William Faden: Pritchard and Taliaferro, Degrees of Latitude, 28–38; Baynton-Williams and Worms, Dictionary of English Map Engravers, 221–225; Cumming, British Maps of Colonial America, 68, 71–72.
Joseph F.W. Des Barres: Hornsby and Stege, Surveyors of Empire, 1–9; Krieger and Cobb, Mapping Boston, 106–107; Cumming, British Maps of Colonial America, 52–56.
“one of the most remarkable products”: Cumming, British Maps of Colonial America, 56; Schwartz and Ehrenberg, Mapping of America, 202.
“handsomest collection of hydrographic maps”: Ibid., 202.
“one of the great rare Americana Catalogues”: William Finnegan, “A theft in the library,” The New Yorker, October 17, 2005.
“our small contribution to the history” . . . on the market for a century: Smiley, Early Cartography.
CHAPTER 6
one April morning in 1989: Smiley interview. Author could uncover no independent sources to verify the date. In a letter written on March 12, 1990, Smiley set the date of the burglary as April 8, 1989 (Jose Porrja v. E. Forbes Smiley III, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Index No. 25040/90). In a sentencing memorandum submitted on September 19, 2006, Smiley’s lawyer set the date as April 13, 1989 (US v. Smiley, US District Court of the District of Connecticut, 3:06-cr-00189).
rare 1713 edition of The English Pilot: Smiley interview.
Paul Cohen remembers Smiley calling: Cohen interview.
Alex Krieger . . . remembers being questioned: Krieger interview.
Ashley Baynton-Williams . . . remembers seeing pictures: Baynton-Williams interview.
referred to the incident in court papers several times: In response to a lawsuit by Cosmos Communications on November 8, 1989, Smiley claimed “uninsured loss of $220,000” (New York County District Court, Index No. 54546/1989); in response to a lawsuit by American Express Travel Services, on March 1, 1990, he claimed “uninsured loss of $220,000” (New York County District Court, Index No. 5678/90); in response to a lawsuit by Jose Porrja, on March 12, 1990, he claimed “an uninsured loss of $330,000; in response to the same lawsuit on November 13, 1990, he claimed “uninsured loss of $225,000” (Supreme Court of the State of New York, Index No. 25040/90). In an interview with the author in 2012, he put his losses at “a half a million dollars.”
“Though I may be an ‘expert’ in cartography”: E. Forbes Smiley III, Affidavit in Support of Order to Show Cause to Vacate Default Judgment, Jose Porrja v. E. Forbes Smiley III, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Index No. 25040/90.
“I can’t say it never happened”: Building superintendent (name withheld by request), 16 East Seventy-Ninth Street, New York, New York, interview with the author.
friends said Smiley grew despondent: Slater and Statt interviews.
You do this alone: Smiley interview.
friends and family urged him to cut his losses: Ibid.
Baynton-Williams: Cedrid Pulford, “Roger Baynton-Williams obituary: key figure in the growing popularity of antiquarian maps,” The Guardian (UK), August 18, 2011; Kim Martineau, “From life among the elite to charges of theft,” Hartford Courant, September 25, 2005. (Baynton-Williams declined to comment directly on his relationship with Smiley.)
sold Smiley several maps . . . Nicholas Scull: Arader interview.
Smiley signed a note . . . attorney fees: W. Graham Arader III v. E. Forbes Smiley III, New York County Supreme Court, filed April 16, 1990, index no. 18994/89.
took out a mortgage: Mortgage, E. Forbes Smiley III and Fleet Bank, Piscataquis County Registry of Deeds, filed May 26, 1989, Doc. #2962 Book 725, 95.
Creditors began suing him: Cosmos Communications v. E. Forbes Smiley III, New York County District Court, filed February 7, 1991, index no. 54546/89. Judgment: $3,535.
IRS hit him with liens: Federal tax lien, $3,233, case no. 00000004430, July 17, 1990; federal tax lien, $1,689, case no. 00000901490, filed December 11, 1990.
failed to pay the bill . . . to a burglar alarm company: Holmes Protection of NY Inc. v. E. Forbes Smiley III, New York County District Court, filed April 25, 1990, index no. 12807/90. Judgment: $9,982.
dispute with a Spanish map collector: José Porrúa v. E. Forbes Smiley III, New York County Supreme Court, filed March 28, 1991, index no. 25040/90. Judgment: $34,682.
Alex Krieger: Krieger interview; Krieger and Cobb, Mapping Boston, viii; William Finnegan, “A theft in the library,” The New Yorker, October 17, 2005.
