A Counterfeiter's Paradise

by Ben Tarnoff

  94, Lewis had every

  Description of the jail: History of Bedford, Somerset and Fulton Counties, Penn-sylvania (Chicago: Waterman, Watkins, 1884), pp. 196–197. Scenic details of Bedford: Fortescue Cuming, Cuming’s Tour to the Western Country (1807–1809), vol. 4 of Early Western Travels, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Cleveland: A. H. Clark, 1904 [1810]), p. 65. The coalfields were located at Broad Top Mountain, in northeastern Bedford County. Samuel Riddle, a lawyer who played a major role in Lewis’s prosecution, was the first to mine coal there and ship it commercially; see John Woolf Jordan, ed., A History of the Juniata Valley and Its People, vol. 1 (New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1913), p. 306.

  94, Lewis was virtually

  “a man calling…”: American Volunteer, January 18, 1816.

  94–95, Despite his apparent

  The facts of Lewis’s childhood and early life are hard to come by, not only because of the ever-present problem of a thin paper trail, but also because of a spurious confession that appeared after his death in 1820. The confession, which purported to be written by Lewis in his jail cell in Bellefonte but which was in fact forged, offered false information about his life that subsequent genealogists incorporated into their histories. One resident of central Pennsylvania was so enraged by the confession’s inaccuracy that he wrote a letter, published in the American Volunteer, September 21, 1820, offering many corrections. He gave Lewis’s birthplace as “Bald-Eagle Valley, on the banks of the Bald-Eagle creek, about half a mile below the Bald-Eagle Nest.” This is corroborated by records showing that Lewis Lewis, David Lewis’s father, lived in the region that later became Upper Bald Eagle township in 1787—roughly a year before the counterfeiter’s birth—according to John Blair Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1883), p. 23. The year of Lewis’s birth is debated, but 1788 is the best estimate. Mac E. Barrick, in “Who Was Lewis the Robber?” Cumberland County History 6.2 (Winter 1989), p. 55, gives 1788 as his birth year after looking at the records of the Philadelphia penitentiary that he entered in 1816, which listed him as twenty-eight years old. Lewis Lewis’s life: Rosalie Jones Dill, Mathew Dill Genealogy: A Study of the Dill Family of Dillsburg, York County, Pennsylvania, 1698–1935, pt. 2 (Spokane, WA: 1935), pp. 17–18. The vigilantes that stormed Philadelphia, known as the Paxton Boys: Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003), pp. 210–213. The 1774 war was called Lord Dunmore’s War, after the Virginia governor (John Murray, fourth Earl of Dunmore) who provoked it; see John Grenier, The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607–1814 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 148–151.

  95, Surveying was a

  Colonial land surveying: William E. Burns, Science and Technology in Colonial America (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2005), pp. 101–102. Lewis Lewis’s surveying career: Dill, Mathew Dill Genealogy, pp. 17–18.

  95–96, Despite the danger

  Lewis’s landholdings and list of possessions sold after his death: Dill, Mathew Dill Genealogy, pp. 18, 21.

  96, Lewis Lewis’s background

  Lewis Lewis’s education and pedigree: ibid., pp. 17, 19–20. Jane Dill’s reputation for horsemanship and Presbyterianism: ibid., p. 21. The marriage: ibid., p. 18.

  96, By the time

  Eight children: ibid., pp. 23–25. The cooling of the Penn-sylvania frontier: C. Hale Sipe, The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania: An Account of the Indian Events, in Pennsylvania, of the French and Indian War, Pontiac’s War, Lord Dunmore’s War, the Revolutionary War and the Indian Uprising from 1789 to 1795 (Lewisburg, PA: Wennawoods, 1995 [1929]), pp. 709–715. Bald Eagle Creek’s name: Paul A. W. Wallace, Indians in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 2005 [1961]), p. 173. The naming of Bloody Run: Charles Augustus Hanna, The Wilderness Trail, vol. 1 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1911), pp. 277–278.

  97, Lewis never had

  Lewis Lewis died sometime before 1790, according to Dugan, The Making of Legends, p. 20. Jane’s remarriage and “loving wife, Jane”: Dill, Mathew Dill Genealogy, p. 17. Jane’s arrival in Clearfield: Roland D. Swoope Jr., Twentieth Century History of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania, and Representative Citizens (Chicago: Richmond-Arnold, 1911), p. 28.

