed that she had
been married solely because her hus-
band wanted someone to help his claim
to the mythical barony of Arizona.
Amid her tears she told how she had
been taken to Mexico to acquaint her
with the local color of her supposed
home there, and how she had been drill
ed daily for several years concerning
what she was to say of her childish
recollections and the Peralta family
history.
Reavis was convicted and sentenced
to the penitentiary at Santa Fe for six
years. That was in January, 1895. He
earned time by good conduct, and last
September he was set at liberty. There
are four indictments hanging over him,
but he is shrunken, miserable man in
wretched health, mere wreck, and it
is not likely that he will be called again
to a human bar of justice.