“I thought he was slimy”: Krieger interview.
calling around to other dealers: Krieger interview; Finnegan, “theft in the library.”
Leventhal hadn’t been too concerned . . . parted ways: Krieger interview; Kenneth Nebenzahl, interview with the author; Krieger, e-mail to the author, December 2, 2013; Smiley, Early Cartography, “60. Norman & Coles”; John Norman, “An accurate map of the four New England states,” 1785, Boston Public Library, Mapping Boston Collection.
remembered his falling-out . . . “nothing to do with me”: Smiley interview.
gradually they parted ways: Smiley and Krieger interviews.
Slaughter . . . assemble a collection: Judith Doolin Spikes, “Larchmont man leaves legacy of maps, atlases to NYC library,” Daily Times (New Rochelle), September 20, 1997.
“finding the really nice things”: Jane Margolies, “Maps that aren’t for getting somewhere,” The New York Times, March 29, 1990.
Howard Welsh: Helen Dalrymple, “Collector enriches LC’s map holdings,” LC Information Bulletin, 1994; Alice C. Hudson, “Obituary: Howard Welsh,” SLA Geography and Map Division Bulletin, no. 163 (March 1991); Smiley interview; Hudson interview.
Smiley showed up at the auction: Catalog, Sotheby’s New York, June 13, 1991.
among other maps: Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection (LHS) archives, New York Public Library, #1, 4, 5, 10.
acquiring . . . John Seller map of New Jersey: LHS archives, #234.
another buyer picked up a group of four books: American Book Prices Current: “English Pilot, 1713–68, 4 vol. Sotheby’s New York, June 13, 1991, lot 288, $15,000.”
buy a pair of maps: LHS archives, #1, 4.
Thomas Jefferson map of Virginia (1787): Jane Hallisey, “Thomas Jefferson, cartographer: a father’s legacy to his Renaissance son,” Mercator’s World 1, no. 3 (1996).
Smiley purchased a copy in 1991: LHS archives, #100.
adding it to three others: LHS archives, #99, 101, 102.
The English Pilot, The Fourth Book from 1689: “The Pierre S. DuPont III collection of navigation, voyages, cartography and literature of the sea,” Christie’s New York, October 8, 1991, Lot #101; LHS archives, #312.
Atlas Maritimus from 1682: LHS archives, #334.
1713 edition of: The English Pilot LHS archives, #324.
carto-bibliography of New England: Mercator Society Steering Committee, minutes of the meetings of May 18, 1991; January 14, 1992; and February 11, 1993; Barbara McCorkle, draft introduction to “The Printed Charts of New England 1614–1800”; all from NYPL Map Division archives.
Smiley and Baynton-Williams got into a dispute: Hudson interview. (Baynton-Williams declined to comment.)
IRS filing a lien: Federal tax lien, $21,388, March 31, 1992; federal tax lien, $25,374, September 7, 1994.
largest town in Piscataquis County: Helen Kelly, “Sebec Village reading room,” The Piscataquis Observer, October 21, 1998.
population of more than a thousand: “Sebec, Piscataquis County, Maine,” compiled from History of Piscataquis County, by Amasa Loring, c. 1880, Three Rivers Community, http://www.trcmaine.org/community/sebec.
dropped to only six hundred: US Census Bureau, 2007–2011 American Community Survey, https://www.census.gov/acs/www/.
second-poorest county in Maine: Anne W. Acheson, Poverty in Maine, Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, University of Main
e, Orono, 2010. (Washington County is the poorest.)
most sparsely populated areas east of the Mississippi: Sarah Goodyear, “Can one of Maine’s emptiest counties become an urbanist paradise?” The Atlantic Cities, February 2012, http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/02/can-one-maines-emptiest-counties-become-urbanist-paradise/1154/.
“Big house, little house”: Thomas C. Hubka, Big House, Little House, Back House Barn: The Connected Farm Buildings of New England, Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2004.
five-over-five Colonial . . . rebuilt the chimney: “Sebec Lake Colonial” (real estate brochure), George Applegate, Trimble Private Brokerage, Bangor, Maine; house tour, July 4, 2013, by Andrew and April Taylor, 11 Cove Road, Sebec, Maine.
rustic, country aesthetic: VHS video by Scott Slater, August 18, 1993.
map of Sebec Lake: “Sebec Lake, Maine,” for Dover-Foxcroft Chamber of Commerce, by Prentiss and Carlisle Co, Inc., Bangor, Maine, May 24, 1962.
video from August 18, 1993: Slater video.
