A Counterfeiter's Paradise (45 page)

150–151, If Robert had

Rodney’s escape and the
“yellow fellow”
:
Free Press
, June 29, 1820;
Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser
, July 1, 1820; and
American Volunteer
, June 29, 1820. Rodney’s returning home to his wife:
Baltimore Patriot & Mercantile Advertiser
, June 30, 1820, and Frear,
Davey Lewis
, p. 42.
“The cage was found…”: Franklin
Repository
, June 27, 1820; “Caesar had described everything correctly,” the
Repository
noted.
“We have been told…”:
American Volunteer
, June 29, 1820.

151, The few weeks

Lewis and his band had fled the Doubling Gap camp by June 17, 1820, when they unsuccessfully tried to rob Eberly’s home in Cumberland County; see
Harrisburg
Chronicle
, June 24, 1820, quoted in Mark Dugan,
The Making of Legends: More Stories of Frontier America
(Athens, OH: Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1997), pp. 46–47. The Eberly robbery attempt set off a spree that continued until roughly Sunday, June 25; see Dugan,
The Making of Legends
, pp. 46–48. Springhouses: Byron D. Halsted, ed.,
Barns and Outbuildings and How to Build Them
, 2nd ed. (Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2008 [1881]), pp. 170–176.

151–152, Lewis’s newly aggressive

“The country is kept…”:
Harrisburg Chronicle
, June 24, 1820, quoted in Dugan,
The Making of Legends
, p. 46.
“the daily accounts…”:
Carlisle Republican
, July 4, 1820.

152, As Lewis stepped

Bonfire:
American Volunteer
, July 20, 1820. The
Volunteer
article seems to have been based in whole or in part on an article from the
Bellefonte Patriot
, July 8, 1820.

152, Lewis, Connelly, and McGuire

The robbery and the journey up Bald Eagle Creek:
American Volunteer
, July 20, 1820, and John Blair Linn,
History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania
(Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883), p. 61. Cost of stolen goods: Frear,
Davey Lewis
, p. 47.

152–153, The cost of leaving

Posse:
American Volunteer
, July 20, 1820, and Dugan,
The Making of Legends
, p. 49.
“a wild, unfrequented…”: Bellefonte Patriot
, quoted in Frear,
Davey Lewis
, p. 47.

153, Lewis and Connelly

Description of the region just north of the ranges in central Pennsylvania: I. D. Rupp, ed.,
History and Topography of Northumberland, Huntingdon, Mifflin, Centre, Union, Columbia, Juniata and Clinton Counties, Pa.
(Lancaster, PA: Gilbert Hills, 1846), pp. 354–357, and Samuel Maclay,
Journal of Samuel Maclay, While Surveying the West Branch of the Susquehanna, the Sinnemahoning and the Allegheny Rivers, in 1790
(Williamsport, PA: John F. Meginness, 1887 [1790]), pp. 17, 35–36.

153–154, On Bennett’s Branch

Sawmill: Maclay,
Journal of Samuel Maclay
, p. 24. After Frederick Leathers died, Lewis’s mother, Jane, married a third time, to Reese Stevens; see Rosalie Jones
Dill,
Mathew Dill Genealogy: A Study of the Dill Family of Dillsburg, York County, Pennsylvania, 1698–1935
, pt. 2 (Spokane, WA: 1935), p. 17. By 1820, Jane and Reese Stevens lived in the valley of Bennett’s Branch. David’s brother Thomas Lewis also moved into the area in late 1817, near the village of Benezette on Bennett’s Branch; see Dugan,
The Making of Legends
, p. 49. It’s possible that Lewis visited his brother, although it’s unknown if he even visited his mother. The 1820 census puts the number of residents in Bellefonte at 433. The posse’s members questioning Jane:
American Volunteer
, July 20, 1820.

154, If she wouldn’t

There are three slightly different accounts of the posse’s pursuit of Lewis. I rely for the most part on the version in the
American Volunteer
, July 20, 1820, which, as noted above, is drawn from the
Bellefonte Patriot
, July 8, 1820. There are two later accounts, published in 1883 and 1890, respectively: Linn,
History of Centre and Clinton Counties
, p. 62, and Michael A. Leeson, ed.,
History of the Counties of McKean, Elk, Cameron and Potter, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Selections
, vol. 2 (Chicago: J. H. Beers, 1890), pp. 384–385. Linn—who claims to have based his account on the testimony of a member of the posse—and Leeson—who spoke with a local resident named John Brooks—both report that the posse met William Shephard while traveling on the river, and that Shephard, along with Brooks, helped guide them to the robbers. Prevalence of mosquitoes and gnats along Bennett’s Branch during the summer: Maclay -navigated the same waterway in June 1790; see
Journal of Samuel Macla
y, p. 22. Heat and hardship: Frear,
Davey Lewis
, p. 51.

