Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-06-17
|HE SANE Old TRICKS
L.W. Shear, Once j. C.Vigneaux,
AbsCOnds With Insurance
Company's Funds.
Rose to Prominence in Michigan
Towns Church and Social
Circles.
Repeats Exactly His Career as
Vigneaux at Grinnell .-. Is
Incompatible.

Grinnell, June 17.-Word has reached
here from Muskegon, Mich, that l.. w
Shear, alias j. c. VigneauX, once an alb
sconder and exceedingly interesting
favorite performance once again, ant
is sought by the Michigan sheriff. The
information reads: L. w. Shear, dis
trict gent of the Northwestern Mutua
Life Insurance Company. prominent ir
| local business, church and society cir
cles, can not be found.
From information contained in q
letter received by his wife yesterday, il
is believed Shear is defaulter and has
run away to avoid his troubles.
"A $500 reward has been offered by
Sheriff Payne for his capture on the
charge of being a defaulter.
Shear has lived here four or five
years, owns an elegant residence here
besides a palatial summer home OF
White lake at Whitehall, and has al
ways been highly respected.
He left his city home to go to his
family in Whitehall Wednesday, but
nothing was heard from him until yes
| terday, when Mrs. Shear received let
ter which had been mailed on a train
but which gave no clew to his wherea-
bouts.
Mrs. Shear refuses to make pubic
the full contents OF the letter, but i
contained an irtimation, i. is claimed
that his heavy living expenses hat
compelled him TO leave forever.
'Bookkeeper Bennett of the Crane
Rapids office of George H. Newell, state
ant General Agent Copeland of Mil
waukee tonight completed an investi-
CATION of Shears books, which bal
anced until June 1.
SHEAR collected thousands of dol.
lars weekly and drew a large salary
He lived eXtravagantly, never going tc
the theatar without a dozen or SO o.
guests, and was fond of giving costly
dinner parties.
1T developed today that Mr.. Smear
left several creditors. The local ones
so far as learned, are Frank II. Smith
$4,000; j. Harvey McCracken, Pau
B. McCracken, William Carpenter anC
Cashier F. E. Hammond of the Muske-
gon State Bank.
Mr. Shear was a prominent church
and Sunday school worker, and was g
trustee of the First Congregations
church, the organization to which
Charles H. Hackley recently presented
a hospital.
"Mr Shear was So years of age. His
wife and four daughters are Frustrated
This man played a similar role IL
| ~. Of
Vigneaux He came to Grinnell year.
ago as destitute almost as tramp
Being an expert binder he secured
work in the Herald office and begar
to exert his personality which has no
an equal in all the land. A most YER
satilc, entertaining man, an omnivorou:
reader, possessed of a marvellous mem.
DRY and glibneSs of speech that wa:
altogether too swift to keep the beater
paths of truth, he soon won his wa,
to a high pinnacle of popularity. HI
knew enough of the bible to discus.
Its teachings intelligently with tn,
venerable bible students gathered abou
the college, he soon became prominen
in the Congregational church and Sun.
day school
VigneauX was his assumed name
Luther w. Shear being his right name
which afforded him the pleasant farce
of passing as Frenchman. Altho ht
had never stepped off of American
soil and could claim not drop O.
Gaelic blood. He used to deliver stere.
optican lectures on the Crimaean wal
as an eyewitness and delighted to pose
as a veteran of that war altho those
with dot Of
ence knew that the war was Tough
and settled when Vigneaux was abou
four years old. Yet so extensive haC
been his reading and so vivid his de-
scription that the deception passed
with all but a few very close students
of history. His illustrated lectures or
My visit to the Holy Land" were
popular in many an Iowa town anc
yet those who knew him best now be-
lieve he never saw the Holy Land any
more than in the books he read.
Vigneaux entered the life insurance
business and so successful did he be.
come that he was given first distric
agency, a state agency and finally sew
eral states. He was custodian of the
public library funds when the move.
ment was struggling in it's incipient eff
forts. Finally one evening, in the early
months of 1895, this most prominent
popular and respected citizen of Grin
nell, borrowed few dollars of friends
in the stores around town and skipped
1t was then discovered that he hac
been forging notes and resorting to
various schemes of fraud. The in
surance company for which he worked
found him again and sent him to At
llanta, Ga. The company begged sc
hard for leniency and his friends OF
the Congregational church plead fol
true Christian forgiveness to be shown
him that no one prosecuted and during
the years since '95 he has been send
ing money to Grinnell to pay up his
defalcations. Now his employers, doubt
less, wish that he had been punished
at first, for the repetition of his Grin
nell career at Muskegon, has hit them
| harder than at Grinnell. However he
had earned his employers lots of money
for he was veritable phenomenon as
an agent.