Thomas Crowl - Queen of the Con: From a Spiritualist to the Carnegie Imposter

QUEEN OF THE CON

TRUE CRIME HISTORY

Twilight of Innocence: The Disappearance of Beverly Potts James Jessen Badal

Tracks to Murder Jonathan Goodman

Terrorism for Self-Glorification: The Herostratos Syndrome Albert Borowitz

Ripperology: A Study of the Worlds First Serial Killer and a Literary Phenomenon Robin Odell

The Good-bye Door: The Incredible True Story of Americas First Female Serial Killer to Die in the Chair Diana Britt Franklin

Murder on Several Occasions Jonathan Goodman

The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories Elizabeth A. De Wolfe

Lethal Witness: Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Honorary Pathologist Andrew Rose

Murder of a Journalist: The True Story of the Death of Donald Ring Mellett Thomas Crowl

Musical Mysteries: From Mozart to John Lennon Albert Borowitz

The Adventuress: Murder, Blackmail, and Confidence Games in the Gilded Age Virginia A. McConnell

Queen Victorias Stalker: The Strange Case of the Boy Jones Jan Bondeson

Born to Lose: Stanley B. Hoss and the Crime Spree That Gripped a Nation James G. Hollock

Murder and Martial Justice: Spying and Retribution in World War II America Meredith Lentz Adams

The Christmas Murders: Classic Stories of True Crime Jonathan Goodman

The Supernatural Murders: Classic Stories of True Crime Jonathan Goodman

Guilty by Popular Demand: A True Story of Small-Town Injustice Bill Osinski

Nameless Indignities: Unraveling the Mystery of One of Illinoiss Most Infamous Crimes Susan Elmore

Hauptmanns Ladder: A Step-by-Step Analysis of the Lindbergh Kidnapping Richard T. Cahill Jr.

The Lincoln Assassination Riddle: Revisiting the Crime of the Nineteenth Century Edited by Frank J. Williams and Michael Burkhimer

Death of an Assassin: The True Story of the German Murderer Who Died Defending Robert E. Lee Ann Marie Ackermann

The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights: Examining the Trial of Mariann Colby William L. Tabac

The Belle of Bedford Avenue: The Sensational Brooks-Burns Murder in Turn-of-the-Century New York Virginia A. McConnell

Six Capsules: The Gilded Age Murder of Helen Potts George R. Dekle Sr.

A Woman Condemned: The Tragic Case of Anna Antonio James M. Greiner

Bigamy and Bloodshed: The Scandal of Emma Molloy and the Murder of Sarah Graham Larry E. Wood

The Beauty Defense: Femmes Fatales on Trial Laura James

The Potato Masher Murder: Death at the Hands of a Jealous Husband Gary Sosniecki

I Have Struck Mrs. Cochran with a Stake: Sleepwalking, Insanity, and the Trial of Abraham Prescott Leslie Lambert Rounds

The Uncommon Case of Daniel Brown: How a White Police Officer Was Convicted of Killing a Black Citizen, Baltimore, 1875 Gordon H. Shufelt

Cold War Secrets: A Vanished Professor, a Suspected Killer, and Hoovers FBI Eileen Welsome

The East River Ripper: The Mysterious 1891 Murder of Old Shakespeare George R. Dekle Sr.

Queen of the Con: From a Spiritualist to the Carnegie Imposter Thomas Crowl

QUEEN
OF THE CON

From a Spiritualist to
the Carnegie Imposter

THOMAS CROWL

The Kent State University PressKENT, OHIO

2021 by The Kent State University Press

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-60635-429-2

Manufactured in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.

Cataloging information for this title is available at the Library of Congress.

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CONTENTS

The author would like to acknowledge the following individuals and organizations without whose invaluable assistance this book could not have been completed: Kent State University Press, especially Susan Wadsworth-Booth, Mary Young, Christine Brooks, and Kat Saunders; Brian Meggitt, photo collection librarian, and the Cleveland Public Library; Mazie Adams and the Cleveland Police Historical Society; Ann Sindelar and the Cleveland History Center of the Western Reserve Historical Society Library and Archives; Valerie Ahwee, copy editor; Anne Salsich and the Oberlin College Libraries; the Oxford (Ontario, Canada) Historical Society; the Ohio History Connection Library and Archives; the Library of Congress; the Scott County (Kentucky) Public Library; and the New Castle (Pennsylvania) Public Library.

In New York City in the spring of 1904, Mrs. Cassie Chadwick, a wealthy resident of Clevelands fashionable Euclid Avenue, met a prominent Cleveland attorneya florid-faced, prosperous man with a professional air and a propensity to gossipin the lobby of the exclusive Holland House Hotel. Unbe-known to the barrister, he was about to become an unwitting accomplice in one of the most audacious frauds in American history. It was a pleasant carriage ride up Fifth Avenue to the magnificent mansion of Andrew Carnegie, where Mrs. Chadwick had promised her companion an introduction to the famous industrialist. Arriving at the mansion, Cassie tactfully suggested that the attorney wait in the carriage while she asked if Mr. Carnegie was home to visitors. The woman strode unhesitatingly to the front door, was admitted, and, with a jaunty wave to her companion, disappeared inside.

Mrs. Chadwick informed the butler that she wished to speak with the housekeeper about a former employee of the Carnegie household. The employee was unknown to the housekeeper and as the two women talked, Cassie took notes and stalled for time. Twenty minutes later, she reemerged from the mansion chirping pleasantly and waving. Once again seated in the cab, Cassie apologized to her companion, but Mr. Carnegie was not receiving visitors. Then, as if on cue, a package fell from her handbag. After the attorney retrieved it, Mrs. Chadwick said she wished to confide in him. After extracting a pledge of secrecy, Cassie admitted she was Andrew Carnegies illegitimate daughter. Her mother died, and, according to Cassie, Carnegie had discreetly placed her with foster parents in Canada. The ironmaster was very generous to her, she said, and the package contained US Steel bonds. To seal the deception, Cassie displayed two six-figure promissory notes to her benefit bearing the signature of Andrew Carnegie. As the carriage pulled away from the curb,

This tale has become part of the Chadwick mythology, and there are various versions. The attorney was never identified, and no one stepped forward to collaborate even a portion of the story. Cassie appreciated the importance of perception and appearance and was more than shrewd enough to plan just such an encounter. She was an expert at manipulating men of power and money in an era when swindlers and forgers flourished. This is the true story of the life of a poor Canadian farm girl named Betsy Bigley, who, before her fiftieth birthday, became the clever, persuasive, high-living Cassie Chadwick, a wealthy doctors wife with a home on Clevelands millionaires row. With the suggestion that Andrew Carnegie stood behind her financially, Cassie succeeded in borrowing at least $10 million$250 million in the twenty-first centuryfrom some of the shrewdest businessmen in America on the flimsiest of collateral. In the press, she became known variously as Clevelands Duchess of Diamonds, the Queen of Finance, the Queen of Swindlers, the Heroine of High Finance, and the Carnegie Imposter. After her downfall, any suspicion of association with her could cause banks to fail and powerful men to divert their gaze. Cassies victims, and there were many, were said to have been Chadwicked, and her methods, Frenzied Finance.