155, The plan failed

Both the
American Volunteer
, July 20, 1820, and Linn,
History of Centre and Clinton Counties
, p. 62, offer this version of the shootout. But Leeson, in
History of the Counties of McKean, Elk, Cameron and Potter
, pp. 384–385, in his most significant departure from the other accounts, includes this remarkable sentence: “Connelly seized his gun when the alarm was given, Lewis surrendered, and was shot in the arm afterward.” This would mean that Lewis was deliberately injured by the posse when he was defenseless—although Leeson doesn’t mention the wound in Lewis’s leg. Leeson’s account, based on the testimony of a local resident who claimed to have seen the shootout and published seventy years after the events took place, is probably the least reliable of the three. It’s entirely possible, however, that the posse shot Lewis down in cold blood and then suppressed the true story. Detail about
Connelly’s entrails: Linn,
History of Centre and Clinton Counties
, p. 62, and Frear,
Davey Lewis
, p. 51.

155, The posse treated

The
American Volunteer
, July 20, 1820, attributes Connelly’s death to a “mortification” of the wound, meaning gangrene or necrosis; he died “in gloomy sullenness,” the article added. Lewis’s wounds:
American Volunteer
, July 20, 1820, and Linn,
History of Centre and Clinton Counties
, p. 62. Reception of posse in Bellefonte: Frear,
Davey Lewis
, p. 51.

155–156, They had reason

“gallant little band…”:
Bellefonte Patriot
, July 8, 1820, reprinted in
American Volunteer
, July 20, 1820. Doctor’s examination: Linn,
History of Centre and Clinton Counties
, p. 62. Lewis’s silence before his death is confirmed by a statement cosigned by Bellefonte’s sheriff and jailer—John Mitchell and Joseph Williams—who said Lewis made “no manner of confession whatever, of his past life, other than what he made to the Minister of the Gospel who attended him,” published in the
Bellefonte Patriot
, September 13, 1820, and reprinted in the
American Volunteer
, September 28, 1820. Lewis’s last hours: from a letter by the attending minister, Reverend Linn, published in the
Bellefonte Patriot
and quoted in Frear,
Davey Lewis
, pp. 53–54. The location of Lewis’s grave is a matter of dispute: the
American Volunteer
, July 27, 1820, claims Lewis was buried at Bellefonte, while Mark Dugan maintains he was buried with his family at the Milesburg cemetery about five miles away.

156, Newspapers throughout the

The
Bellefonte Patriot
report of Lewis’s capture was reprinted in Philadelphia, Boston, and Norfolk, Virginia; the notice of his death was reprinted in Morristown, New Jersey, and Charleston, South Carolina. The
Alabama Watchman
, September 15, 1820, reported Lewis’s arrest and his fatal injury. In the
Patriot
account of the pursuit that was widely reprinted, Lewis and his band are called “monsters,” an indication of how much damage Lewis had done to his reputation in his final months.

157, On August 1, 1820

First installment of the confession:
Carlisle Republican
, August 1, 1820. Subsequent installments that year ran on August 15, August 22, September 5, September 12, September 19, September 30, and October 6. McFarland published the full confession as a pamphlet on October 25, 1820, and copyrighted it. A copy of the first
edition is held by the Waidner-Spahr Library, Archives and Special Collections at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

157, People familiar with

“several detached sheets…”: Carlisle Republican
, August 8, 1820. When McFarland complained about the illegible handwriting as an excuse for not printing another installment, he was probably stalling for time until the next chunk of the confession had been written.
“David Lewis never uttered…”:
from a letter by a Centre County resident to a Cumberland County resident, printed in the
American Volunteer
, September 21, 1820.
“sheer fabrication”:
American Volunteer
, September 28, 1820.

