Black Sheep Sunday - Leo W Hall, Bigamist and Scoundrel

Leo W. Hall married my wife's distant cousin, Amelia Lanz in 1911.  They appeared to be happily married and had at least three children between 1911 and 1921.  They lived in Utica, NY.

Leo Hall was a "fireman" for the railroad.  As a fireman, he was in charge of tending and stoking the fire for a steam locomotive.  This role must have had him working some short or intermediate trips working on trains and did take him away from his family from time to time.  

On at least one trip from his family he met and seduced a woman named Kittie Loughrey in Oneida, NY.  He purposefully mislead her to believe that he was single and convinced her to elope with him for a wedding in New York City.  So on January 12, 1921, they were wed.  Of course, the only problem being that he was already married.

But it gets worse....

Unlike some stories about bigamists that you may hear about where the bigamist lives a secret life with multiple wives or families, Leo Hall used his new marriage as an opportunity to abandon his legitimate wife and kids.  Just prior to his disappearance, he returned to Utica for the birth of his third child on January 27 and remained in the city until his wife returned from the hospital on February 12th.  Upon her return home, he left, probably never intending to return.

Leo was busy while his wife was in the hospital.  He cleaned out the family bank account and took with him all the family valuables.  If it wasn't enough to leave his family with nothing, he then proceeded to charge to a store account in his wife's name for two suits and a gold watch.  He gave the gold watch to his new bride as a wedding present.

Leo and his new wife departed by train for a honeymoon in Florida.

Next post:  The Manhunt and "Death" of Leo Hall

Black Sheep Sunday - Amos Fuller, Counterfeiter and Jailbird

Every family has at least one family member who is the black sheep of the family (some families have whole flocks). The black sheep I have found in my family research is Amos Fuller.

Amos Fuller (1721-1813) is my 5th great grand uncle. Amos was the 5th son of Benjamin and Tabitha (Wheaton) Fuller of Lebanon, Connecticut. The Fullers had just moved to Lebanon, CT from Rehoboth, MA the year before Amos was born.

Amos fell in with a group called The Money Gang. His specialty was creating £3 Connecticut counterfeit notes. At this time in US history, each state had their own currency. Typically, this paper money was printed on a regular printing press, making anyone with a printing press a potential felon.

Amos may have been criminal, but that didn't mean he was stupid. There wasn’t a lot of law enforcement coordination back before the revolutionary war, so he would go to other states to pass his counterfeit bills.  However, even this strategy didn’t prevent him from being caught.  He was apprehended passing counterfeit bills in New Jersey under the alias "Jeremiah Carpenter".  At the time counterfeiting carried stiff penalties, with the longest possible sentence being life in prison.

Amos Fuller found prison life to be a little too restricting for his tastes and actually broke out of jail.  The details are sketchy, but the following report was published in the New York-Gazette on October 12, 1747.

"Broke out of Burlington Goal, on the 19th of September, one Jeremiah Carpenter, who was committed for uttering counterfeit Jersey money; he had on a grey homespun coat with brass buttons, old leather breeches, yarn stockings, linen cap, and old hat; It is supposed that his name is Amos Fuller, he is about six foot high and of a pale complexion: any person that takes up the aforesaid prisoner, and confine him in any of his Majesty's goals, so that he may be had, shall have TEN POUNDS reward, paid by me,  

Jof. Hollingfneed, Sheriff  

N.B. He is a New England man"

Amos “Jailbird” Fuller was never brought to "justice" and re-imprisoned.

There is evidence the he spent much of his life misleading and defrauding people in the pursuit of easy money. However he did play an important role in the New England “Planters” colonizing Nova Scotia, but this is the subject of a future post.

Who are the black sheep in your family?