Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1906-04-12
By CAPTAIN PATRICK D. TYRRELL

#hi
Copyright. 1906 by Marion G. scheitlin.1
1t was one day in the early spring of
the year 1878 that young man sign
ing the application form as George c.
King, No 873 West Adams street, Chi
cago, Ill.," appeared at the money or
der window of the Chicago post Office
ana asked for two money orders aggre-
eating SIS in amount payable to A. ].
WILLIAMS, of Canandaigua, N. Y. With
the application he handed the clerk
500 note. The clerk made out the or
dafs, gave them and $25 to the appli-
cant and the latter disappeared. The
same day, in counting the cash re-
csJyed at the money order window, the
.cAief clerk encountered the 500 note
and became suspicious of its genuine
ness. 1t purported to be note of the
isaue of the Revere national bank, of
Boston.
Being notified that such note had
bAen received at the post Office, i'm
nlediately made an examination of il
and pronounced it a counterfeit. | then
took possession of the note and sub
snitted it to Fred NJ. Blount, who was
tlen cashier in the United States sub
trEasury in Chicago, asking him to
place the government counterfeit"
stamp on it. This he refused to do on
Ch8 ground that the note, in his opin-
ion, was genuine. l pointed out many
discrepancies between the note in hand
and one known to be genuine, but
BBunt claimed he had frequently no
ticed discrepancies as great between
twp genuine notes of the same issue.
On his refusal to stamp the note I
took it to Thomas P. Tallman, cashier
of#the Traders national bank, whom |
considered the most reliable expert in
such matters in any of the city banks.
Mt Tallman spent two hours making
minute examination of the note, and
at5the end of that time concurred in my
original opinion that the note was
counterfeit. Having been thoroughly
Safisfied in my own mind from the be-
ginning the note was spurious, deem
edit important to trace it. From the
post office records the name and ad-
dress given by the passer of the note
were secured, and these were found to
ba$correct.
King was not at home when called
at#his house, but from his wife learn
ed3he had received a $100 bill from A.
j. Williams, a friend of her husbands
lHEanandaigua n. Y. The passing of
the bill had been noted in my daily re-
port to Chief Brooks in Washington,
amt as soon as | learned that the note
p
to3Whom the money orders purchased
with it had been sent, suggested that
the eastern division of the secret serv-
zee take up the New York end of the
Chain
The following day | arrested King at
the, La Sale street offices in which he
vas employed and found in his possess
sion letter from his Canandaigua
Irtend. The letter itself was an inno-
cent, friendly missive, but in the en-
velppe was a separate note instructinp
&thg to buy the money orders, keep
S2H for himself and to keep his own
counsel" In my mind there was no
reasonable doubt that Williams who
wssasia jeweler, and King at least had
gniityl knowledge that the note in aues-
zion was counterfeit.
In glancing back over a long line
of records for the years 1878 and 1879.
; select the foregoing incident as the
Girst thread the secret service picked up
An the skGin of events which afterward
connected east and west in a gigantic
.kopiacking" swinde that reached into
the Emitted States treasury building it.
self iand set it forth here merely on
account of what it suggested rather
thaa on account of its intrinsic impor-
tance
AE the present day, when the coun-
terfeitlng OF the nations money is rap
tilyfpassing into the category of lost
aris%the younger generation viii won
ter ut the extent OF c0uuterleitiug
taird of a century ago as indicated by
the narratives I have told and the one
8m about to relate. And II there be-
any Slender on this score there VIII bee
: eater when say that Nelson Driggs,