Read Online The Hour of Peril: The Secret Plot to Murder Lincoln Before the Civil War by Daniel Stashower - Free Book Online
Authors: Daniel Stashower
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familial associations extended upward as well as down. When the suspect was formally charged, it emerged that his uncle was no less a figure than the postmaster of Chicago, who tersely informed Pinkerton that he had better produce some fairly hard evidence to back up his claims. This proved difficult, as no bank drafts or money orders had been found on Dennison’s person at the time of his arrest. Pinkerton, it appeared, had fingered the wrong man.
With his future at stake, Pinkerton took two deputies to search the clerk’s room at a nearby boardinghouse. The three men spent several hours rummaging through “every stitch and stick,” even rolling back the carpet and prying up floorboards, but no evidence surfaced to substantiate Pinkerton’s accusation. On the point of despair, Pinkerton took down a picture from the wall and flipped it back to front. There, he found the first of several incriminating bank drafts cunningly folded into the frame. A search of the other pictures in the room produced additional drafts, totaling nearly four thousand dollars. One newspaper offered a giddy tally of the distribution of the sums: “Behind a picture of the Virgin Mary and the Immaculate Conception: $1,503. The Highland Lovers: $900. The Indian Warrior: $1,000. A framed Daguerreotype of his mother: $300.”
Chicago took notice. “To Allan Pinkerton is due all the credit for the detection,” reported the Chicago Press. “For three weeks Mr. Pinkerton scarcely has had repose in the devotion with which he has followed up the criminal … until body and brain were nearly exhausted. As a detective police officer, Mr. Pinkerton has no superior, and we doubt if he has any equal in the country. There is danger of expecting too much of his peculiar talent and force, for we suppose there are some impossibilities in the detection of villainy, even for him.”
Buoyed by this sudden burst of notoriety, Pinkerton decided to leave the city payroll and strike out on his own. He found a small second-floor suite of rooms at the corner of Dearborn and Washington streets, a few steps from the city courthouse, and set up an office dedicated to the “modern science of thief-taking,” soon to be more commonly known as a private detective agency.
It was perhaps inevitable that the only and original cooper of Dundee should become the only and original private detective of Chicago. His friend Robert Fergus, a fellow immigrant, had made the most of Chicago’s many opportunities, parlaying a menial printer’s job into a successful publishing concern. With his success in the Dennison case, Pinkerton saw a chance to follow Fergus’s path to success, leverage his growing fame, and once again become his own master.
Initially, Pinkerton partnered with a local lawyer named Edward Rucker and set up operations as the North-Western Police Agency, but Rucker soon faded from view and the operation continued as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Pinkerton would always list the year of the agency’s founding as 1850, but it is possible that he fudged the date to create the illusion of longer experience, as the accounts of his post office exploit did not appear until 1855. An early statement of purpose echoed the effusions of the Chicago Press story, and offered a broad, somewhat scattershot menu of the fledgling agency’s services. Potential clients were informed that Pinkerton’s agency would “attend to the investigation and depredation [ sic ], frauds and criminal offenses; the detection of offenders, procuring arrests and convictions, apprehension or return of fugitives from justice, or bail; recovering lost or stolen property, obtaining information, etc.”
Pinkerton’s agency was not, as many have claimed, the first of its kind, but it would soon eclipse all others. Though this success had much to do with Pinkerton’s cunning and his relentless drive, he also benefited from having set up shop in the right place at the right time.
With his future at stake, Pinkerton took two deputies to search the clerk’s room at a nearby boardinghouse. The three men spent several hours rummaging through “every stitch and stick,” even rolling back the carpet and prying up floorboards, but no evidence surfaced to substantiate Pinkerton’s accusation. On the point of despair, Pinkerton took down a picture from the wall and flipped it back to front. There, he found the first of several incriminating bank drafts cunningly folded into the frame. A search of the other pictures in the room produced additional drafts, totaling nearly four thousand dollars. One newspaper offered a giddy tally of the distribution of the sums: “Behind a picture of the Virgin Mary and the Immaculate Conception: $1,503. The Highland Lovers: $900. The Indian Warrior: $1,000. A framed Daguerreotype of his mother: $300.”
Chicago took notice. “To Allan Pinkerton is due all the credit for the detection,” reported the Chicago Press. “For three weeks Mr. Pinkerton scarcely has had repose in the devotion with which he has followed up the criminal … until body and brain were nearly exhausted. As a detective police officer, Mr. Pinkerton has no superior, and we doubt if he has any equal in the country. There is danger of expecting too much of his peculiar talent and force, for we suppose there are some impossibilities in the detection of villainy, even for him.”
Buoyed by this sudden burst of notoriety, Pinkerton decided to leave the city payroll and strike out on his own. He found a small second-floor suite of rooms at the corner of Dearborn and Washington streets, a few steps from the city courthouse, and set up an office dedicated to the “modern science of thief-taking,” soon to be more commonly known as a private detective agency.
It was perhaps inevitable that the only and original cooper of Dundee should become the only and original private detective of Chicago. His friend Robert Fergus, a fellow immigrant, had made the most of Chicago’s many opportunities, parlaying a menial printer’s job into a successful publishing concern. With his success in the Dennison case, Pinkerton saw a chance to follow Fergus’s path to success, leverage his growing fame, and once again become his own master.
Initially, Pinkerton partnered with a local lawyer named Edward Rucker and set up operations as the North-Western Police Agency, but Rucker soon faded from view and the operation continued as the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Pinkerton would always list the year of the agency’s founding as 1850, but it is possible that he fudged the date to create the illusion of longer experience, as the accounts of his post office exploit did not appear until 1855. An early statement of purpose echoed the effusions of the Chicago Press story, and offered a broad, somewhat scattershot menu of the fledgling agency’s services. Potential clients were informed that Pinkerton’s agency would “attend to the investigation and depredation [ sic ], frauds and criminal offenses; the detection of offenders, procuring arrests and convictions, apprehension or return of fugitives from justice, or bail; recovering lost or stolen property, obtaining information, etc.”
Pinkerton’s agency was not, as many have claimed, the first of its kind, but it would soon eclipse all others. Though this success had much to do with Pinkerton’s cunning and his relentless drive, he also benefited from having set up shop in the right place at the right time.
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