by Ben Tarnoff
152–153, The cost of leaving
Posse: American Volunteer, July 20, 1820, and Dugan, The Making of Legends, p. 49. “a wild, unfrequented…”: Bellefonte Patriot, quoted in Frear, Davey Lewis, p. 47.
153, Lewis and Connelly
Description of the region just north of the ranges in central Pennsylvania: I. D. Rupp, ed., History and Topography of Northumberland, Huntingdon, Mifflin, Centre, Union, Columbia, Juniata and Clinton Counties, Pa. (Lancaster, PA: Gilbert Hills, 1846), pp. 354–357, and Samuel Maclay, Journal of Samuel Maclay, While Surveying the West Branch of the Susquehanna, the Sinnemahoning and the Allegheny Rivers, in 1790 (Williamsport, PA: John F. Meginness, 1887 [1790]), pp. 17, 35–36.
153–154, On Bennett’s Branch
Sawmill: Maclay, Journal of Samuel Maclay, p. 24. After Frederick Leathers died, Lewis’s mother, Jane, married a third time, to Reese Stevens; see Rosalie Jones Dill, Mathew Dill Genealogy: A Study of the Dill Family of Dillsburg, York County, Pennsylvania, 1698–1935, pt. 2 (Spokane, WA: 1935), p. 17. By 1820, Jane and Reese Stevens lived in the valley of Bennett’s Branch. David’s brother Thomas Lewis also moved into the area in late 1817, near the village of Benezette on Bennett’s Branch; see Dugan, The Making of Legends, p. 49. It’s possible that Lewis visited his brother, although it’s unknown if he even visited his mother. The 1820 census puts the number of residents in Bellefonte at 433. The posse’s members questioning Jane: American Volunteer, July 20, 1820.
154, If she wouldn’t
There are three slightly different accounts of the posse’s pursuit of Lewis. I rely for the most part on the version in the American Volunteer, July 20, 1820, which, as noted above, is drawn from the Bellefonte Patriot, July 8, 1820. There are two later accounts, published in 1883 and 1890, respectively: Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, p. 62, and Michael A. Leeson, ed., History of the Counties of McKean, Elk, Cameron and Potter, Pennsylvania, with Biographical Selections, vol. 2 (Chicago: J. H. Beers, 1890), pp. 384–385. Linn—who claims to have based his account on the testimony of a member of the posse—and Leeson—who spoke with a local resident named John Brooks—both report that the posse met William Shephard while traveling on the river, and that Shephard, along with Brooks, helped guide them to the robbers. Prevalence of mosquitoes and gnats along Bennett’s Branch during the summer: Maclay -navigated the same waterway in June 1790; see Journal of Samuel Maclay, p. 22. Heat and hardship: Frear, Davey Lewis, p. 51.
155, The plan failed
Both the American Volunteer, July 20, 1820, and Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, p. 62, offer this version of the shootout. But Leeson, in History of the Counties of McKean, Elk, Cameron and Potter, pp. 384–385, in his most significant departure from the other accounts, includes this remarkable sentence: “Connelly seized his gun when the alarm was given, Lewis surrendered, and was shot in the arm afterward.” This would mean that Lewis was deliberately injured by the posse when he was defenseless—although Leeson doesn’t mention the wound in Lewis’s leg. Leeson’s account, based on the testimony of a local resident who claimed to have seen the shootout and published seventy years after the events took place, is probably the least reliable of the three. It’s entirely possible, however, that the posse shot Lewis down in cold blood and then suppressed the true story. Detail about Connelly’s entrails: Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, p. 62, and Frear, Davey Lewis, p. 51.
155, The posse treated
The American Volunteer, July 20, 1820, attributes Connelly’s death to a “mortification” of the wound, meaning gangrene or necrosis; he died “in gloomy sullenness,” the article added. Lewis’s wounds: American Volunteer, July 20, 1820, and Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, p. 62. Reception of posse in Bellefonte: Frear, Davey Lewis, p. 51.
155–156, They had reason
“gallant little band…”: Bellefonte Patriot, July 8, 1820, reprinted in American Volunteer, July 20, 1820. Doctor’s examination: Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, p. 62. Lewis’s silence before his death is confirmed by a statement cosigned by Bellefonte’s sheriff and jailer—John Mitchell and Joseph Williams—who said Lewis made “no manner of confession whatever, of his past life, other than what he made to the Minister of the Gospel who attended him,” published in the Bellefonte Patriot, September 13, 1820, and reprinted in the American Volunteer, September 28, 1820. Lewis’s last hours: from a letter by the attending minister, Reverend Linn, published in the Bellefonte Patriot and quoted in Frear, Davey Lewis, pp. 53–54. The location of Lewis’s grave is a matter of dispute: the American Volunteer, July 27, 1820, claims Lewis was buried at Bellefonte, while Mark Dugan maintains he was buried with his family at the Milesburg cemetery about five miles away.
156, Newspapers throughout the
The Bellefonte Patriot report of Lewis’s capture was reprinted in Philadelphia, Boston, and Norfolk, Virginia; the notice of his death was reprinted in Morristown, New Jersey, and Charleston, South Carolina. The Alabama Watchman, September 15, 1820, reported Lewis’s arrest and his fatal injury. In the Patriot account of the pursuit that was widely reprinted, Lewis and his band are called “monsters,” an indication of how much damage Lewis had done to his reputation in his final months.
157, On August 1, 1820
First installment of the confession: Carlisle Republican, August 1, 1820. Subsequent installments that year ran on August 15, August 22, September 5, September 12, September 19, September 30, and October 6. McFarland published the full confession as a pamphlet on October 25, 1820, and copyrighted it. A copy of the first edition is held by the Waidner-Spahr Library, Archives and Special Collections at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
157, People familiar with
“several detached sheets…”: Carlisle Republican, August 8, 1820. When McFarland complained about the illegible handwriting as an excuse for not printing another installment, he was probably stalling for time until the next chunk of the confession had been written. “David Lewis never uttered…”: from a letter by a Centre County resident to a Cumberland County resident, printed in the American Volunteer, September 21, 1820. “sheer fabrication”: American Volunteer, September 28, 1820.
157–158, The confession was
Authorship controversy: Douglas Macneal, “Settling the Confession’s Hash,” Centre County Heritage 24.2 (Fall 1987), pp. 16–17, and Dugan, The Making of Legends, pp. 55–56. For an excellent overview of the confession, which charts the text’s passage through different genres—romance, satire, and melodrama—see Macneal, “Settling the Confession’s Hash,” pp. 13–14. “rambling disposition”: Rishel, The Life and Adventures of David Lewis, p. 39.
158, Lewis’s character is deeply
“This gentle fluid…”: Rishel, The Life and Adventures of David Lewis, p. 75. “unfortunate, but repentant”: ibid., p. 84.
158–159, McFarland printed the
“the weak side…”: ibid., p. 63. “a legalized system…”: ibid., p. 62. For another tirade against finance, see ibid., pp. 39–40.
159, By staying silent
“evil genius”: ibid., p. 71.
159–160, While contemporaries exposed
Judging from the preface to his 1890 edition, The Life and Adventures of David Lewis, C. D. Rishel seems to have thought the confession was genuine. The preface to the 1853 edition, which Rishel includes, casts more doubt on the confession’s authenticity but stops short of labeling it a forgery. Excerpts from the confession appeared in the Carlisle-based Evening Sentinel, April 29, 1898; May 6, 1898; and May 19, 1898—with no doubt as to their accuracy. “man of fine physique” and “a born leader”: William M. Hall, Reminiscences and Sketches, Historical and Biographical (Harrisburg: Meyers Printing House, 1890), p. 269. “quite an Adonis”: Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, p. 62. There are many newspaper reports of Pennsylvanians trying to find Lewis’s treasure or other relics belonging to him. See Bellefonte’s Democratic Watchman, November 1
7, 1893; Centre Hall’s Centre Reporter, July 1, 1897, and October 28, 1909; and Bellefonte’s Centre Democrat, January 11, 1912. “My father knew of him…”: quoted in Mac E. Barrick, “Lewis the Robber in Life and Legend,” Pennsylvania Folklife 17.1 (August 1967), p. 10.
160, What’s harder to gauge
The familiar accusations of corruption were made against Findlay; the pro-Findlay camp attacked Hiester by questioning his Revolutionary War credentials and accusing him of voting to give himself a pay raise while in Congress. Election of 1820: James A. Kehl, Ill Feeling in the Era of Good Feeling: Western Pennsylvania Political Battles, 1815–1825 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1956), pp. 199–204, and Klein, Pennsylvania Politics, pp. 107–112. Political culture of the era: Klein, Pennsylvania Politics, pp. 65–66.
160, As if all the
1820 election returns: Klein, Pennsylvania Politics, p. 408. The total for Hiester was 67,905, and the total for Findlay was 66,308.
160–161, Within a year
“pauperism”: from Hiester’s message, dated December 5, 1821, included in George Edward Reed, ed., Pennsylvania Archives, Fourth Series, vol. 5, pp. 280–281; the full message is on pp. 280–296. Nation’s recovery: Rothbard, The Panic of 1819, p. 25. Cheves’s policies and legacy: Edward S. Kaplan, The Bank of the United States and the American Economy (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999), pp. 69–75, and Bray Hammond, Banks and Politics in America: From the Revolution to the Civil War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991 [1957]), pp. 276–277, 302–304.
161, But there were
Economic shift: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 319, 326–329. Hammond draws the comparison between steam and credit frequently in his book, most clearly on pp. 35–36. Of course, not everyone succumbed to the get-rich-quick mentality: Albert Gallatin, who served as treasury secretary from 1801 to 1814, became a prominent spokesman for a saner, more managed approach to growth. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Jackson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1945), pp. 9–44, also discusses the country’s transformation in this period, with an eye to the rise of Jackson.
161–162, Nicholas Biddle, who
Biddle’s biography: Thomas Payne Govan, Nicholas Biddle: Nationalist and Public Banker, 1786–1844 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959), pp. 2–27, 49–77, and Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 287–291. For a portrait of Biddle, see the engraving by J. B. Longacre and T. B. Welch after an oil painting by Rembrandt Peale.
162, Biddle proved a fast
First phase of Biddle’s tenure: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 300–325, 374–375, and Kaplan, The Bank of the United States, pp. 81–83. According to Kaplan, when Biddle became president in January 1823, the Bank’s note circulation was $4.4 million; it had increased to $6.7 million by June 1825 and $9.6 million one year later.
162–163, In his first three
Stephen Mihm, in A Nation of Counterfeiters: Capitalists, Con Men, and the Making of the United States (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), p. 116, writes that by the late 1820s the Bank’s circulation exceeded $10 million and made up between a fifth and a quarter of all paper money in circulation. Counterfeiting of the Bank’s money and Biddle’s response: ibid., pp. 113–125.
163, Although counterfeiters posed
Rising entrepreneurial forces: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 274–285. Under Cheves, the Bank took delinquent state banks to court. The Supreme Court sided with the Bank, entrenching Philadelphia’s power but deepening the hostility of the state banks.
163–164, General Andrew Jackson
Jackson’s life before the presidency: Sean Wilentz, Andrew Jackson (New York: Times Books, 2005), pp. 13–34. Failed bid for presidency in 1824 and election of 1828: ibid., pp. 35–54. Background of Jackson’s rise: Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, pp. 30–44. The terms “People’s President” and “King Mob” were prompted by his 1829 inauguration, a legendary drunken celebration attended by thousands of ordinary people; see Robert V. Remini, The Life of Andrew Jackson (Perennial Classics, 2001 [1988]), pp. 179–182.
164, Among Jackson’s supporters
McFarland started the Allegheny Democrat in May 1824; he died in 1827. Inciting a crowd to burn Henry Clay in effigy: Klein, Pennsylvania Politics, pp. 185–187. Jackson’s popularity among the Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania: ibid., pp. 249–250.
164–165, Jackson had campaigned
Jackson’s views on banking: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 346–350. Jackson’s view of the Panic of 1819: Rothbard, The Panic of 1819, pp. 127–129.
165, Jackson’s tangled financial
Biddle’s early relationship with Jackson: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 369–373, and Govan, Nicholas Biddle, pp. 111–121.
165, Among the factors
Reasons for Jackson’s assault on the Bank: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 328–346, 351–366, 442–445; Govan, Nicholas Biddle, pp. 122–168; Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 125–129; and Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, pp. 79–94, 115–131. For a pro-Jackson point of view, see Wilentz, Andrew Jackson, pp. 74–85. “I did not join…”: quoted in Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 364–365.
