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[aliasfinn]

King of the counterfeiters continued....


He stood in the door during the arrest, and McCartney jumped upon him with a knife and tried to cut his way through him. He was arrested, however, and a half-dozen of his confederates were captured. They were put in jail, and the next day the jailer was found as above stated, and there was a hole in the wall of the prison through which the whole gang had escaped. From there, he and his gang went to Texas. By this time McCartney had become very notorious, and according to the records in the Treasury Department a reward of more than half a million dollars was offered for his capture. It was known that he was in Texas, and everyone was anxious to secure him. At one time he was arrested and was in the hands of two U.S. Marshals going on the train to Austin. There were irons on his legs, and handcuffs on his hands, but all at once he jumped up, and these fell off as though by magic. He cut the bell-rope of the train as he leaped from the door, and plunged from the train out into the fields. There was no means of stopping the engine, and the cars went on. Before the brakeman could crawl up to the engineer, they were miles in advance, and the king of counterfeiters was again at large.

He was again arrested, and he again escaped. By this time the reward had dwindled down to $1,000, and there was this much standing when he drifted back to Cincinnati and was there playing the same old game. Here the detectives caught him. They told him there was only $1,000 reward offered for him, and McCartney pulled $2,500 out of his pocket and bought his freedom.


Continued...

[aliasfinn]

King of the counterfeiters continued...


St. Louis was one of McCartney's favorite fields, but it was also one of his unlucky ones. He was working here in 1876, and he had a great quantity of bogus money on hand. A satchel containing more than $5,000 was found in one of the rooms of the Southern Hotel, and the counterfeiters were so bold that they made this noted hostelry one of the bases of their operations. McCartney was arrested with the rest of the gang, and got his way out by making a key of a pewter spoon and a common tin cup, which had been given to him to eat from. With these he unlocked the doors of the corridor in which were the cells of the other prisoners and released them, and together overpowered the guards and escaped. At another time, when he was in the Springfield jail, his wife called upon him. He was searched after she left and a small bar of lead was found upon him. Had this been left with him he would have undoubtedly gotten out by means of it. He broke jail by means of a key made out of the tinfoil around his chewing tobacco, and when he was serving his short term in jail, before he was taken to his trial, at which he was sentenced to his long imprisonment, he offered the marshal $1,700 for a steel saw. This time, however, he got hold of the wrong man, and his attempt at bribery was of no avail.


Continued...

[aliasfinn]

King of the counterfeiters last chapter


Pete McCartney's Last Crime

McCartney had been 12 years in the penitentiary. He had been sentenced to 15 years, but had reduced his term by good behavior to 12. He was arrested in Richmond, Indiana, in 1876, and $2,700 in counterfeit, and $1,800 in genuine greenbacks were found in his satchel. He was taken to Indianapolis and it was there discovered that he was the famous Pete McCartney. He pleaded guilty and was given 15 years hard labor. He served out the full term, with the exception of 3 years, and he got free on October 29, 1887. About 2 or 3 months after this, early in 1888, the Treasury Department became alarmed by some raised bills which were very skillfully made. Some counterfeiter had taken the one dollar silver certificate and by carefully scratching out the face of Martha Washington had pasted over it the picture of ex-secretary Dexter, taken from a 50 cent shinplaster; from these same shinplasters they had taken the figures 50, and had pasted them over the figure 1 wherever it had occurred, and they had pasted one of the elaborately scrolled medallions with "fifty" in its center over the word "one" and "silver dollar." By the use of tobacco stamps and by careful pen work they had changed the other side of the bill so that it looked like a genuine $50 bill, and a number of these were being circulated.

The detectives held a consultation at the Secret Service Bureau of the Treasury. They knew the work of nearly all the counterfeiters in the United States. Each of them had his specialty, but this bill was more remarkable than anything they had seen. One of them spoke of Pete McCartney and the Chief decided that he must be watched. McCartney had gone to his home in Illinois after he left jail and the detectives went there first. He was not at home. They tracked him down in New Orleans where he was wearing a disguise. He was arrested with pockets full of bogus bills. McCartney was tried and convicted and sentenced to the Ohio Penitentiary for a term of 10 years, two of which he had served when death gave him his last escape on October 21, 1890. At the time of his death he was 61 years of age. All that he left was the record of being the greatest counterfeiter in history.

[elkotronics]

Pete McCartney story...simply amazing. You could say the guy was ultra-talented, eh?

[aliasfinn]

Originally Posted by elkotronics

Pete McCartney story...simply amazing. You could say the guy was ultra-talented, eh?

Like Maxwell Smart used to always say on Get Smart, " If only he would have used his talent for niceness instead of evil."

[aliasfinn]

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[elkotronics]

Like Maxwell Smart used to always say on Get Smart, " If only he would have used his talent for niceness instead of evil."

Bingo - boingo - bango, aliasfinn!

[aliasfinn]

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[aliasfinn]

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[aliasfinn]

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