Cooper Crabtree Counterfeiters

Eli Cooper’s Daughter Jane married Abb Crabtree

 ·  Article about Famous Crabtree Counterfeiting Gang

 

·  ·  The following article describing the career of Alonzo Fuget, a counterfeiter, mentions the famous Crabtree counterfeiters. I suspect this a reference to the Crabtrees of Parmleyville, Wayne County, Kentucky and Scott County, Tennessee. They were gunsmiths and coppersmiths and were well-known. Many boys worked as apprentices under them to learn the art of gunsmithing and coppersmithing. However, they also were counterfeiters. They had been counterfeiters for a long time. In a book entitled Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past about Scott County, Tennessee, RICHARD CRABTREE, is mentioned as a gunsmith and noted counterfeiter. This was in the early formation of the county, probably in the 1820s. So, the CRABTREE family had been counterfeiters for a long time. RICHARD CRABTREE is believed to be the son of JOHN AND HANNAH (BUTCHER) CRABTREE, and it is believed he also had a son named RICHARD CRABTREE who left his blacksmith tools to his sons in 1844 in Campbell County, Tennessee (next door to Scott). He lived on Pine Creek on the Scott/Campbell county line, and was a Revolutionary War soldier. JESSE CRABTREE, believed to be the son of SAMUEL CRABTREE, Richards brother, lived in Campbell County, Tennessee (and sometimes in Parmleyville, Wayne County, Kentucky) and was also a blacksmith/coppersmith/gunsmiths. A number of his sons and nephews were also blacksmiths/gunsmiths and lived in Parmleyville, Wayne County, Kentucky across the border from Scott/Campbell/Fentress Counties, Tennessee. It is very probable that the FAMOUS CRABTREE COUNTERFEITERS were from this family of Crabtrees. Ill try to find out which ones by checking out the set of court case books in Tennessee (cant remember the name of the series off hand). -----LaVeldaTHE DAILY GAZETTEFort Wayne, Indiana18 Nov 1885FUGETS CAREERSketch of the Notorious Counterfeiter recently Sentenced at LouisvilleLouisville NewsWith the conviction of Alonzo Fuget one of the most remarkable criminals that ever furnished a detective a clew(sic) only to lead him off the scent retires from active life to the seclusion of a penitentiary. For twenty-five years he has puzzled the best detective talent of the secret service, and only once before in all that time have they been able to lay hands on him. He has had narrow escapes by the score, bad companions shot dead by his side, but by what at the time seemed miraculous fortune, he has escaped and disappeared only to bob up again in another section of the country, where the circulation of new money aroused the suspicion of Government officials.Fuget was born in Kentucky more than fifty-five years ago, and his long white hair hanging on his shoulders, his eagle-beak nose and wrinkled face, offset by a small black eye that has the expression of a fox, more than attest his age. As a lad, he evinced remarkable talent for drawing and engraving, but he was vicious and accrued his gift to no good account. His first prominent appearance before the public was in New York 25 years ago, where he was the leader of the most stubborn and expert gang of counterfeiters the detectives ever encountered. The city had been flooded with fractional paper money, the imitation being so good it was almost impossible to distinguish it from the genuine. Government detectives had worked on the case for months, but were no nearer a solution than at first. Finally, one of the gang turned States evidence and led the officers to the den. But one man escaped, and that one was Fuget. He was next heard of in Pennsylvania, where he operated for three years under the very nose of the secret-service representatives, but was not captured. Finally he left that State, and nothing more was heard of him for a number of years. Report had it that he was dead, but such was not the case.Eight years after leaving Pennsylvania, counterfeit bills bearing evidence of Fugets master workmanship became plentiful in Tennessee, and it was not too long before it became known that he had set up his printing-press in the mountain fastnesses of that State, where he became chief of the largest gang of counterfeiters ever organized, and their operations through the Southwest amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars. After months working and watching the detectives finally found the rendezvous, and a raid was planned. The ___(?) was made at midnight, when the gang was at work. A pitched battle ensued, in which a man on each side of the famous chief fell mortally wounded, but he escaped with slight hurts.NOT DISCOURAGD BY THE BREAKING UP OF HIS LAST GANG, ALONZO ORGANIZED THE FAMOUS CRABTREE COUNTERFEITERS, AND MADE HIS HEADQUARTERS AT NASHVILLE. THE GANG WAS ROOTED OUT IN 1876 AND MOST OF ITS MEMBERS CAPTURED. CRABTREE RECEIVED TEN YEARS, MORGAN TWELVE, AND STOLL TEN YEARS IN THE PENITENTIARY. FUGET WAS CAPTURED, AND AFTER A STRONG DEFENSE WAS SENTENCED TO TWELVE YEARS. He served three months of his term, when he manufactured a saw from an old spoon, cut a bar from his cell window, and escaped.It was but a few months before a counterfeit bill bearing his ear marks turned up at the Treasury Department, and once more were the sleuth-hounds of justice put on his track. Through Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky they followed him, but for nearly ten years the trail was a blind one. Old age and exposure began to tell on him, however, and his keen brain lost its cunning. He was tracked to H----(?)- Point in this State and captured by a lot of strategic work on the part of US Marshall Gross and US Detective Bauer on the 13th of June last, and lodged in jail in this city. When captured Fuget had in his possession a bag containing nearly one hundred gravers tools of the latest pattern, besides dies for a $2 treasury note, series 1880; a $5 note , vignette of Jackson series of 1875, and a $10 silver certificate, series of 1880.Fugets counterfeits have given more trouble to the banks than any other ever made, and so good were they that it is related that on one occasion he made a bill on a certain bank in Tennessee, took the bill to the cashier himself, and had it exchanged for gold. He never was a conjacker(?), believing such work beneath the dignity of an artist like himself. Fuget had many aliases, his favorite being John K. Vinal.