  97–98, In the fall

  Physical description of Brock: Robert Malcolmson, A Very Brilliant Affair: The Battle of Queenston Heights, 1812 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2003), p. 35. Brock’s early life: Mary Beacock Fryer, Bold, Brave, and Born to Lead: Major General Isaac Brock and the Canadas (Toronto: Dundurn, 2004), pp. 31–32. Brock’s efforts to transfer out of Canada: Ven Begamudré, Isaac Brock: Larger Than Life (Montreal: XYZ Publishing, 2005), p. 112. Overview of Brock’s career: Wesley B. Turner, “Brock, Isaac,” Encyclopedia of the War of 1812, ed. David Stephen Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2004 [1997]), pp. 62–63.

  98, On the other

  Standoff across the river: Hickey, The War of 1812, p. 86. Relationship between Prevost and Brock: John K. Mahon, The War of 1812 (New York: Da Capo, 1991 [1972]), p. 19, and Malcolmson, A Very Brilliant Affair, pp. 47, 75. “[T]he population, believe me…”: quoted in Malcolmson, A Very Brilliant Affair, p. 76. “the most abandoned…”: quoted in Mahon, The War of 1812, p. 19.

  98–99, One of these

  The account of Lewis’s capture and near execution comes from his mentor Philander Noble, who in 1813 was arrested and examined on suspicion of being a British spy in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. Noble’s testimony, along with the writ of mittimus ordering his arrest and testimony from others, appears in the Bellefonte Court of Common Pleas (or Quarter Sessions) records from April 1813 under the heading “United States v. Philander N. Noble,” although it’s unlikely the case ever went to trial. These documents are held by the Centre County Library and Historical Museum in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania; for a transcription and discussion of their contents, see Douglas Macneal, “Amplification: David Lewis in Centre County in 1813,” Centre County Heritage 26.1 (Spring 1989), pp. 27–33. In what follows, I’ll be referring extensively to the testimony from Noble’s espionage hearing, because it provides a rare glimpse of Lewis’s early career. Brock as disciplinarian: Malcolmson, A Very Brilliant Affair, p. 35.

  99, Fortunately for Lewis

  The Battle of Queenston Heights: Hickey, The War of 1812, pp. 86–87, and Turner, “Brock, Isaac,” p. 63. A vivid firsthand account of the assault and Brock’s death is a letter from an officer named Sir John Beverley Robinson, found in Charles Walker Robinson, Life of Sir John Beverley Robinson (Toronto: Morang, 1904), pp. 33–39.

  99, The battle that

  Lewis told Noble he escaped from jail when it was set on fire from the cannonading across the river. This would have been in mid-November, when an artillery duel erupted after the expiration of a brief armistice; see Mahon, The War of 1812, pp. 82–83. The exchange of fire continued through November 21, and left six men dead, a few wounded, and extensive property damage. Eyewitness account of the destruction from the American side: E. Cruikshank, ed., The Documentary History of the Campaign upon the Niagara Frontier in the Year 1812, Part IV, October, November and December (Welland, ON: Lundy’s Lane Historical Society, n.d.), pp. 233–235.

  99–100, Lewis was twenty-four

  Children of Jane Dill and Lewis Lewis: Dill, Mathew Dill Genealogy, pp. 23–25. The story of Lewis’s desertion from the army has a complicated provenance. In the writ of mittimus ordering Noble’s arrest in 1813, the justices wrote, “David Lewis is generally understood and known to have deserted some years ago from the Army of the United States and eloped to the said province of Upper Canada.” A witness at Noble’s espionage hearing, William Robinson, offered further confirmation: “The old woman his mother told me that he had been condemned to be shot but that she had got him cleared.” Finally, Sheriff Moore, when posting a reward for Lewis’s capture in 1816, claimed that Lewis “has been in the Army of the Unite
d States, from which he deserted.” All of this strongly suggests that Lewis deserted, although it’s not known exactly when or from which company, as no records exist of the court-martial. Mark Dugan contacted the National Archives in Washington, DC, and the archivists couldn’t find Lewis’s case, although the files are incomplete before 1809. Thriving counterfeiting trade along the Canadian border: Stephen Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), pp. 64–66.

  100, Like their colonial

  Enforcement problem along Canadian border: Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 64–66. Mihm’s discussion focuses on Stephen Burroughs, a famous counterfeiter who operated in present-day Quebec. According to the Randolph, Vermont, newspaper the Weekly Wanderer, July 27, 1807, Lewis’s mentor Philander Noble was a close associate of Burroughs.

