31. Eames’s name is frequently spelled Eams, because that is the way Siringo misspelled it in his books. However, in the Pinkerton’s advertisements of the time, as well as in his personal address information, it is spelled Eames; see Corbett & Ballenger’s Fifteenth Annual Denver City Directory [1887] and Corbett & Ballenger’s Sixteenth Annual Denver City Directory [1888].
32. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 25–33, Two Evil Isms, pp. 11–12, and Riata and Spurs, pp. 127–28.
33. CAS, Riata and Spurs, p. 128.
34. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 33–38, Two Evil Isms, p. 12, and Riata and Spurs, pp. 129–30.
35. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 44–65, and Riata and Spurs, pp. 130–32.
36. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 69–70, and Two Evil Isms, pp. 9–11, 14–18, 20–21. In 1910, after Siringo retired from the agency, he tried to publish a book entitled “Pinkerton’s Cowboy Detective.” Before it was released, however, Pinkerton’s, disturbed because of a damaging exposé that had been published several years earlier by former Denver stenographer Morris Friedman (The Pinkerton Labor Spy), obtained an injunction in Illinois preventing Siringo from using the name Pinkerton in his book. The book was not, in fact, particularly negative, and Siringo’s lawyer advised him to calm troubled waters by writing an explanatory letter to William Pinkerton—who had a fond feeling for his cowboy detective. Instead, the fiery Siringo dashed off a threatening one, in which he warned Pinkerton that he really could tell dirty secrets if the agency made things difficult for him. However, the contracts that he had signed when working for Pinkerton’s had forbidden any such publication, so the law was firmly on the agency’s side, and the book did not appear for almost two years. (For a copy of a Pinkerton’s contract, see the one with McParland. LoC, box 30, folder 11.) When it finally did come out in 1912, as A Cowboy Detective, it had been amended to change Pinkerton to Dickenson, McParland to McCartney, and numerous other such conversions, all of which were obvious to an aware reader. The original proofs of “Pinkerton’s Cowboy Detective” are in the Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency Records, LoC, box 61, folder 2. These have been used for the purposes of quoting when a relevant name has been changed in A Cowboy Detective. In the proofs, the bookkeeper is correctly named as Morton, rather than Lawton, as in the published book.
37. CAS, Two Evil Isms, pp. 9–11, 14–18, 20–21. In a standard form sent to new clients, entitled “For the Guidance of the Officers of Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency, and for the information of its Patrons,” Pinkerton’s advised: “The Agency does not operate for rewards or for compensation contingent upon the result of any business it undertakes, and none of the Agency’s operatives are permitted to receive any reward which may have been offered in connection with the same, nor any gratuity for any service performed. . . . The Agency will not be retained in any matters which are not strictly legal and reputable, nor in divorce proceedings, or matters pertaining to the marital relations” (TAN, reel 121, frame 847).
38. CAS, Two Evil Isms, pp. 14–18, 20–21.
39. Ibid., p. 18.
40. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 69. Seemingly undisturbed by having been caught, Eames immediately continued his shady work in Denver, as manager of the Denver Merchants’ Police. He also became a partner in McCarthy & Eames mining brokers; see Corbett & Ballenger’s Sixteenth Annual Denver City Directory [1888].
41. RAP, letter to W. J. Loader, Feb. 23, 1888, LoC, box 30, folder 11.
42. See Corbett & Ballenger’s Fifteenth Annual Denver City Directory [1887], Corbett & Ballenger’s Sixteenth Annual Denver City Directory [1888], and Ballenger & Richards’ Annual Denver Directory for the years 1889–92.
43. Marriage license number 126767, May 10, 1888, Illinois Department of Public Health Marriage Records, Cook County.
44. In different documents, the dogs that McParland raised and kept around his home were referred to as bull terriers, pit bulls, or bulldogs. McParland himself reported in 1906 that when he was questioning Harry Orchard, the prisoner “asked me if I still kept them savage bulldogs. I said, ‘Yes’” (JM, report to FRG, Jan. 25, 1906, LoC, box 172, folder 2). Nevertheless, the preponderance of the evidence suggests that his dogs were what today would be classed as bull terriers.
45. Chicago Directory Company, The Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago 1888, 1889; City of Chicago Record and Index of Persons Registered and of Poll Lists of Voters, 1888, p. 527.