Smiley doted on the children . . . stories into the night: Scott Slater interview; Felicity Slater interview.
Boys’ Weekend . . . none of his friends knew: Scott Slater interview; Statt interview; Bob von Elgg, interview with the author; Scott Slater, journal, October 1997; “Boys’ Weekend, October 8–12, 1998, Reading Dinner Itinerary”; Bob von Elgg, “Sebec Journal,” 1998.
“diamonds from piles of coal”: Newman interview.
“At an auction, it’s fifty-fifty”: Barry Ruderman, interview with the author.
“a lot of money out there”: Ruderman interview.
“take out some of the competition”: Newman interview.
bidding more on behalf of Barry MacLean: Arader interview; Reese interview; Newman interview.
“Forbes didn’t like going to auctions”: Arader interview.
CHAPTER 7
Gilbert Bland . . . got into the map trade: Harvey, Island of Lost Maps, 25–26, 220–221.
Selling to other dealers: Ibid., 225.
Single-edged razor blade: Ibid., 101.
Ortelius, Hondius, and Mercator: Ibid., 279.
day in December 1995 . . . worth around $2,000: Ibid., 10–15; Miles Harvey, “Mr. Bland’s evil plot to control the world,” Outside, June 1997.
library let him off: Harvey, Island of Lost Maps, 81–84, 88–89.
contained page after page: Ibid., 89–93.
seventeen university libraries: Ibid., 112.
campus cop . . . tracked him to his home: Ibid., 175–177.
turned himself in: Frank Roylance, “Map theft suspect in custody; hearing of warrants, Fla. man turns self in,” The Baltimore Sun, January 5, 1996.
storage locker in Boca Raton: “Feds recover 150 maps, documents taken from university libraries; some items may have been stolen from UNC, Duke,” The Chapel Hill Herald (Durham, NC), March 2, 1996; Chris O’Brien and Todd Nelson, “Man charged in thefts of rare maps from UNC-CH,” The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), March 5, 1996.
a hundred more . . . a half-million dollars: Harvey, “Mr. Bland’s evil plot to control the world.”
“I was a real victim”: Ibid., 132.
“I’ll run over him—but in a nice way”: Ibid., 133.
four of the affected institutions . . . $100,000 in restitution: Ibid., 313–314.
Some seventy of the maps were never claimed: Ibid., 338.
“less of a con man than an un man”: Ibid., 225.
“Mr. Bland was bland”: Ibid., 225.
maps were closely guarded secrets: Brown, Story of Maps, 7–9; Harvey, Island of Lost Maps, 142–145.
Cantino chart: Lester, Fourth Part of the World, 338–355; Harvey, Island of Lost Maps, 145–149.
Dutch East India Company’s “Secret Atlas”: Brown, Story of Maps, 148–149.
handsomely rewarded privateers: Ibid., 9.
map dealers stole from one another as well: Ibid., 169–170.
Michael Huback and Stephen Chapo: The New York Times, March 17, 1973; Harvey, Island of Lost Maps, 157–158.
Charles Lynn Glaser: Barnaby Conrad III, “Map quest,” Forbes, November 7, 2011; Harvey, Island of Lost Maps, 159–161.
Andy Antippas: “Professor sentenced in map thefts,” The Hour (Norwalk, CT), November 21, 1978; Emily Rose, “Tulane professor steals Yale maps,” Yale Daily News, November 29, 1978; Emily Rose, “Thief gets year in jail,” Yale Daily News, January 15, 1979; Petula Dvorak, “N.O. doctor, art dealer held in cemetery thefts,” The Times-Picayune (New Orleans), November 5, 1998; Patricia Leigh Brown, “New Orleans grave theft: nothing’s sacred,” The New York Times, February 16, 1999.
“The stolen items can be moved very quickly”: Emily Rose, “Map thefts plague library; lost documents worth $10,000,” Yale Daily News, December 19, 1978.
tightening its security procedures: “The region: Yale is reassessing its library security,” The New York Times, December 3, 1978.
“relentless, unyielding due diligence”: Arader interview.
common myth about theft . . . days of their crimes: Amore and Mashberg, Stealing Rembrandts, 7–26.
Harry Newman told . . . “millions today”: Newman interview.
wet string, balled up in their mouths: William Finnegan, “A theft in the library,” The New Yorker, October 17, 2005.
Robert “Skeet” Willingham: Harvey, Island of Lost Maps, 161–162, 169–171.