157–158, The confession was

Authorship controversy: Douglas Macneal, “Settling the
Confession
’s Hash,”
Centre County Heritage
24.2 (Fall 1987), pp. 16–17, and Dugan,
The Making of Legends
, pp. 55–56. For an excellent overview of the confession, which charts the text’s passage through different genres—romance, satire, and melodrama—see Macneal, “Settling the
Confession
’s Hash,” pp. 13–14.
“rambling disposition”:
Rishel,
The Life and Adventures of David Lewis
, p. 39.

158, Lewis’s character is deeply

“This gentle fluid…”:
Rishel,
The Life and Adventures of David Lewis
, p. 75.
“unfortunate, but repentant”:
ibid., p. 84.

158–159, McFarland printed the

“the weak side…”:
ibid., p. 63.
“a legalized system…”
: ibid., p. 62. For another tirade against finance, see ibid., pp. 39–40.

159, By staying silent

“evil genius”:
ibid., p. 71.

159–160, While contemporaries exposed

Judging from the preface to his 1890 edition,
The Life and Adventures of David Lewis
, C. D. Rishel seems to have thought the confession was genuine. The preface to the 1853 edition, which Rishel includes, casts more doubt on the confession’s authenticity but stops short of labeling it a forgery. Excerpts from the confession appeared in the Carlisle-based
Evening Sentinel
, April 29, 1898; May 6, 1898; and
May 19, 1898—with no doubt as to their accuracy.
“man of fine physique”
and
“a born leader”:
William M. Hall,
Reminiscences and Sketches, Historical and Biographical
(Harrisburg: Meyers Printing House, 1890), p. 269.
“quite an Adonis”:
Linn,
History of Centre and Clinton Counties
, p. 62. There are many newspaper reports of Pennsylvanians trying to find Lewis’s treasure or other relics belonging to him. See Bellefonte’s
Democratic Watchman
, November 17, 1893; Centre Hall’s
Centre Reporter
, July 1, 1897, and October 28, 1909; and Bellefonte’s
Centre Democrat
, January 11, 1912.
“My father knew of him…”:
quoted in Mac E. Barrick, “Lewis the Robber in Life and Legend,”
Pennsylvania Folklife
17.1 (August 1967), p. 10.

160, What’s harder to gauge

The familiar accusations of corruption were made against Findlay; the pro-Findlay camp attacked Hiester by questioning his Revolutionary War credentials and accusing him of voting to give himself a pay raise while in Congress. Election of 1820: James A. Kehl,
Ill Feeling in the Era of Good Feeling: Western Pennsylvania Political Battles, 1815–1825
(Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1956), pp. 199–204, and Klein,
Pennsylvania Politics
, pp. 107–112. Political culture of the era: Klein,
Pennsylvania Politics
, pp. 65–66.

160, As if all the

1820 election returns: Klein,
Pennsylvania Politics
, p. 408. The total for Hiester was 67,905, and the total for Findlay was 66,308.

160–161, Within a year

“pauperism”:
from Hiester’s message, dated December 5, 1821, included in George Edward Reed, ed.,
Pennsylvania Archives, Fourth Series
, vol. 5, pp. 280–281; the full message is on pp. 280–296. Nation’s recovery: Rothbard,
The Panic of 1819
, p. 25. Cheves’s policies and legacy: Edward S. Kaplan,
The Bank of the United States and the American Economy
(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999), pp. 69–75, and Bray Hammond,
Banks and Politics in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991 [1957]), pp. 276–277, 302–304.

161, But there were

Economic shift: Hammond,
Banks and Politics in America
, pp. 319, 326–329. Hammond draws the comparison between steam and credit frequently in his book, most clearly on pp. 35–36. Of course, not everyone succumbed to the get-rich-quick mentality: Albert Gallatin, who served as treasury secretary from 1801 to 1814, became
a prominent spokesman for a saner, more managed approach to growth. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.,
The Age of Jackson
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1945), pp. 9–44, also discusses the country’s transformation in this period, with an eye to the rise of Jackson.

161–162, Nicholas Biddle, who

Biddle’s biography: Thomas Payne Govan,
Nicholas Biddle: Nationalist and Public Banker, 1786–1844
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 2–27, 49–77, and Hammond,
Banks and Politics in America
, pp. 287–291. For a portrait of Biddle, see the engraving by J. B. Longacre and T. B. Welch after an oil painting by Rembrandt Peale.