Tom Davis, the swindler, with two lives and two (or more) families, who was shot by Holland, the Texan, and whose complicated character and career are among the most wonderful even in that book of wonders, the history of crime, has already been designated by one paper as “the father of the sawdust game,” and has been generally regarded as the originator of that peculiar swindle in New York. But I find on investigatin’ the matter that this is a mistake and that the real father and originator of the sawdust swindle was quite another man, who was led into the Swindle accidentally, and who derived his first notions of it from somethin’ else.
About thirty-five years ago a young chap came from Vermont, I think, to the metropolis, on a visit of pleasure, just to see the sights. His name was Hubbard, and he had some $300 with him, which was then about three times as big in the purchasin’ line as it is to-day. He was then about twenty-eight years of age, smart, sharp-eyed and rather well educated, a country “man” but not a country ass. He was the son of a well-to-do farmer in Genesee county, and had some relatives well-to-do in Brooklyn. He put up at the Merchants’ Hotel in Cortlandt Street, and spent a good deal of his spare time at Barnum’s Museum, then located where the Herald buildin’ is to-day.
One mornin’ he chanced to stroll across Ann street and “dropped in” at Tappin & Chapman’s jewelry store, which was in reality a Peter Funk mock auction store, the first “regular” place of its kind in the city of New York, and at that time one of the “institutions” of the city. Tappin & Chapman also had a branch establishment in a little den in Park Place, and, altogether, did quite a large business in their peculiar line, and as T. & C. had the sense to “see” the police, of course, under the circumstances, the police did not see ‘em and let ‘em do about as they pleased.
Well, smart as Hubbard was, T.& C. got the dead wood on him and fleeced him heavily, reducing his three hundred to hardly one hundred. When it was too late Hubbard saw the way the trick had been played on him, and he demanded redress and his money back. But, of course, nobody ever did get either back, that I ever heard of; but he did get laughed at for his pains. Had the men who swindled him been brought to justice, had they even been forced to refund him his money, ten to one Hubbard would have gone back to the country all the better–or, at least, all the wiser–for his experience, and he probably would have lived and died and honest man, as he had been originally in grain and as he had been reared by a pious mother.
But when he saw–when he was forced by his own hard experience to see–that the rogues who had played the Peter Funk on him were protected, instead of punished, by the police; when he saw how easily they made money by swindlin’ and were kept “solid” in their swindles by the very men who should have denounced ‘em and broken up their unlawful business, why then he opened his eyes, and opened his head and “took in” all the points, and felt what a fine thing it was to make money by cheatin’ in New York.
Consequently, lookin’ at the matter from this light, he determined to take a hand in the fun, and to get even for havin’ been cheated by others by cheatin’ others himself. So from being an honest man he turned into an out-and-out rogue–the very worst kind of a rogue–a rogue as it were, “on principle,” and as a matter of both revenge and calculation.
He visited the Peter Funk shops often and got to know the ropes thoroughly. He saw how easy it was to sell a real, genuine, bona fide piece of jewelry to a man, lettin’ him see the jewelry all right and proper, and then under pretext of wrappin’ it up, substitute another piece, lookin’ just the exact duplicate of the jewelry, only worth nothin’.
This lettin’ the victim examine the goods he bought, and convince himself that he was gettin’ good articles, and then this substitutin’ at the last moment, after the purchase was made, by very simple and natural (all in the way of regular custom and business), manipulation of the bogus stuff for the general genuine, formed the cardinal principles of the Peter Funk line.
And Hubbard set to work, got his thinkin’ cap on, and applied those two cardinal principles to other lines of business besides the jewelry, and finally elaborated the sawdust swindle–just about as Tom Davis was playin’ it a month ago, say.
In this sawdust swindle Hubbard merely applied the two principles of Peter Funkism in a new way. In the P. F. business you buy a genuine article, which you are allowed to look at and feel and examine; but when you hand it to the man who sold it to you to get it wrapped up, why then he substitutes the article. In the sawdust swindle the detail merely is changed. You buy counterfeit money, or genuine money that is passed to you as counterfeit, and then, when you have bought and paid for it, the stuff is changed, and you get only sawdust or waste paper. But, as the reader has seen by this time, the general principles of the sawdust swindle are precisely those of the Peter Funk.
Simple as all this may seem, it took several months of hard thought and work to evolve the latter trickery out of the former, to evolve the sawdust swindle out of the Peter Funk. Crime requires brains, and thought, and labor, and time to conceive it, just like anythin’ else; in fact, more than anythin’ else, and it was several years before Hubbard got his sawdust swindle into workin’ order and “down to a fine point.”
It took him over a year and several failures just to get his “circulars” right–to know who to hit by ‘em and how to word ‘em, and how and to whom to send ‘em.
Hubbard started the first sawdust game in New York at the corner of Broadway and Fulton street, and he got his earliest names to send his circulars to from the “agency” of the man by the name of Norton, in Fernando Wood’s buildin’ on Nassau street. He merely purchased these names of Norton and so much for every ten, Norton himself havin’ no complicity in Hubbard’s crooked transactions. After a while Hubbard established his own agency, and boasted of havin’ at one time in his possession twenty thousand names, all more or less “shaky” or “crooked,” who at one time or other dealt with him.