“insider” theft accounts for some 75 percent: Margarite Annette Nathe, “‘A learned congress’: a closer look at book and manuscript thieves” (master’s thesis, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, April 2005); S. Van Nort, “Archival and library theft: the problem that will not go away,” Library and Archival Security 12 (1994): 25–49.
“It’s the same old story”: McDade interview.
Fitzhugh Lee Opie: David Streitfeld, “Dealer held in Library of Congress theft,” The Washington Post, March 13, 1992; David Streitfeld, “Book thief sentenced to 6 months,” The Washington Post, October 1, 1992; Harvey, Island of Lost Maps, 162–163.
Daniel Spiegelman . . . rare books were kept: McDade, Book Thief, 9–20.
hundreds of . . . manuscripts and dozens of letters: Ibid., 151.
edition of Blaeu’s Atlas Maior from 1667: Ibid., 144–146.
library didn’t discover . . . list of stolen items: Ibid., 1–6, 41–44.
caught the attention . . . tried to make the sale: Ibid., 48–52.
raided a storage locker: Ibid., 54–55.
Spiegelman successfully fought extradition: Ibid., 55–60.
plea bargain in April 1997: Ibid., 82–85.
Bland left prison: Harvey, Island of Lost Maps, 316.
table to calculate sentences: McDade, Book Thief, 73–74; McDade interview.
Downward departures . . . 1 percent of cases: McDade, Book Thief, 81.
between thirty and thirty-seven months: Ibid., 93.
“very existence of rare books”: Ibid., 91.
considering an upward departure: Ibid., 94–99.
final hearing in March 1998 . . . sixty months in prison: Ibid., 144–146.
Spiegelman escaped: Ibid., 161.
caught him in a sting: Ibid., 161–166.
left prison on July 19, 2001: Ibid., 176.
Sentencing Commission revised its guidelines: Ibid., 171–173; U.S. Sentencing Commission press release, “Sentencing commission increases penalties for crimes against cultural heritage,” March 25, 2002; U.S. Sentencing Commission, 2013 USSC Guidelines Manual, §2B1.5 “Theft of, Damage to, or Destruction of Cultural Heritage Resources,” 104–108.
“essential that . . . international networks are established”: Tony Campbell, “How should we respond to early map thefts?” Map History, May 25, 2002, http://www.maphistory.info/respon
se.html.
one dealer suspected him of worse: Reese interview; Finnegan, “A Theft in the Library.”
John Foster map of New England (1677): Krieger and Cobb, Mapping Boston, 93; Smiley, The Early Cartography of North America, (20); Massachusetts Historical Society, “A Map of New England,” http://www.masshist.org/database/68/project15; Finnegan, “A Theft in the Library.”
He wasn’t the only one . . . “maps from him”: Norman Fiering and Susan Danforth, interviews with the author.
CHAPTER 8
Slaughter . . . passed away: Bill Dentzer, “Lawrence Havron Slaughter, computer system expert, dies,” June 4, 1998, unknown publication found in Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection (LHS) archives, New York Public Library Map Division.
assembled some six hundred maps . . . in the world: E. Forbes Smiley III, “Analysis of need,” done in preparation for Slaughter Collection donation, LHS archives.
collection was built as a study collection: Judith Doolin Spikes, “Larchmont man leaves legacy of maps, atlases to NYC library,” Daily Times (New Rochelle), September 20, 1997.
agreed to donate the collection . . . “non-public stack area”: Alice Hudson, letter to E. Forbes Smiley III, December 10, 1996, LHS archives.
that would take money . . . “collection to the New York Public Library”: Paul LeClerc, letter to E. Forbes Smiley III, December 13, 1996, LHS archives.
Smiley met again with Hudson and LeClerc: Alice Hudson, letter to E. Forbes Smiley III, February 20, 1997 LHS archives.
Bill Walker, who promised . . . “100K” to make it happen: Bill Walker, letter to E. Forbes Smiley III, February 20, 1997, LHS archives.
“analysis of need” . . . benefit most from the collection: Smiley, “Analysis of need.”
Slaughter’s heirs had decided: E. Forbes Smiley III, letter to Alice Hudson, March 14, 1997, LHS archives.
agreement was signed . . . duplicates from the collection: Excerpt from Deed of Gift and Acceptance and Deposit Agreement between Susan D. Slaughter and New York Public Library, May 30, 1997; New York Public Library Office of Counsel, Birdie Race, memorandum to Barbara A. Roehrig, June 9, 1997, referring to deposit of Deed of Gift and Acceptance, and Deposit Agreement; E. Forbes Smiley III, letter to Paul LeClerc, March 26, 1997; all from LHS archives.
The Map Thief Page 33