46. The role of W. B. Sayers in many cases has essentially been overlooked because in A Cowboy Detective Siringo changed his name—as he did for many others—to W. O. Sayles. The proof copies of “Pinkerton’s Cowboy Detective,” however, show beyond doubt that it was Sayers who was involved in numerous cases with Siringo (see, for example, LoC, box 61, folder 2, pp. 199–206, 210, 212–28, 279, 305–7, 309–14). Intriguingly, on page 306 of A Cowboy Detective, the correct name was not changed, and it remained “Sayers.” As earlier researchers were unable to see the proofs of “Pinkerton’s Cowboy Detective” (before they were sent to the Library of Congress), some of the very best works about Siringo or the Wild Bunch carry the incorrect name, including Lamar, Charlie Siringo’s West; Sawey, Charles A. Siringo; Horan, Desperate Men (which goes so far as to more intimately call him “Bill Sayles”); Patterson, Butch Cassidy; and Pointer, In Search of Butch Cassidy. In his classic biography, Patterson noted the likelihood of the name “Sayles” being fictitious and speculated on the possibility that it referred to Frank P. Dimaio, the renowned Pinkerton’s operative who helped trace Cassidy, Harry Longabaugh (the “Sundance Kid”), and Etta (or Ethel) Place to Argentina and then Bolivia (p. 303). Although Patterson suggested that Morn seemed to subscribe to the Dimaio theory, he correctly indicated that this was unlikely (The Eye That Never Sleeps, p. 161). Now it can acknowledged with certainty that Sayles was actually Sayers.
47. Details of the case are to be found in CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 66–69, and Riata and Spurs, 132–34.
48. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 68.
49. Details of the case are to be found in CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 74–85, and Riata and Spurs, pp. 136–39.
50. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 78.
51. Gowen’s later career is discussed in depth in Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading, pp. 167–273.
52. This assessment has long been accepted by most historians. For example, see Coleman, The Molly Maguire Riots; Schlegel, Ruler of the Reading; Broehl, The Molly Maguires; and Crown and Major, A Guide to the Molly Maguires. However, one author has recently decried the suicide verdict. Patrick Campbell argued in Who Killed Franklin Gowen? that the former Reading president was murdered—although he does not know by whom—and that there was a conspiracy by Linden and others to cover it up.
53. JM, quoted in Denver News, Dec. 18, 1889.
54. Details of the case are to be found in CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 91–113, and Riata and Spurs, pp. 142–51.
55. Details of the case and its related cases are to be found in July and August 1890 issues of The Aspen Daily Times, The Aspen Weekly Times, The Castle Rock Journal, The Daily Chronicle, and Silver Cliff Rustler.
56. The Aspen Weekly Times, July 19, 1890.
57. The Daily Chronicle, July 16, 1890.
58. The Aspen Weekly Times, July 19, 1890.
59. The New-York Times, Sept. 20, 1890.
60. City of Denver 1890 Death Book, Record number 234775, Sept. 26, 1890, Denver County, Colorado.
61. Return of a Birth number 10510, Jan. 28, 1891, Illinois Department of Public Health Births Index, Cook County; Physician’s Certificate of Death number 10972, Feb. 1, 1891, Illinois Department of Public Health Deaths Index, Cook County; Physician’s Certificate of Death number 10987, Feb. 18, 1891, Illinois Department of Public Health Deaths Index, Cook County.
62. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 92, 116, and Riata and Spurs, p. 151–54.
63. De
tails of the events surrounding the fight can be found in CAS, Riata and Spurs, pp. 152–53.
Chapter 14: Calling the Shots
1. The Rocky Mountain News, March 17, 1906.
2. Hammett, Red Harvest, p. 109.
3. Much of the information on the organization of the Pinkerton’s offices is taken from Friedman, The Pinkerton Labor Spy, pp. 4–19. Morris Friedman was a stenographer in the Denver office who stole a number of documents before leaving the agency and writing his book about the inner workings of the company, while condemning its ethics and the way it functioned, particularly against mining unions.
4. Ibid., p. 5.
5. See Howard and Dunn, Labor Spy; Hunt, Front-Page Detective; Weiss, “Private Detective Agencies and Labour Discipline in the United States.”
