The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-08-20

there remained two important facts
] confronting US One of these was that
while Robert Lindsay was the head and
1 front of the great conspiracy there were
: co-conspiratOrs almost as important
( The other was that sound legal cases
against all of them We're yet to be
made. / had abstracts or title MADE 10
/ tWenty-fOur parcels Of land, ana Dg
! following these and others through the
/ records of the Washington land office
/ had clearly established the fOrgeries OF
signatures to applications and deeds
I This record searching was tedious and
surrounded with many technicalities-
so many in fact that at one stage OF the
investigation I suggested that another
man more familiar with them be as
signed 10 the work, but Secretary
SchurZ declined to relieve me-
From the appearance of the name OF
Orlando Van Hise as secretary Of the
Missouri & Arkansas railroad il was
naturally to be inferred that this per
son either stood high in the confidence
and operations of Lindsay or was a
dummy who was allowing himself TO be
used. The former was found to be the
7 Orrect theory. and here I wish to in
reduce in his real identity the visitor
Who had gone over Lindsay's scheme
With him in the St Louis office in 1872
| Orlando Van Hise, a Cleveland real
! estate dealer IF good standing Aftec
} having had the beauties of the plot
/ expOUnded TO him by Lindsay, Van
I HiSe had become one of the chief east
ern agents for the Lindsay syndicate
and the member of the ring second in
Importance only TO the AIisSourian- I
/ found Van Hise had made frequent
\ trips TO southwestern Missouri AMI
j thoroughly famiharized himself with
! the lay Of the land The base of his
operations was Cleveland, where there
| were associated with him George Linn;
| John X. COrwin. notary public, and
J John +. Gardiner, a banker.
| During the investigation there had
fallen into my hands the letter heads
and advertising matter Of the ring. The
/ Real Estate Loan & Trust company or
/ St. Louis was operated from the Olive
/ street offices of Lindsay: while the
! International Land Agency was di-
I rected feom Lindsay's private Office in
/ Market street. The letter head Of the
! latter concern named George w Mel
| son as the eastern agent at PittsbUrg
( and Baltimore, Robert l. Lindsay the
western agent, w A Brown the selling
! representative in London and John
/ Gensler the agent at Kissingen, Ger
/ many.
After some work had been done At
/ IrontOn ad St Louis 7 went east In
/ PittsbUrg 1 found the four principal
members OF the ring TO be Addison T.
Burns, his father. William Burns,
J George w Nelson and H. R. Mcclellan.
Z 4 notary. A large and profitable bust
ness in the sale of these lands had been
! carried on there for years. Nelson had
been q particularly active sales agent.
! He was partially paralyzed and went
! among his friends representing himself
/ as land Door" the owner of vast, I'm
/ productive tracts. part of which he had
/ TO dispose of in order TO support him
self in his failing physical condition
There was an element OF sympathy in
some of Nelson's sales, but he was
cheerfully disregardfuI of the sym
pathetic feeling for him in unloading
worthless titles 10 thousands of acres
on his friends
Addison burns lived in Penn
avenue, PittsbUrg. and, in addition 20
handling Missouri lands, was a deale~
n in oil properties. he and his father
Y made frequent. trips Of inspection to
Missouri They were both church men,
bers in good standing. Like Van Hise.
they had learned the profession of Iand
grating to u nicely, but unlike Van
| HiSe, they had done some business in
| the line Of actually making fraduleuc
! deeds on their own hook Mcclellan
was notary doing the same kind OF
work in Pittsburg as Corwin did in
! Cleveland
The activity of Addison and William
Burns in using their own chirography
in the manufacturing of deeds rendered
( II comparatively easy TO establish Il
case against them, it being necessar-
only to prove the forgery. Some of this
! work was done so cleverly that at the
| trial of these men persons whose sig
! natures had been forged claimed the
| fOrgeries as their own writing. The
! case against the PittSbUTg contingent
was established principally by eOmpaTi-
sons in the government land Office.
These members of the ring we therefore
I made a secondary issue of pending the
execution of a plan to catch Lindsay
and Van Hise in such a way they could
find no Ioophole for escape.
Developments up to this time had
revealed not less than twenty active
members of the land league. AS might
be expected, they ali We're in close
touch with one another and with the
lringleader, and it became apparent that
! in order TO capture all and effectualIy
| smash the ring some plan would have
to be devised whereby the federal au-
| thoritieS could move against them all
simultaneously. Still placing most i'm
pOrtance on making sound cases
| against Lindsay and Van Hise, 1 called
to my assistance Z. NJ. Stedman. a Sc
cret service operative of much ability
Assume the role of a Iumberman
looking for a site 10 operate a mill,
! were my instructions. go to Shannon
/ county and open negotiations with
Lindsay personally for a tract Of tim
Der land, holding the deal open till we
! are ready TO act
Stedman followed Instructions i'm
plicitely. Attired as a sawmiu man of
some means, he began negotia lions
with LINDSAY IOr shannon county LaIlOS-
! Lindsay took the bait and offered To
sell him a fine tract of $4,000 acres a
80 cents an acre. These negotiations
| were conducted personally. Lindsay
| claimed to own the land. assuring Il
good title, and represented himself as
! the owner Of thousands of acres of
other land in different counties in Mis-
souri,. Stedman left Lindsay without
closing the deal and went to NintOn.
Ia, his supposed home. to which place
he told Lindsay he had been called by
important business. From NintOn he
wrote to Lindsay asking for descrip-
/ tons of other tracts. The purpose OF
opening such a CORES ondence was TO
get Lindsay on record in writing
Again the arch cOnspirator swallowed
the bait, sending TO Stedman i'm his own
handwriting. descriptions of various
| tracts he thought might be suitable for
his correspondents supposed purpose
While in the East working on the
| Pittsburg angle of the case, I wrote
from Erie. Pa. to Orlando Van Hise in
Cleveland. representing myself as
James Hall. a sawmill owner looking
for a new business base Van Hise's
advertisemet of timber lands had at