  100, One of these

  Noble was in Vermont as early as July 1807, when he was arrested for counterfeiting near Plymouth. He bounced back and forth across the border: in September 1809, he was in Canada, arrested at Niagara, the same place where Lewis almost lost his life. See Weekly Wanderer, July 27, 1807; Vermont Precursor, July 31, 1807; Otsego Herald, November 4, 1809; and Connecticut Herald, November 14, 1809. A small report from the Weekly Wanderer, February 23, 1810, provides a possible lead of Lewis’s whereabouts during this period: the article states that David Lewis, “a transient person,” has been sentenced to prison in Burlington for seven years for passing counterfeit bills. It’s impossible to know whether this is the same David Lewis that grew up in Pennsylvania, but the timing and location certainly makes it plausible.

  100–101, The two men

  Noble’s physical appearance: American Volunteer, May 9, 1816, quoted in Dugan, The Making of Legends, p. 23. His date of birth (April 1772) and occupation: Lucius Manlius Boltwood, History and Genealogy of the Family of Thomas Noble, of Westfield, Massachusetts (Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard, 1878), p. 648. Westfield’s history: Josiah Gilbert Holland, History of Western Massachusetts: The Counties of Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin, and Berkshire, vol. 1 (Springfield, MA: Samuel Bowles, 1855), p. 66. “I performed the task…”: from Noble’s 1800 letter to William Shepard, reproduced in John H. Lockwood, Westfield and Its Historic Influences 1669–1919: The Life of an Early Town, with a Survey of Events in New England and Bordering Regions to Which It Was Related in Colonial and Revolutionary Times, vol. 2 (Westfield, MA: printed by the author, 1922), p. 188.

  101, For a young

  In his testimony at his 1813 espionage hearing, “United States v. Philander N. Noble,” Noble claims to have moved to Vermont in 1803. He was certainly there by 1807, when he was arrested near Plymouth.

  101–102, The summer of 1807

  The scene: Weekly Wanderer, July 27, 1807, and Vermont Precursor, July 31, 1807. “with sincere pleasure…”: Weekly Wanderer, July 27, 1807. Noble’s arrest and conviction in Upper Canada in 1809: Otsego Herald, November 4, 1809.

  102, The mechanics of moneymaking

  The Vermont Precursor, July 31, 1807, mentions “four coppers prepared for engraving” discovered in the counterfeiters’ hideout.

  102–103, The bills strewn

  The banknotes that Noble forged: Weekly Wanderer, July 27, 1807, and Vermont Precursor, July 31, 1807. Origins of American banks and banknotes: Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991 [1957]), pp. 3–171. “The notes the banks issued were,” he writes on p. 71, “in form if not in essence, just another variety of paper money.”

  103, Local governments had

  Though the first note-issuing banks predated the Constitution’s ban on the states printing paper money, the prohibition forced the states to use banks to get currency into circulation, even if the notes couldn’t be made legal tender. The -conservative banking world of 1787: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 74–77, 105. “hostages to be…”: from Thomas Paine’s Dissertations, quoted ibid., p. 61.

  103–104, Most of the Constitution’s

  Banking at the Constitutional Convention: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 103–106.

  104, The silence was significant

  Hamilton’s idea for the Bank of the United States: ibid., pp. 40–42, 114–115.

  105, As could be

  Debate over the Bank: ibid., pp. 114–122. The Senate passed the bill on January 20, 1791; the House passed it on February 8, 1791. Washington used as much time as allowed by the Constitution to decide whether or not to veto it. His secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, and his attorney general, Edmund Randolph, told him it was unconstitutional.

  105, Although Hamilton got

  The conservative mercantile banks: ibid., pp. 74–77.

  105–106, In the last

  The changing face of the American banking world and the economy as a whole: ibid., pp. 67–74, 145–149.

  106, When Noble wrote

  There were 29 banks in 1800, 90 in 1811, and 246 in 1816, according to Hammond, in Banks and Politics in America, pp. 144–146. Checks exerted by Bank: ibid., pp. 198–199. Debate over renewing Bank’s charter: ibid., pp. 222–226. An overview of the banking boom triggered by the Bank’s fall: Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 110–111.

  106–107, Noble’s experience

  “a great evil”: from James Madison’s reply to Charles Jared Ingersoll, dated February 2, 1831, included in M. St. Clair Clarke and D. A. Hall, eds., Leg-islative and Documentary History of the Bank of the United States: Including the Original Bank of North America (Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1832), p. 778.

