The Cooperstown courier. (Cooperstown, Griggs Co., N.D.) 1902-1913, 1905-10-19

Of the motives for the proposed crime
the desire Tor the release of Ben Boyd,
which knew to be . consideration Of
the utmost importance to the men
whose operations had been SO abrupt
)ly curtail.d by the plate cutters in.
generation.
The -,oment was one for action,
even q. the risk Of finding later that
the secret service had been led into
unnecessary activity by misinforma-
ton. My informant had learned that
certain st. Louis men, whose names
he cid not know, were parties to the
plot. Previously a similar plot, em-
anating from the same sources, had
been revealed to Chief of Police Will
kinson, Of Springfield. In this plan
James Kinealy had evidently been the
promoter, and had decided to use the
Lincoln counterfeiting contingent as
his agents. Thomas j. Sharp, editor
Of the Statesman; Nathin l.. Curtis,
his assistant, and Vive G. Williams, o
bartender of Lincoln, as the first step,
opened saloon in Springfield, which
they made their counterfeiting head
quarters as we'll as the place from
which they could gather, without ex-
citing suspicion, such information as
they needed to aid them in their work
of stealing the body of Lincoln.
From the facts that the sum Of ram
som money proposed in mis- plot and
the later sum were the same and that
the interests of all the men in botA
plots were closely allied, there was
little doubt that one man had con-
ceived the Scheme to release Boyd, and
there was also little doubt that the
one man was James Kinealy. He was
capable of concocting and trying to
carry out such plot.
The dream of the easy acquisition OF
100000 led the counterfeiters who had
opened the saloon in Springfield into
the lavish expenditure of money and
dissipation. In one of these bouts
Thomas Sharp confided to woman
of the. town of Springfield that he ex-
pected soon to become one of the bene-
ficiaries of the 100000 ransom fund
and intimated to her the plan by
which the money was to be secured.
This woman informed Chief Wilkinson
of the drunken boasts of her admirer.
Wilkinson Immediately took steps to
place additional guards over the Lin
coin tomb and took such other pre-
cautions as indicated to the conspir-
ators that their plan could not be car
ried out. It was in this first plot that
the leaden casket containing the body
OF Lincoln was to be sunk in the SAM
canon river till its hiding place
should be- revealed by Ben Boyd.
After coming into possession of the
information concerning the second
plot sent Swegles hack to Hughes to
keep in touch with the movements Of
the conspirators as closely as possible.
He succeeded SO we'll in tn.s that he
was chosen to be one of the men to
engage actively in the work, and the
details of the plan were intrusted to
him without reservation. He was to
furnish the light spring wagon in
which the casket was to be conveyed
from Springfield. The plan to sink the
casket in the Sangamon river. pro-
posed in the first plot, had been aban-
doned, and instead the body was to
be hauled swiftly from Springfield by
relays Of horses into the sand dunes
OF northern Indiana and buried. The
conspirators calculated that the shift
ing of these dunes due to the action
of the wind would soon obliterate all
trace of wagon tracks and signs Of
burial and maze hiding place abso-
lutely past the power Of any man to
find.
The ghouis were to keep track of the
place of burial by taking measure
ments from some natural object, such
as a tree, transmitting the key to the
burial spot to Ben Boyd in Joliet.
The negotiations for the return of the
body, in exchange for his own release
and the payment of $2OO,000 ransom,
were to be conducted by Boyd on be-
half of the counterfeiters. In order to
render the opening of these negotia-
tions the easier, the conspirators cal-
culated, plan would have to be de-
vised by which the federal authorities
could be easily convinced that Boyd
could actually furnish the information
concerning the location of the body
in short, they foresaw that Boyd
would have to be in position to prove
to the authorities that he had accurate
knowledge of its whereabouts.
In order to overcome this obstacle
it was decided that copy o. an Eng
lish or some other foreign newspaper
should be secured, foreign paper be-
ing decided upon SO that Boyd could
convince the government representa-
tives that the copy of the paper of
which ne had part was not one that
could have been obtained in any other
way than the one claimed by him.
This newspaper was to be torn into
two pieces, in an irregular fashion.
One piece was to be left in the Lin
coin tomb, where 1t was certain to be
found when the discovery of the loss
of the body was made, and the other
piece was to be sent to Boyd in prison.
After the discovery of the work of the
ghouls Boyd was to let it be known
that he could solve the mystery and,
to prove ne told the truth, could pro-
duce the missing part Of the foreign
paper which, of course, would demon
strate to the authorities that the tomb
robbers had sent Boyd the paper and
IL "a L.