6. Although Friedman noted: “[I]t is certainly necessary to correct and re-arrange an ungrammatical, mis-spelled report” (The Pinkerton Labor Spy, p. 14), the editing of reports did not always improve them. Dashiell Hammett wrote about his time as a Pinkerton’s operative that an officer in San Francisco “once substituted ‘truthful’ for ‘voracious’ in one of my reports on the grounds that the client might not understand the latter. A few days later in another report ‘simulate’ became ‘quicken’ for the same reason” (Hammett, “From the Memoirs of a Private Detective,” p. 89).
7. Friedman, The Pinkerton Labor Spy, p. 17.
8. Ibid., pp. 18–19.
9. New Mexico Territorial Legislative Council, Council Bill No. 122, TAN, reel 121, frame 681.
10. See WAP, letter to L. Bradford Prince, Feb. 7, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frames 681–83; JM, letter to L. Bradford Prince, Feb. 10, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frames 687–89. For Siringo’s accounts of the case, see CAS, A Cowboy Detective, pp. 116–34, and Riata and Spurs, pp. 153–57.
11. For a view of the political and social scene in New Mexico in the 1890s, see Westphall, Thomas Benton Catron and His Era; Lamar, The Far Southwest; Larson, New Mexico’s Quest for Statehood; and Larson, New Mexico Populism, p. 60. For a history of the Santa Fe Ring, in which Catron was a major player, see Lamar, The Far Southwest, pp. 121–47.
12. For the history of the White Caps, see Larson, “The White Caps of New Mexico,” and Schlesinger, “Las Gorras Blancas.”
13. For McParland’s early views on the relation between the White Caps and the Knights of Labor, see JM, letter to L. Bradford Prince, March 6, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frames 722–23; for background on the relationship, see Larson, “The White Caps of New Mexico,” pp. 178–79.
14. McParland billed Prince regularly for the Pinkerton’s daily rate of eight dollars and Siringo’s heavy expenses. These can be found throughout the correspondence, for example, in TAN, reel 121, frames 764–68, 773, 786–90, 811–19, 831–35.
15. For keeping Prince informed of Siringo’s movements, see JM, letter to L. Bradford Prince, Feb. 20, March 6, 30, May 4, June 17, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frames 710–12, 722–23, 747–48, 782, 805. For explaining away Siringo’s difficulties, see JM, letter to L. Bradford Prince, March 21, 30, June 1, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frames 744–45, 747–48, 797–98. For payments, see JM, letter to L. Bradford Prince, Feb. 20, April 18, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frames 710–12, 774. For soothing Prince’s worries, see JM, letter to L. Bradford Prince, March 21, April 8, June 8, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frames 744–45, 756, 799–800.
16. As is apparent from McParland’s response in JM, letter to L. Bradford Prince, April 8, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frame 756.
17. John Gray, letter to L. Bradford Prince, April 25, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frames 769–72.
18. CAS, A Cowboy Detective, p. 130. Ben Pingenot pointed out that although Siringo always laid the blame for his bout with smallpox on burying a woman who had died of the disease, since “smallpox has an incubation period of ten to fourteen days, Siringo was probably exposed to the disease after being debilitated with a form of ague in Santa Fe and just before his arrival in Cow Springs” (Siringo, pp. 175–76).
19. JM, letter to L. Bradford Prince, April 18, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frame 774.
20. Ibid., July 20, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frames 824–25.
21. Ibid., July 27, 1891, TAN, reel 121, frames 826–27.
22. For the background on Tom Horn before his involvement with Pinkerton’s, see Carlson, Tom Horn, pp. 22–39; Horn, Life of Tom Horn.
23. Rockwell, Memoirs of a Lawman, p. 261.
24. Ibid., p. 273.
25. Horn, Life of Tom Horn, p. 259.
26. Shores’s description of the incident suggested why he went back so quickly: “Tom was more and more showing a side to his character that I had never seen before. In my previous association with him on comparatively short trips he had been cooperative, full of stories, and a pleasant companion. Now, I was learning that on a long trail he was moody, insisted on his own way, and wanted the best of everything. This experience ended my close friendship with Tom, and I made it a point of never working with him again” (Rockwell, Memoirs of a Lawman, p. 309).
27. Horn, Life of Tom Horn, pp. 260–61.
28. Tom Horn, quoted in Reno Evening Gazette, July 17, 1891.
29. Daily Nevada State Journal, Oct. 2, 1891. For the significance of faro at the time, see Sanders, “Faro.”
30. Quoted in Lukas, Big Trouble, p. 192; see also Nash, Encyclopedia of Western Lawmen & Outlaws, pp. 165–67.
31. CAS, Two Evil Isms, p. 46.
32. See Carlson, Tom Horn, for a number of instances of Horn reporting to Pinkerton’s.
33. WAP, letter to Frank Canton, April 12, 1895 and JM, letter to Frank Canton, April 13, 1895, Frank M. Canton Collection, box 1, folder 3, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma. See also DeArment, Alias Frank Canton, pp. 167–68.