  107, In 1813, as

  America’s wartime financial woes: Hickey, The War of 1812, pp. 113–119, 222–225. Lewis returned to Bellefonte at least twice before moving back to Pennsylvania permanently in 1813: at Noble’s espionage hearing, “United States v. Philander N. Noble,” Thomas Lewis testified that he had seen his brother in Bellefonte in the summer of 1812, and Isaac Buffington declared that he had seen Lewis in Bellefonte during the winter of 1810–1811.

  107–108, Around midday in

  The details of Noble’s arrival are drawn from Thomas Lewis’s and Aaron Ellis’s testimony at Noble’s espionage hearing. In his testimony in “United States v. Philander N. Noble,” Noble claimed that Lewis “sent a line” through Noble to his wife, and that she then handed the message to Thomas Lewis—perhaps this note contained instructions regarding Noble. Who was Lewis’s wife? In his testimony, Aaron Ellis declared that “Margarate Lewis,” who lived with Jane Leathers (formerly Jane Lewis), “says she is the wife of David Lewis.” But there is no reference in the genealogical record to David Lewis’s marriage, and the name Margarate or Margaret Lewis doesn’t surface again in Lewis’s paper trail. Perhaps they weren’t legally married; in any case, nothing firm exists about their relationship.

  108, While a brilliant

  Noble and Lewis first arrived in Bellefonte on March 28, 1813; a week later, April 4, 1813, Noble was brought before two justices of the peace, William Petrikin and Elisha Moore, for examination on suspicion of being a British spy. “[I]t is the duty…”: from the writ of mittimus ordering Noble’s arrest. “his capers”: Isaac Buffington’s testimony at Noble’s hearing, “United States v. Philander N. Noble.” The claim that Noble had a gun: Aaron Ellis’s testimony. “about who he was…”: William Robinson’s testimony. “strange man”: Isaac Buffington’s testimony.

  108–109, It’s doubtful that

  “I do not know…”: Thomas Lewis’s testimony, “United States v. Philander N. Noble.” Two other witnesses, William Robinson and Isaac Buffington, claimed Thomas was present when they saw Lewis and Noble together, and one of those times was at Thomas’s own house (the other was at his mother’s).

  109, Even though the

  A glance at the handwriting of the original record gives a sense of Noble’s scattered speaking style—it was clearly wr
itten in haste, and Noble’s abrupt conversational jumps didn’t make transcribing his words any easier. In their writ of mittimus, the justices acknowledged the chaotic quality of Noble’s testimony, declaring that he had “stated many contradi[cti]ons in the account he gives of himself and of his business.”

  109, The next day

  Noble had two days of testimony in “United States v. Philander N. Noble”: April 4, 1813, and April 5, 1813. On April 4, he didn’t tell the full story of his journey to Canada but did offer a few sentences on crossing the St. Lawrence River with someone named Brown—omitting Lewis, of course. On April 5, he admitted that Lewis was present along with Brown, and gave a much more detailed account of the trip. It’s unknown who Brown was, as he doesn’t seem to have accompanied them to Bellefonte. Benjamin Forsyth: Richard V. Barbuto, “Forsyth, Benjamin,” Encyclopedia of the War of 1812, p. 191. Width of the St. Lawrence: C. P. Lucas, The Canadian War of 1812 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1906), p. 83.

  109–110, If the travelers

  The Battle of Ogdensburg: Lucas, The Canadian War of 1812, pp. 82–84. At his espionage hearing, “United States v. Philander N. Noble,” Noble alleged that he and Lewis came to Ogdensburg “a few days” before the British attack; if the story is true, this would be around February 19, 1813. Although nothing else exists in the record after Noble’s last day of testimony, the case was almost certainly dropped for lack of evidence. A conviction would mean death; the engraver was alive and well two years later, when he and Lewis counterfeited currency at a mountain campsite.

  110, Noble and Lewis

  Contemporary observers commented on the resemblance between bankers and counterfeiters. Mihm, in A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 8–9, quotes Hezekiah Niles—the Baltimore-based editor whose Weekly Register was a popular newsmagazine—and John Quincy Adams discussing the similarity between the two.

  110–111, The war with

  Illicit trade with the British: Hickey, The War of 1812, p. 224. Bill authorizing new Pennsylvania banks: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, p. 165.