Read Online A Counterfeiter's Paradise by Ben Tarnoff - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ben Tarnoff
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smallerhill, stood the meetinghouse of a Quaker colony. Life there was basic: when the young men traveled to Massachusetts to find women to marry, they passed around their only pair of good shoes. In the next few years, homesteaders from New England would start streaming into the area, but in 1752, Dover was still populated principally by enterprising Germans, starving squatters, and barefoot Quakers.
Pioneers are usually too concerned with surviving to be curious about what their neighbors are doing, particularly if their neighbors live far away. Even if they had wanted to check in on one another, the terrain wasn’t easy to traverse. Two rivers ran through the lowlands of Dover, watering a large swathe of thickly wooded marshes and swamps. The boggy wilderness offered excellent places to hide counterfeiting tools that would be impossible to see through the layers of foliage. The wetlands’ tangled growth also concealed something else: wolves and panthers, which stalked the damp ground in great quantities looking for deer. There were so many of them that the government regularly offered rewards for killing the predators: all you had to do to collect was bring the animal’s head and pelt to a local magistrate. In a place like Dover, Sullivan wouldn’t have to deal with unexpected visitors. If the forbidding terrain didn’t keep people away, the threat of wild creatures lurking behind the trees certainly would.
Another virtue of the region was its contested history, which made the already difficult task of capturing and convicting Sullivan nearly impossible. Since the counterfeiter would operate on the border and forge the currencies of both New York and Connecticut, intercolonial cooperation would be essential for apprehending him. But the disputed status of the Oblong meant that officials from the two colonies weren’t inclined to help each other police the area. Whoever wanted to catch Sullivan would not only have to wade long distances through wolf-infested swamps; he would also face the challenging chore of getting two colonies with a history of conflict to work together.
If his choice of location is any indication, Sullivan seems to havethought things through. Once he had a base of operations, he set to work gathering the necessities. One of these was a hideout, and the hills around Dover had many promising candidates: spacious caves that had been carved into the cliffs by rivulets. The size of these caverns was impressive; one of them, known locally as the Dover Stone Church, had an arched portal and a vaulted stone interior that resembled a Gothic cathedral. Sullivan picked out a cave cut into the side of a small bluff, located near a particularly isolated corner of a forested swamp. He camouflaged the chasm’s mouth with brush and a tree stump so the entrance wouldn’t be visible. Inside, a long corridor led to a sizable room that Sullivan covered with wooden panels, presumably to prevent it from collapsing, or perhaps to lend the interior a cozier atmosphere. His grotto was certainly comfortable. There were tables and chairs, places to eat and to sleep. An opening in the rock formed a natural window, letting in light that illuminated the chamber.
Sullivan also put together a gang to help produce and dispense his forgeries, a criminal crew that would come to be known as the Dover Money Club. Most of these men wore a brand mark on their cheeks or had their ears cropped, and they displayed these disfigurements proudly, as the insignia of their outlaw brotherhood. One of them was Joseph Boyce, an attractive, well-built convict with short black hair. On his hand was a scar in the shape of the letter T, imprinted by a constable’s iron several years before for thieving. Originally from Salem, Massachusetts, he and his son, Joseph Jr., had spent the last decade churning out fake bills of various colonies as a father-son counterfeiting team. They were an accomplished pair of moneymakers and had been in the
Pioneers are usually too concerned with surviving to be curious about what their neighbors are doing, particularly if their neighbors live far away. Even if they had wanted to check in on one another, the terrain wasn’t easy to traverse. Two rivers ran through the lowlands of Dover, watering a large swathe of thickly wooded marshes and swamps. The boggy wilderness offered excellent places to hide counterfeiting tools that would be impossible to see through the layers of foliage. The wetlands’ tangled growth also concealed something else: wolves and panthers, which stalked the damp ground in great quantities looking for deer. There were so many of them that the government regularly offered rewards for killing the predators: all you had to do to collect was bring the animal’s head and pelt to a local magistrate. In a place like Dover, Sullivan wouldn’t have to deal with unexpected visitors. If the forbidding terrain didn’t keep people away, the threat of wild creatures lurking behind the trees certainly would.
Another virtue of the region was its contested history, which made the already difficult task of capturing and convicting Sullivan nearly impossible. Since the counterfeiter would operate on the border and forge the currencies of both New York and Connecticut, intercolonial cooperation would be essential for apprehending him. But the disputed status of the Oblong meant that officials from the two colonies weren’t inclined to help each other police the area. Whoever wanted to catch Sullivan would not only have to wade long distances through wolf-infested swamps; he would also face the challenging chore of getting two colonies with a history of conflict to work together.
If his choice of location is any indication, Sullivan seems to havethought things through. Once he had a base of operations, he set to work gathering the necessities. One of these was a hideout, and the hills around Dover had many promising candidates: spacious caves that had been carved into the cliffs by rivulets. The size of these caverns was impressive; one of them, known locally as the Dover Stone Church, had an arched portal and a vaulted stone interior that resembled a Gothic cathedral. Sullivan picked out a cave cut into the side of a small bluff, located near a particularly isolated corner of a forested swamp. He camouflaged the chasm’s mouth with brush and a tree stump so the entrance wouldn’t be visible. Inside, a long corridor led to a sizable room that Sullivan covered with wooden panels, presumably to prevent it from collapsing, or perhaps to lend the interior a cozier atmosphere. His grotto was certainly comfortable. There were tables and chairs, places to eat and to sleep. An opening in the rock formed a natural window, letting in light that illuminated the chamber.
Sullivan also put together a gang to help produce and dispense his forgeries, a criminal crew that would come to be known as the Dover Money Club. Most of these men wore a brand mark on their cheeks or had their ears cropped, and they displayed these disfigurements proudly, as the insignia of their outlaw brotherhood. One of them was Joseph Boyce, an attractive, well-built convict with short black hair. On his hand was a scar in the shape of the letter T, imprinted by a constable’s iron several years before for thieving. Originally from Salem, Massachusetts, he and his son, Joseph Jr., had spent the last decade churning out fake bills of various colonies as a father-son counterfeiting team. They were an accomplished pair of moneymakers and had been in the
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