The Map Thief (39 page)

“The stolen items can be moved very quickly”
:
Emily Rose, “Map thefts plague library; lost documents worth $10,000,”
Yale Daily News,
December 19, 1978.

tightening its security procedures
:
“The region: Yale is reassessing its library security,”
The New York Times,
December 3, 1978.

“relentless, unyielding due diligence”
:
Arader interview.

common myth about theft
 . . . days of their crimes:
Amore and Mashberg,
Stealing Rembrandts,
7–26.

Harry Newman told
 . . . “millions today”:
Newman interview.

wet string, balled up in their mouths
:
William Finnegan, “A theft in the library,”
The
New Yorker,
October 17, 2005.

Robert “Skeet” Willingham
:
Harvey,
Island of Lost Maps
, 161–162, 169–171.

“insider” theft accounts for some 75 percent
:
Margarite Annette Nathe, “‘A learned congress’: a closer look at book and manuscript thieves” (master’s thesis, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, April 2005); S. Van Nort, “Archival and library theft: the problem that will not go away,”
Library and Archival Security
12 (1994): 25–49.

“It’s the same old story”
:
McDade interview.

Fitzhugh Lee Opie
:
David Streitfeld, “Dealer held in Library of Congress theft,”
The Washington Post,
March 13, 1992; David Streitfeld, “Book thief sentenced to 6 months,”
The Washington Post,
October 1, 1992; Harvey,
Island of Lost Maps,
162–163.

Daniel Spiegelman
 . . . rare books were kept:
McDade,
Book Thief,
9–20.

hundreds of
 . . . manuscripts and dozens of letters:
Ibid., 151.

edition of Blaeu’s
Atlas Maior
from 1667
:
Ibid., 144–146.

library didn’t discover
 . . . list of stolen items:
Ibid., 1–6, 41–44.

caught the attention
 . . . tried to make the sale:
Ibid., 48–52.

raided a storage locker
:
Ibid., 54–55.

Spiegelman successfully fought extradition
:
Ibid., 55–60.

plea bargain in April 1997
:
Ibid., 82–85.

Bland left prison
:
Harvey,
Island of Lost Maps,
316.

table to calculate sentences
:
McDade,
Book Thief,
73–74; McDade interview.

Downward departures
 . . . 1 percent of cases:
McDade,
Book Thief,
81.

between thirty and thirty-seven months
:
Ibid., 93.

“very existence of rare books”
:
Ibid., 91.

considering an upward departure
:
Ibid., 94–99.

final hearing in March 1998
 . . . sixty months in prison:
Ibid., 144–146.

Spiegelman escaped
:
Ibid., 161.

caught him in a sting
:
Ibid., 161–166.

left prison on July 19, 2001
:
Ibid., 176.

Sentencing Commission revised its guidelines
:
Ibid., 171–173; U.S. Sentencing Commission press release, “Sentencing commission increases penalties for crimes against cultural heritage,” March 25, 2002; U.S. Sentencing Commission,
2013 USSC Guidelines Manual
, §2B1.5 “Theft of, Damage to, or Destruction of Cultural Heritage Resources,” 104–108.

“essential that
 . . . international networks are established”:
Tony Campbell, “How should we respond to early map thefts?” Map History, May 25, 2002, http://www.maphistory.info/response.html.

one dealer suspected him of worse
:
Reese interview; Finnegan, “A Theft in the Library.”

John Foster map of New England (1677)
:
Krieger and Cobb,
Mapping Boston,
93; Smiley,
The Early Cartography of North America
, (20); Massachusetts Historical Society, “A Map of New England,” http://www.masshist.org/database/68/project15; Finnegan, “A Theft in the Library.”

He wasn’t the only one
 . . . “maps from him”:
Norman Fiering and Susan Danforth, interviews with the author.

C
HAPTER
8

Slaughter
 . . . passed away:
Bill Dentzer, “Lawrence Havron Slaughter, computer system expert, dies,” June 4, 1998, unknown publication found in Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection (LHS) archives, New York Public Library Map Division.

assembled some six hundred maps
 . . . in the world:
E. Forbes Smiley III, “Analysis of need,” done in preparation for Slaughter Collection donation, LHS archives.

collection was built as a study collection
:
Judith Doolin Spikes, “Larchmont man leaves legacy of maps, atlases to NYC library,”
Daily Times
(New Rochelle), September 20, 1997.

agreed to donate the collection
 . . . “non-public stack area”:
Alice Hudson, letter to E. Forbes Smiley III, December 10, 1996, LHS archives.

that would take money
 . . . “collection to the New York Public Library”:
Paul LeClerc, letter to E. Forbes Smiley III, December 13, 1996, LHS archives.

Smiley met again with Hudson and LeClerc
:
Alice Hudson, letter to E. Forbes Smiley III, February 20, 1997 LHS archives.

Bill Walker, who promised
 . . . “100K” to make it happen:
Bill Walker, letter to E. Forbes Smiley III, February 20, 1997, LHS archives.

“analysis of need”
 . . . benefit most from the collection:
Smiley, “Analysis of need.”

