Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-07-02

his brother-in-law. another son of James
Lindsay, mail clerk on the Iron Mountain
railroad. This was a combination / feared,
that would render it impossible for me to
send reports out of Ironton in the usual
way, and l Immediately arranged to for
ward reports from another point. Subse-
quently it developed that lronton letters
were frequently tempered with and lost
Robert l.. Lindsay maintained three Of
fices-one in Olive street, St Louis. another
in Market street in the same city, and one
at Ironton. At the latter Office he had in
his employ seven eight persons, most of
whom, l learned from cautious inquory
were employed steadily in making out deeds
to lands in the district. l could find no evil
dence to show that these employees had
anything like a complete conception of the
character of the work in which they were
engaged.
The grist of deeds being ground out at
the Lindsay mill in Ironton were based on
patents issued by the government many
years before and never claimed. / could
not understand therefore, how such a game
could successfully be played with deeds
that showed their recent manufacture on
their face. 1t became apparent, both from
examination and investigation that the
Lindsay deeds had been treated with coffee
These deeds came to be generally known
as smoked" deeds.
X
Land stealing from the government is a
left no means neglected, not only to con-
fuse the records but to destroy those
through which their crimes might be traced.
In this work they had adopted wholesale
methods-the burning of county court
houses in which the records were kept.
Lindsay had preserved abstracts of title
to such lands as he was dealing in. 1t was
to his interest TO have the official records
destroyed This being true and Lindsay
having brought the majority of the county
officials under his corrupt influence, the
work of destruction was accomplished.
While there remained much detail work
to be done l believed we had pretty good
line on the activities of Lindsay. In addi-
ton to the points l have mentioned, 1 had
learned from Col. Grayson, a banker. that
James Lindsay had a large number of old
land patents concealed in the safe of an
1ronton lawyer. There was no doubt of
the elder Lindsays having connived at the
removal from the land office of thousands
of patents by his while Lindsay, ST.,
was registrar, and it is still a question in
ny mind whether the father had not been
the actual originator of the steal and
turned the execution of 1t over to his son.
But even had this been true the statute of
limitations had run against his offense, and
there was no use in wasting time securing
evidence against the father except such
might be of benefit in convicting the son.
But, clear as these conditions were, there
remained two important facts confront
ing us. One of these was that while Robert
Lindsay was the head and front of the
great conspiracy there were eo-conspira-
tors almost as important The other was
that sound legal cases against all of them
were yet to be made. l had abstracts of
title made to twenty-four parcels of land,
and by following these and others through
the records of the Washington land Of
fee had clearly established the forgeries
of signatures to applications and deeds.
This record searching was tedious and sur
rounded with many technicalities-so many
In fact that at one stage of the investiga-
ton l suggested that another man more
familiar with them be assigned to the work,
but Secretary Schurz declined to relieve me.
\
From the appearance of the name of Or
lando Van Hise as secretary of the Mis-
souri, and Arkansas railroad, one of Lind
says projects. 1t was naturally to be in
ferred that this person 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
correct theory.
After some work had been done at Iron
ton and st. Louis / went east. In Pitts
burg found the four principal members of
the ring to be Addison F. Burns, his father,
William Burns; George w. Nelson and H.
r. Mcclellan, notary. A large and profit
able business in the sale Of these lands had
been carried on there for years. Nelson had
been a particularly active sales agent. He
was partially paralyZed and went among
his friends representing himself as land
DOOR, the owner of vast unproductive
tracts, part Of which he had to dispose of
in order to support himself in his failing
physical condition There was an element
of sympathy in some of Nelson's sales, but
he was cheerfully disregardful of the SYM
pathetic feeling for him In unloading worth
less titles to thousands of acres on his
friends.
The activity of Addison and William
Burns in using their own chrography in
the manufacturing of deeds rendered it
comparatively easy to establish case
against them, 1t being necessary only to
prove the forgery. Some of this work was
done so cleverly that at the trial of these
men persons whose signatures had been
forged claimed the forgerieS as their own
writing. The case against the Pttsburg
contingent was established principally by
comparisons in the government land office.
These members of the ring therefore
made a secondary issue of pending the exc
cution of plan to catch Lindsay and Van
Hise In such a way they could find no loop
hole for escape
Developments up to this time had re-
vealed not less than twenty active members
of the land league. AS might be expected,
they all were in close touch with one an
other and with the ringleader, and 1t be-
came apparent that In order to capture all
and effectually smash the ring some plan
would nave 10 De devised whereby the fed
eral author ties could move against them
all simultaneously. Still placing most i'm
portance on making sound cases against
Lindsay and Van Hise, / called to my as
sistanee E. M. Stedman, a secret service
operative of much ability.
Assume the role of a lumberman looking
for site to operate a MILL were my in
structiops, "go to Shannon county and open
negotiations with Lindsay personally for
tract of timber land, holding the deal open
till we are ready to act ~
Stedman followed instructions implicitly
Attired as sawmill man of some means.
he began negotiations with Lindsay for
Shannon county lands. Lindsay took the
bait and offered to sell him a fine tract of
% 900 acres at 90 cents an acre. Stedman
left Lindsay without closing the deal and
went to Vinton, Iowa, his supposed home,
to which place he told Lindsay he had been
called by important business. From Vinton
he wrote to Lindsay asking for descriptions
of other tracts. The purpose of opening
such correspondence was to get Lindsay
on record in writing. Again the arch con-
spirator swallowed the bait, sending to
Steduian In his own handwriting descrip-
lions of various tracts he thought might be
suitable for his correspondents supposed
purpose