Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1905-08-26


of the secret service men operating in
the Mississippi valley It. will be re-
membered that Nelson briggs married
Gertrude Stadtfeldt, whose father,
mother, brother, sister and nephew
we're all counterfeiters, and who her.
self was valuable assistant to her
husband
These marriages are mentioned to
set forth the closeness of the ties
binding the different bands which, in
effect, were one band. There were
many other such marriages, but refer
ence to these will suffice.
Besides this bond of intermarriage
there was a strong property tie con-
Meeting the counterfeiting principals.
Nelson briggs, whose brother kept
hotel in Jersey City which was a rem
devious for "coney men," had $4,000
in cash, $4,000 acres of land in Texas
| and other property. Ben Boyd had
means IN plenty, as did Mccartney and
several others. They were men of
good habits in point of abstemious-
ness, and many of them lived Jekyll
and Hyde lives with such success that
in their respective communities tAey
were respected members of society
while making and showing the queer. ;"
Many of them were men of education.
Boyd had a magnificent library and
was student. Few of them, during
the reputable periods of their careers,
! engaged in business that was not hO0-
orable, among them being farmers,
contractors, professional men and an
editor.
To this rule, however, there were
two or three exceptions One of these
was James Kinealy, who, at the time
of this narrative, kept the 'Hub" sa-
loon at 294 West Madison street, Chi
cage, with Terrence Mullen as part
ner. Both Kinealy and Mullen had
| for years held close communion with
the counterfeiters of the central west,
/ and their saloon, while orderly enough,
was the general Chicago rendezvous of
dozens of the most desperate and ac-
| complished counterfeiters in the coun-
| try. In st. Louis saloon of similar
character was run by Fred Biebusch,
one of the most extensive dealers in
bogus currency in the world, Of whose
career and final capture l shall tell
in a subsequent narrative.
The same men that frequented the
Hub" in Chicago were at home in
Biebusch's in St. Louis. The halfway
station was the saloon in Lincoln, ILL.,,
kept by Robert Splane, a headquarters
for the large band of "koniackers"
that lived in and near Lincoln at that
time The principal members of the
Lincoln band were Benjamin T. Sher-
idan, farm owner; James L. Fox, Sr.
and Jr., contractors; Joseph de Haven,
! farmer; Thomas j. Sharp, editor of the
| Statesman, published in Lincoln; Ma
than L. Curtis Sharps outside man;
Robert Splane, saloon keeper, and
Vine G. W Illiams, bartender All of
these men were intimately associated
with kinealy and Mullen in Chicago
and Biebusch in St. Louis, as we'll as
with Nelson briggs, Ben Boyd, Pete
Mccartney and many other somewhat
less prominent. Another member of
the band was John Hughes, an all
around criminal and Doodle carrier for
Charles Stadtfeldt while the latter was
showing the queer" made from Boyd's
plates.
The Incarceration of Ben Boyd in
| the pen1tentiary had seriously crippled
the counterfeiting industry of the
country and especially among the dew
otees of the calling who were oper-
ating in Illinois. Nearly all the bogus
currency showed in the middle west
had been printed from Boyd's plates
and handled by briggs. During the
winter of 1875-76, when it became ap-
parent that the evidence against these
two arch-conspirators was sufficient to
began a series of conferences of the
'skoniackers" in Chicago, St. Louis and
Lincoln, at wl@tch was discussed the
prospective serious effect on the coun-
terfeiting business of the locking up
of it's best plate cutter The different
bands which had been fed from the
Boyd plates became more desperate as
the cutting off of their source of sup
ply became more certain and when,
finally, Boyd passed behind the gray
stone walls of the Joliet penitentiary
there was much wailing and gnashing
of teeth among the precious lot OF
criminals that infested the Mississippi
valley.
To add to their woes, eight months
after the capture of Boyd in Fulton,
Irvine White, another expert engraver
of counterfeit plates, had been arrest
ed in New Jersey, stopping this sec
ondary source of supply. The dealers
of Chicago, st. Louis and Lincoln
could, therefore, secure no "coney"
money worth the handling, and the
smaller dealers, from the Canadian
line to the gulf of Mexico, were send
ing in orders for bad money that could
not be filled The only plate available
for use at the time was the one OF a
$40 note of the Bank of Richmond,
Ind. This was what was known as