The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-07
Prom the New York Sun.

LITTLE gray haired woman, dress (E1A ed in black and wearing an old fashioned bonnet. was locked up at police headquarters yesterday alter noon on the charge of getting 5000 on false pretenses from the promoting firm of Normand & Wilson of l Madison ave nue. The older detectives recognized the ouiet-mannered old woman as Ellen E. Peck, the ''Confidence Queen" of 30 years ago, about whom columns have been writ ten and to whom Inspector Byrnes de- voted several pages in his "Professlona Criminals of America"
 Mrs. Peck gained her first notoriety 50 years ago, when she swindled B. T. Bap- bitt. the soap manufacturer, out of $19.OoO She now owns to 7s years, but many who know her declare that she is over 80. Al though arrested several times she mas served few prison sentences. Little mas been heard of her since 1905, when she was arrested for swindling Frank Repetti, a Chicago hotel man, out of $500. At that lime it was estimated that her swindling operations had aggregated $l,ooo'ooo. Sne is said to have saved her money and to have a handsome home at Sparkhill, N- Y- In 1900 Mrs. Peck was sent to Auburn for A short term. The police thought that on account of her advanced age and inde- pendent means she would be good when liberated.
 The district attorneys office had almost forgotten Mrs. Peck when. two weeks ago, Assistant District Attorneys Kresel and Bosler were asked to investigate an alleged swindling scheme which had been worked on the firm of Normand & Wilson by woman calling herself Eliza Knight, Mrs. Peck's favorite alias. The story they un- eatthed and which resulted in Mrs. Peck arrest yesterday had It's beginning away back in 1795, when James Monroe, later President of the United States, was gov ernor of Virginia.
 Tn that year Governor Monroe granted to Alexander Walcott 65O,OoO acres of land, supposed to belong to the state of Virginia. Subsequently the states of Virginia and Kentucky appointed a commission to fix the boundary line, and it was decided that the lands granted to Walcott lay within Kentucky, In 1850 the supreme court Of
  land invalid, and that persons to whom Walcott or his heirs has sold portions or the tract had no title
 In spite of this decision the invalid deeds to the Walcott tract passed through the hands of many persons, and came at last into the possession of an Amelia Schelling, who conveyed her rights to E. ELIZA Knight in 1892. The deed was put on rec ord in Kentucky by Mrs. Knight, who, as it turned out in the investigation, is Mrs. Peck.
 Between 1892 and the present year Mrs. Peck made conveyances of parts of the Walcott tract to various persons. Last September she went to the office of J. E. Normand and w. R. Wilson and proposed that they form a corporation to develop a tract of 225,0O0 acres in Kentucky. She showed Normand & Wilson what pur- ported to be an abstract of title passing to her from Mrs. Schelling. Mrs. Peck agreed to turn over to a corporation to be formed by Normand, Wilson and her self the title to the land and to take the purchase price in stock. This was agreed to.
 The following day Mrs. Peck returned to Normand & Wilson's office and of fered to mortgage her property for 5000, saying that she was in urgent need of money Accordingly representing herself as Eliza F. Knight of Sparkhill, Rock land county, New York, she made mort gage to Paul Edward Schubert. who is in the firm of Normand & Wilson. The mort gage described the properties in detail as being in certain counties in Kentucky and lying between the forks of the Sandy river.
 She got the 5000 and later $500 more on the same representations. Assistant Dis trict Attorney Bosler dug out the story bit by bit, and when Mrs. Peck was con- fronted with the evidence yesterday she confessed at once. She admitted that she knew that the title to the Walcott tract was worthless.
 Mrs Peck told MT. Bosler that her real name was Ellen Eliza Knight Peck and that she had been sentenced to Auburn prison for four years in 1885 for obtaining sSOOO by forgery from the Mutual Life In- surance company. She said that her hus- band was Richard Peck, whose name she forged in obtaining the 5000 from the Mutual Life, and that she had two daughters and one son living. He is an official of some prominence in western city.
 Mrs. Peck was described by Inspector Byrnes as 'the best woman in her line that ever knew" Just how her career