34. CAS, Two Evil Isms, p. 48.
35. See Carlson, Tom Horn.
36. The Denver Times, Feb. 28, 1907.
37. Extensive details of the case are to be found in Conrad, “A Revolting Transaction”; Day, Death in the Mail; Brownlee, Dr. Graves; Taylor, “The Wealthy Widow and the Mysterious Package”; and several newspapers that carried lengthy accounts of the investigation and subsequent trial, particularly the Providence Daily Journal and The Rocky Mountain News of Denver. Day, an editor at the Journal, covered the trial in Denver and sent back to Providence voluminous dispatches that he turned into his book. Conrad, the great-grandson of the murder victim, used both the newspaper accounts and family correspondence. It was not possible for Conrad or other researchers to use original Pinkerton’s reports, which have long been missing. As far back as 1940, a letter from the Pinkerton’s public relations department to the editor of the magazine True Detective Mysteries stated that “we appear not to have on file any of the original papers” (Agency Public Relations, letter to John Shuttleworth, Aug. 12, 1940, LoC, box 73). A slip of paper in the file at the Library of Congress still confirms this lack of original material today.
38. Agency Public Relations, letter to John Shuttleworth, Aug. 12, 1940, LoC, box 73.
39. See, for example, coverage by The Boston Daily Globe, Boston Morning Journal, The New-York Times, and Providence Daily Journal.
40. Written at the top of an article about Cornish in Boston Morning Journal, June 13, 1897, LoC, box 27, folder 20. Cornish, a short, slight, energetic, but nervous-seeming man, was born in London in 1846 and moved to New York in 1868. After working a variety of jobs, including for P. T. Barnum, he joined Pinkerton’s in 1875 as an operative under George H. Bangs. In 1883, he was promoted to chief clerk, the next year to assistant superintendent, and in 1886 he was made superintendent of the new Boston office. More details about his Pinkerton’s career can be found in his agency file, LoC, box 27, folder 20.
41. Later published as Graves, “The Fall of Richmond.”
42. J. A. Sewall, quoted in Day, Death in the Mail, pp. 60, 64; Brownlee, Dr. Graves; Aspen
Weekly Times, Dec. 12, 1891.
43. JM, quoted in The Rocky Mountain News, April 1891.
44. Ibid.
45. Had the trial been held in Providence—where Hanscom’s history in Boston would have been better known—the jury might have put considerably less faith in his testimony. He had previously been a chief inspector for the Boston Police but was discharged in 1888 in a highly publicized incident of malfeasance, insubordination, and suspected embezzlement (The Boston Daily Globe, July 6, 8, 1888). His behavior in the Graves investigation was highly questionable ethically, and he followed that up with a brief and mysterious appearance in the investigation relating to the murders charged to Lizzie Borden before Robert Pinkerton apparently pulled him off the case (see Widdows, “Spotlight on Orinton M. Hanscom”). Yet in July 1894, when one of his mentors came back into power, he was welcomed back to the Boston Police with a promotion to deputy superintendent (Tappan, The Officers and the Men, the Stations Without and Within of the Boston Police, p. 13). For further information on his brief career with Pinkerton’s, see LoC, box 29, folder 12.
46. Conrad, “A Revolting Transaction,” p. 85; Brownlee, Dr. Graves.
47. The Denver Republican, May 12, 1891; The Chicago Evening Post, May 18, 1891.
48. Graves, T. Thatcher Graves, Plaintiff in Error, vs. The People of the State of Colorado, Defendant in Error.
49. For differing opinions on Graves’s suicide and guilt, see Conrad, “A Revolting Transaction,” pp. 242–52.
Chapter 15: A New Direction
1. This brief summary of several labor organizations is based on a number of the many books detailing different aspects of that growth of American labor in the late nineteenth century, including: Dubofsky and Dulles, Labor in America; Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States; Mandel, Samuel Gompers; Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor; Phelan, Grand Master Workman; Rayback, A History of American Labor.
Pinkerton’s Great Detective Page 64