Hubbard soon made money, and although he lived well, saved most of it and purchased a fine house near Fort Green, where he lived in tip-top style. Like Tom Davis, he was good to his family and lavish of his purse on those he liked. But like Tom Davis, he was “hard” in his business transactions, and got his pound of flesh every time.
And havin’ mentioned Tappin & Chapman, the original Peter Funks in this article, I would here take occasion to describe the startlin’ly singular situation under which this notorious “firm” was dissolved by the fearful death of one of its partners.
Tappin & Chapman made piles of money–so much money that “Boss” Chapman lost his head and took to drinkin’ fearfully.
One day he got into the preparatory stage of the jim-jams, and while feelin’ ugly and excited, but still to a certain extent master of himself, he drew a big check in the firm’s name of Tappin & Chapman for an amount pretty nearly up to the entire bank account of the firm. Then he went over to the old City Bank and drew the money, the check, of course, bein’ paid without demure at the bank, as Chapman had been in the habit of drawing the checks of the concern, and seemed perfectly rational and sober.
He got the check cashed in gold and put the bags containin’ the money in his coat pockets. There were three bags, each containin’ about five thousand dollars. He made some plausible excuse for wantin’ the money in gold, with that cunnin’ so characteristic of drunken men in certain stages of their “drunk.”
He then started forth and went on board the Hoboken ferryboat, sayin’ to a friend he met he was goin’ to take an outin’ for the afternoon at the Elysian Fields.
The ferryboat was pretty full and nothin’ occurred till the boat was about halfway across. Then suddenly, the now liquor-crazed Chapman uttered a wild, blood-curdlin’ yell, and takin’ out one of the bags of gold, whirled it round his head a moment, and then with a laugh more demonic than his yell, hurled the bag into the water, in which it sank as if it were lead, not gold.
Ere those around him could recover from their amazement, the drunken madman seized the second bag and whirled it round his head as before. While doing so the bag was broken, and the fallin’ gold eagles revealed the contents of the bag.
At once there was a scramble for that bag among the crowd on the ferryboat, which now became a mob, a howlin’, rushin’, plungin’ mob, only anxious to obtain that scattered gold. Possibly two or three may have been honest enough in that crowd to have desired to save that gold from a madman till he had recovered his reason, but there were two or three hundred whose only desire was to get hold of that bag or its contents for ‘emselves. But they were all disappointed; for lettin’ the mob around him stoop and fight for the few golden pieces that had dropped out, Chapman, with another wild yellin’ laugh, whirled the second bag of gold into the waters, which swallowed it up in just as matter of fact sort of way as they would have swallowed up a stone.
By this time the old Hoboken ferryboat was a pandemonium. Cries, shouts, curses, laughs were to be heard on all sides, the curses from those who were fightin’ for the gold pieces that had fallen from the bag, the laughs from the few who were far enough away from the center of the turmoil, or philosophical enough, to enjoy the humor of the scene. Meanwhile the ferryboat was left to take care for itself. Even the pilot and the engineer rushed, one from above the other from below, to see or take part in the scene. The boat drifted on at the mercy of the steam and the current, while Boss Chapman, now mad as a March hare or a political “reformer,” seized his third and last bag and prepared to hurl it into the water with the rest.
The crowd made a rush for him and for his bag, and for a moment it seemed as if they would tear it from him. But he fought harder to get the chance to throw away his money than most men have ever fought to save it. He bit and tore like a tiger, strikin’ a man senseless with the bag, stunnin’ him with gold.
And then, pushin’ along, and gettin’ nearer and nearer the end of the boat, which was free and without a chain, as now, he suddenly gathered up all his force and fury for a mad dash, and with a yell and laugh, once heard never to be forgotten, holdin’ the last of his gold in his hand and wavin’ it aloft, he sprang from the end of the vessel into the waves, which swallowed him and his gold together and forever.
[Editor’s notes: While “Peter Funk” auctions and the “sawdust swindle” are both types of fraud, they differ greatly. Fake auctions use bid rigging to dupe their victims: accomplices either drive bids up far beyond the true value of the objects being offered, and let the victim outbid him; or, if the victim is too savvy, the accomplice wins the bid and the object is retained for another auction later. In some cases the object being auctioned is shown to be genuine, but is switched with a poor substitute when the winning bidder goes to claim it.
The “sawdust swindle,” also known as the “green goods” game, entices victims to buy lots of counterfeit money with good cash, with the promise that the counterfeits are so good that they can be safely spread. When the transaction is finalized, the swindler accepts the good cash, and then hands over a bag with the counterfeits. However, the bag is later found by the victim to only contain rubbish paper or sawdust. The victims of this swindle are reluctant to report it to authorities, since they would have to admit to their intent to buy and spread the counterfeit cash.
Charles Tappan [not Tappin], Nathaniel Chapman, and John Hubbard were all real, but were separated by a span of two decades–so it is questionable whether Hubbard was ever taken in by the auction con men. 1851 arrest of Tappan and Chapman:
1873 arrest of Hubbard:
