A Counterfeiter's Paradise (19 page)

This simple request triggered the calamitous chain of events that led to the Panic of 1819. As banks throughout the country scrambled to meet their obligations, many went bankrupt; those that remained afloat depleted their coin reserves, forcing them to limit note issues and curb lending. The violent contraction of currency and credit gave the economy a severe shock. Cash became scarce, interest rates rose, and prices fell sharply across the board. People who had gone deeply into debt expecting future profits now found themselves unable to repay their loans as their income dwindled. Merchants who traded in foreign goods saw the value of their products plummet; real estate speculators now held land worth a fraction of its former cost. Farmers who had borrowed to finance improvement projects suffered from a steep decline in agricultural prices. As money became harder to obtain, investment in manufacturing, construction, and transportation dried up. Laborers watched their wages plunge: an unskilled turnpike worker made seventy-five cents a day in 1818; a year later he earned only twelve cents a day. In many parts of Ohio and Indiana, the Panic essentially wiped out the money supply, as local banks failed and currency drained eastward to the cities. The situation became so severe that some communities resorted to the barter system, swapping goods the way America’s first colonists had done centuries earlier, before the introduction of paper money.

Although the Panic affected Americans in very tangible ways, the trauma was also psychological. In a boom, everyone becomes a cheerleader; the abundance of easy money persuades people that the good times will continue forever. The bust abruptly shattered this illusion, and the emotions it provoked were as powerful as its economic impact. In the years after the War of 1812, American farmers overcame their traditional distrust of banks and took out large loans to develop their land. When
the Panic struck, saddling them with intolerable debt, they erupted in anger, blaming everyone but themselves. While there had undoubtedly been unscrupulous characters who had exploited unsuspecting victims, the tide of righteous rage that tore through the country masked something deeper. The surge of inflated wealth couldn’t have happened without the complicity of ordinary Americans; the fury they felt afterward was partly a way to vent their humiliation over being so easily fooled.

Perversely, the easiest target was the party least responsible: the Second Bank of the United States. By demanding that the state banks settle their outstanding balances, the Bank was simply doing its job. But, like sleepers rudely woken from a lovely dream, Americans lashed out at the Bank, denouncing it as a federal conspiracy to oppress the states and enrich eastern investors at the expense of hardworking citizens. The bankers in Philadelphia and politicians in Washington were too far away to bear the full brunt of people’s bitterness, so a lesser cast of villains emerged: local landlords, tax collectors, financiers—anyone who stood to profit from someone else’s labor without producing anything of his own.

The rising populist current couldn’t have come at a better time for Lewis. As unemployment, bankruptcy, and foreclosures ravaged the country, crime acquired an aura of prestige. Not only was it a way for the dispossessed to make a living, but compared with the perfectly legal frauds perpetrated by the nation’s banks, lawbreaking seemed honest. In difficult times, the outlaw often becomes a hero to the hopeless. He transcends the tedium of poverty: while the poor stand in soup lines or wander the streets looking for work, the outlaw takes what he wants instead of wait-ing for society to give it to him. It wasn’t just his charisma or his daring that made Lewis a folk hero. What elevated him to the status of a legend was his metamorphosis into precisely the kind of populist icon that central Pennsylvania needed in 1819: a Robin Hood who protected the weak from the strong, who punished the avaricious and rewarded the needy. Lewis so skillfully cultivated the character of the righteous outlaw that
people lionized him even as he robbed and swindled them. His success came at their expense, but at a time when communities across America were struggling, they could take pride in knowing that a native son of the Alleghenies was pocketing tremendous amounts of money—not as cowardly bankers and businessmen did but as a criminal, with bluster and bravado.

Lewis wasn’t the Panic’s only unlikely hero. John Adams, who turned eighty-four in 1819, proposed someone even more improbable: Thomas Hutchinson, the colonial leader who had tried to purge paper money from Massachusetts when Owen Sullivan was starting to forge bills and Adams was just a boy. Now, as the elderly Founding Father watched the country he helped create slide into a depression provoked by the fickleness of paper wealth, Hutchinson’s judgment seemed prescient. A decade before the crash, Adams spelled out his thinking in a letter to a friend. “If I was the witch of Endor,” he wrote, referring to a woman in the Old Testament who summons the spirit of a dead prophet, “I would wake the ghost of Hutchinson, and give him absolute power over the currency of the United States and every part of it.” Despite hating Hutchinson’s Loyalist politics, Adams admitted that the haughty merchant “understood the subject of coin and commerce better than any man I ever knew in this country.” In the seven decades since Hutchinson proposed banning bills of credit in 1749, paper money had woven itself even more deeply into the fabric of American life. Adams feared for the stability of a nation that swung from boom to bust, and for the future of a citizenry so readily seduced by fraudulent fantasies of the good life.

ON A SUNDAY MORNING
in October 1819, John McClelland bobbed gently in his saddle as he guided his horse down a mountain road east of Bedford. A Pittsburgh merchant, McClelland was carrying $1,500 in banknotes and gold to Philadelphia, where he planned to deposit the hefty
sum in a bank. Transporting that kind of money across almost the whole length of Pennsylvania would be extremely dangerous, but unfortunately, there wasn’t an easier way to transfer the funds. He still had two hundred miles to go before reaching Philadelphia, and the rugged Allegheny terrain, with its dense forests and secluded hollows, offered countless places for highwaymen to lurk—a thought that undoubtedly crossed McClelland’s mind as he trotted along the turnpike.

At around nine o’clock, McClelland saw a man walking ahead on the path. A lone traveler on foot didn’t seem like much of a threat, so the merchant kept his pace. Just as he got close enough to pass ahead, the man whirled around, pistol drawn. It was Lewis. He had blackened his face, presumably with ash or coal dust; a pair of blinking blue eyes and a streak of blond hair stood out against the dark skin. A careless moment could cost McClelland his life. As he dismounted at gunpoint, two accomplices also disguised in blackface darted out from the side of the road. One jumped on the horse and galloped away, while the other, sighting people coming up the path, helped Lewis force McClelland into the woods. They pushed the merchant to the ground and, thrusting their gun barrels against his chest, ordered him to remain absolutely silent. When the passersby had gone, the thieves stood McClelland on his feet and marched him to a camp about half a mile north of the road.

Just like the backcountry bivouac where Noble and Lewis had holed up four years earlier, the site had all the amenities of wilderness living: a fire, a pot, and a hut. The robbers hurled McClelland into the hovel, where he sat and watched them rifle through his saddlebags. The ringleader was clearly Lewis; the others were a pair of thuggish Irishmen named John Connelly and James Hanson. Connelly was tall and broad, with dark brown hair and a long, thin jaw that drew his face downward and gave it a sullen cast. Hanson was the shortest of the gang and apparently the most bloodthirsty; once back at the campsite, he proposed killing McClelland but was promptly vetoed by Lewis and Connelly.

During the several hours that they kept the merchant prisoner, the thieves took his money, his watch, and some of his clothing. Finally, at three o’clock in the afternoon, they departed, but not before instructing McClelland to stay in the hut until sunset. A short time later, Lewis returned alone. Handing the merchant his watch and $30, the robber said he planned to stick up a nearby stagecoach; if the heist succeeded, he promised to give McClelland back the rest of the money. Then Lewis left. The merchant didn’t wait for the sun to set; he dashed to the nearest tavern and raised the alarm.

It was October 3, less than a month since Lewis’s release from the Walnut Street Jail. The
Bedford Gazette
, whose publisher must have secretly rejoiced at the criminal’s sensational return after a three-year absence, carried full coverage of the holdup, labeling it a “robbery of the most daring nature”—from the description provided by McClelland, the mastermind could be none other than “the noted David Lewis,” “the celebrated counterfeiter.” People remembered Lewis as a moneymaker, but he had since become more aggressive, and after leaving the Walnut Street Jail, he quit counterfeiting for robbery. The news of his attack on McClelland proved predictably embarrassing to Governor Findlay. The prisoner he had pardoned was running wild across the state terrorizing his constituents, and in Pennsylvania’s fractious political climate, he couldn’t afford to give his enemies more ammunition. But for whatever reason—perhaps the report took a while to reach Harrisburg, or Findlay had more pressing business—the governor didn’t respond until four days after the incident, issuing a strongly worded proclamation that offered a $300 reward for the robbers’ capture. “The reputation of the Government, the peace and security of its citizens, and the obligations of justice and humanity require that the perpetrators of offenses so atrocious should be brought to speedy and condign punishment,” it read. Findlay had blundered again: by the time he made his announcement, the three men were already sitting in the Bedford jail.