166, The opening act
Full text of Jackson’s first annual message to Congress, delivered on December 8, 1829: Andrew Jackson, Messages of Gen. Andrew Jackson: With a Short Sketch of His Life (Concord, NH: John F. Brown and William White, 1837), pp. 39–68. Lead-up to the Bank War: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 369–404.
166, The plan backfired
“It is to be regretted…” and “the rich richer…”: Jackson, Messages of Gen. Andrew Jackson, p. 167; for the full text of the veto message, see pp. 147–168.
166–167, Voters embraced Jackson’s
Veto message’s popularity, the election of 1832, and the transfer of government deposits: Wilentz, Andrew Jackson, pp. 85–88; Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, pp. 90–94, 97–102; and Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 405–423.
167, The day Jackson’s
“two distinct sets…”: National Gazette, September 26, 1833, quoted in Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 141–142. Swift increase in notes and banks: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, p. 453.
168, More paper, of course
Jackson’s pardoning of counterfeiters: Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 133–134.
168, The great irony
“eager desire…”: Andrew Jackson, “Farewell Address (March 4, 1837),” The Statesmanship of Andrew Jackson, ed. Francis Newton Thorpe (New York: Tandy-Thomas, 1909), pp. 506–507. “moneyed interest…”: ibid., p. 512; for the full text of the farewell address, see pp. 493–515. Specie Circular: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 452–455, and Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, pp. 129–131.
168–169, Rather than strengthening
The origins of the Panic of 1837 are disputed. Wilentz, in Andrew Jackson, pp. 119–120, casts doubt on the central role of the Specie Circular in precipitating the crisis. For an overview of the competing explanations for the Panic of 1837, see Peter L. Rousseau, “Jacksonian Monetary Policy, Specie Flows, and the Panic of 1837,” Journal of Economic History 62.2 (June 2002), pp. 457–488. Rousseau, after reviewing new documentary evidence from government archives, concludes that two factors were principally to blame: the Specie Circular and “a series of ‘supplemental’ interbank transfers of public balances ordered by the Treasury under the Deposit Act of 23 June 1836 to prepare for the ‘official’ distribution of $28 million of the $34 million federal surplus.” The Deposit Act mandated the distribution of the federal surplus to state banks based on each state’s representation in Congress; Jackson had serious reservations about the bill but signed it into law.
169, In May, runs on
Suspension of coin payments in New York and the Panic’s impact: Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 151–156, and Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, pp. 217–
226. New York riot: Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, pp. 219–220, and “An Eyewitness Account of the Flour Riot in New York (February 1837),” Voices of a People’s History of the United States, ed. Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove (New York: Seven Stories, 2009 [2004]), pp. 198–200.
169–170, By the time
Nation doubling in size during Jackson’s administration: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, p. 326. Free banking: ibid., pp. 572–604, 617–630; Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 180–186; and Kevin Dowd, “U.S. Banking in the ‘Free Banking’ Period,” The Experience of Free Banking, ed. Kevin Dowd (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 206–230. The first free banking law was passed in Michigan a few months after it gained statehood in January 1837; eighteen other states had passed similar laws by 1860. Stories of wildcat banks: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, p. 601.
170, The uninhibited flow
Efforts by states to ban or severely restrict banking: Hammond, Banks and Politics in America, pp. 605–617. Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company and prevalence of unincorporated banks: ibid., pp. 613–614, 625–626.
170–171, Then there were
Western counterfeiters: Mihm, A Nation of Counterfeiters, pp. 158–208. Practice of resurrecting notes of bankrupt banks and other moneymaking techniques: ibid., pp. 286–294. On p. 156, Mihm writes, “While a banker in the East might be compared to a counterfeiter, it was not uncommon for a counterfeiter in the West to be likened to a banker, thanks to the public service he provided by pumping much-needed money into a developing economy.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
175, On February 22, 1862
Scene in Washington: Philadelphia Inquirer, February 26, 1862; North American and United States Gazette, February 24, 1862; Edward Bates, The Diary of Edward Bates, 1859–1866, ed. Howard K. Beale (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1933), pp. 235–236; Albert Gallatin Riddle, Recollections of War Times: Reminiscences of Men and Events in Washington, 1860–1865 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895), pp. 183–186; and Ernest B. Furgurson, Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War (New York: Knopf, 2004), p. 158. President Lincoln was absent from the ceremonies at the Capitol because of the recent death of his son Willie.