Slaughter’s heirs had decided
:
E. Forbes Smiley III, letter to Alice Hudson, March 14, 1997, LHS archives.

agreement was signed
 . . . duplicates from the collection:
Excerpt from Deed of Gift and Acceptance and Deposit Agreement between Susan D. Slaughter and New York Public Library, May 30, 1997; New York Public Library Office of Counsel, Birdie Race, memorandum to Barbara A. Roehrig, June 9, 1997, referring to deposit of Deed of Gift and Acceptance, and Deposit Agreement; E. Forbes Smiley III, letter to Paul LeClerc, March 26, 1997; all from LHS archives.

invited Smiley and Susan Slaughter to tea
:
Catherine Carver Dunn, letter to Susan Slaughter, June 23, 1997, LHS archives.

library publicized the gift
 . . . “will be told here”:
“The Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection: hundreds of rare English maps and atlases donated to the library,”
New York Public Library News,
Friends of the New York Public Library, February–March 1998.

gargantuan task
 . . . needed to be catalogued:
“Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection cataloging and conservation project,” New York Public Library Map Division, LHS archives.

organizing the notes
 . . . “all to be in order”:
Hudson interview; Alice Hudson, handwritten notes regarding call from Susan D. Slaughter, 2001, LHS archives; Alice Hudson, e-mail to Forbes Smiley, June 26, 2001.

paid off a federal tax lien
:
Federal tax lien, January 28, 1997, $25,374.

state tax warrant
:
New York State tax warrant, $6,714.70, satisfied February 19, 1997.

scoping out real estate outside the city
 . . . settled on Martha’s Vineyard:
Slater interview.

perfect combination
 . . . New England reserve:
Barbara Gamarekian, “An inside view of the Vineyard; it’s not as exclusive as you might think,”
The Washington Post,
July 7, 1996.

rented the summer home
 . . . nicknamed the “spaceship”:
Slater interview.

signed the purchase agreement
:
Quitclaim Deed, Dukes County Registry of Deeds, December 8, 1997, book 716, 401.

putting 20 percent down
:
Mortgage, Dukes County Registry of Deeds, December 19, 1997, Book 716, 403.

presented
 . . . his list of duplicates . . . “to scholars and researchers”:
Forbes Smiley, letter to Alice Hudson, November 17, 1997, LHS archives; Alice Hudson, e-mail to Bill Walker, March 6, 1998, LHS archives.

among the first to view the maps
:
“For donors of $250 or more, curator’s choice, treasure trove of English maps,” LHS archives.

several dozen donors
 . . . putting the collection together:
Susan Slaughter Kinzie, telephone message, March 17, 1998, LHS archives.

health problems
 . . . quadruple bypass surgery:
Smiley and Slater interviews.

exhibit
:
In Thy Map Securely Saile,
New York Public Library,
Annual Report,
1999; Roberta Smith, “Art review: envy, conquest, revenge: it’s all in the maps,”
The New York Times,
January 15, 1999; “In thy map securely saile: maps, atlases, charts, and globes from the Lawrence H. Slaughter collection,” October 24, 1998–March 20, 1999, New York Public Library, Map Division, 98-1052.

line written by English poet Robert Herrick
:
Robert Herrick, “A country life, to his brother M. Tho. Herrick,”
The Poetical Works of Robert Herrick,
vol. 1 (London: William Pickering, 1825).

“advice and counsel were instrumental”
:
“In thy map securely saile,” New York Public Library.

Paul Statt and Scott Slater drove down
 . . . Smiley’s success:
Scott Slater interview; Slater, journal, March 1999.

David Cobb
 . . . the Harvard collection:
David Cobb, interview with author.

Cobb knew as much about
 . . . coffee table audience:
Cobb interview; Krieger interview.

within a few months
 . . . popular cartography books ever written:
Cobb interview; Thomas C. Palmer Jr., “Starts & Stops,”
The Boston Globe,
December 27, 1999; Margy Avery, acquisitions editor, MIT Press, interview with the author.

exhibition based on the book
:
Mapping Boston, The Story of Boston and the New World Told through Maps,
Boston Public Library; “A vast collection tracks the progress of an ever-changing city,”
The Boston Globe Magazine,
October 10, 1999; Valerie A. Russo, “Charting Boston’s past: exhibits of old and new maps trace the development of the city and the region,”
The Patriot Ledger
(Quincy, Mass.), October 23, 1999.

most popular
 . . . two hundred thousand visitors:
Beth Carney and Jim Sullivan, “Names & faces,”
The Boston Globe,
April 20, 2000.

Smiley brought his friends
:
Slater, Bob von Elgg, and Scott Haas, interviews with the author.

Apart from a thank-you by Leventhal
:
Krieger and Cobb,
Mapping Boston
, viii.

their son, Edward Forbes Smiley IV
:
Slater, journal, November 1999.

“He came in here and divided the town”
:
Louisa Finnemore, interview with the author.

“Yeah, rules ‘from away’”
:
Ruth Nason, interview with the author.

“thought he was better than everyone else”
:
Anonymous, interview with the author.

“He had a lot of ideas”
:
Carol Cress, interview with the author.

Glen Fariel
:
Glen Fariel, letter to Judge Janet Bond Arteron, 2005; Slater, journal, October 1997.

Smiley purchased it
 . . . coincide with the annual parade:
Sarah Macllroy, “Historical society launches landscaping plan in Sebec Village,”
The Piscataquis Observer,
May 22, 2002; “Sebec holds 5K, canoe race to call in Fourth of July,”
The Piscataquis Observer,
July 10, 2002.

Smiley also purchased
 . . . market selling local produce:
E. Forbes Smiley III, application for a permit for Shoreland Zoning, Town of Sebec, March 2002; Town of Sebec, Permit No. 2014, issued to E. Forbes Smiley III, March 26, 2002; Sarah Macllroy, “Sebec Village farmer’s market opens,”
The Piscataquis Observer,
August 21, 2002; Kim Martineau, “From life among the elite to charges of theft,”
Hartford Courant,
September 25, 2005.