The night after the robbery, a posse of well-armed townsfolk had tracked the gang to a small tavern a couple of miles outside Lewistown, a village on the Juniata River northeast of where they mugged McClelland. Not taking any chances, some of the vigilantes stood guard outside the building while the rest rushed inside. Luckily, the criminals had been sleeping and were taken by surprise, resulting in a bloodless capture; there were three pistols and two knives in their bedroom, which the vigilantes quickly secured. The posse ferried the dazed prisoners to Lewistown to give them a meal before locking them up for the night. Maybe it was the late hour or the satisfaction of a job well done, but one of the vigilantes carelessly left his gun on the table. Lewis, fully awake by now, noticed the pistol. He grabbed the gun—he had presumably been left unchained for dinner—and ran out the door and into the street. His captors followed. When they overtook him, Lewis raised the gun and pulled the trigger. As happened at Hill Wilson’s tavern four years before, the weapon misfired—he tried again, with the same result. If Lewis hadn’t yet killed anyone, it wasn’t for lack of trying. The men knocked him unconscious, chained him in irons, and the next morning took all three prisoners to the Bedford jail.

Three years earlier, of course, he had been imprisoned in the exact same jail. Its formidable limestone facade housed the court that convicted him and the cell from which he had escaped shortly afterward. Back then he had been a counterfeiter; now he was a thief. Rather than defrauding people of their goods with bogus bills, he relieved them of their possessions at gunpoint. Instead of wheedling wary merchants into changing fake notes for genuine ones, he mugged them. Even though his tactics had grown more extreme, Lewis remained as affable as ever; in fact, he made a greater effort to endear himself to his victims. He wasn’t just after money. In returning some of McClelland’s cash and promising to restore the rest of it, Lewis had his reputation in mind. Whether his benevolence was genuine or affected didn’t matter; the main thing for Lewis was that it made good copy in the local newspapers.

Just before daybreak on October 25, while Bedford’s citizens slept soundly in their beds, Lewis and four others stood near the town’s outskirts hacking at their shackles with an ax and a cleaver. The robber had languished in jail for three weeks; the group who escaped with him included Connelly, Hanson, and two runaway slaves who had shared their cell. Swinging sharp blades in the dawn’s half-light, they might have severed their limbs instead of their cuffs. A shrill clanging sound rang with each strike, until the manacles finally broke. Their jailbreak had been expertly executed: the prisoners started a fire, first to burn off the fetters fastening them to the floor and then to scorch a large hole in the ground, which they expanded into a tunnel. Digging furiously, they burrowed under the building, came up outside, and sprinted southwest across the valley.

Winter had drained the landscape of color, casting the region’s jagged topography in stark relief. Deep snow coated the earth, and on the forested slopes in the distance, the trees made black shapes against the white ground. If they wanted to get away, Lewis and his men needed to drag their aching bodies as far as they could over those slopes before the town awoke. Their legs were swollen and sore from almost a month in chains. The snow presented another obstacle, slowing them down and leaving footprints that would be clearly visible to anyone following them.

On the horizon ahead was Kinton Knob, a mountain that stood half a mile high. The five fugitives scaled the precipitous incline, pushing onward to the wooded glen on the opposite side, and then scurried downhill to take cover among the trees. By now they had been running for four and a half hours but didn’t dare stop—especially once they heard the thundering hooves of the Bedford posse approaching. Hoping to hold off the vigilantes, Lewis loudly threatened to shoot; when that didn’t work, the escapees dashed down a stream and up another ridge, with their pursuers close behind. The black runaways were caught first. Hanson, whose short legs weren’t built for racing over rough terrain, fell next. “I don’t
give a damn for you or your militia!” the criminal yelled when one of the men ordered him to stop, but he was soon forced to surrender. Connelly, whose husky frame had taken him a long way but couldn’t carry him any farther, climbed onto a steep ledge and refused to come down. One of the vigilantes crawled up the bluff and knocked him down with a club. Lewis had outpaced everyone else. But now, as the men with rifles rushed toward him in the snow, he decided to give up. He was exhausted, his clothes were shredded, and if he ran, he risked getting a bullet in the back. It was better to return to jail and bide his time until the next opportunity.