The Saintly Swindler of Burlington
A charismatic conman charmed his way through Skagit County, leading church hymns and social teas before vanishing with the town’s funds.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
C. E. Luce, of Burlington, lately a leading churchman and prominent in business circles, has decamped, leaving a large number of creditors. It now appears he is a clever swindler who has made a practice of going to new towns and borrowing money under different pretenses, and when he had obtained all that he could, leaving to try new fields. Sometimes he would pose as a preacher and would lead the Sunday-school and the good sisters in song and praise; at other times he would open up a doctor's office. While at Burlington he roped in a lot of victims by making them think that he was about to open a large drug store. He got two lots on credit and in the same way secured lumber for a large building. The work on the building was also done on credit and it was nearly completed when Luce suddenly disappeared. About two weeks ago he got up an entertainment which he called a 'Japanese tea,' in which most of the ladies of the town took part. He handled the funds, and for all the ladies know he is still jingling the dollars in his pocket that were realized from that entertainment. On the strength of his popularity he borrowed $75 from one man and many smaller amounts from others. The day before he left he made arrangements for a grand opening in his new store building, and he started for Mount Vernon ostensibly to engage music for the opening. He never came back. In appearance Luce was tall and rather slim, and he had a dignified and rather clerical bearing. He was apparently about 40 years old, gray hair and an iron-gray mustache.
“Sometimes he would pose as a preacher and would lead the Sunday-school and the good sisters in song and praise.”
Luce’s grift—targeting the trust of a growing community to secure credit and capital—mirrors modern anxieties surrounding rapid development in small towns. Just as the Burlington citizens felt betrayed by a false display of 'piety,' today's communities often grapple with the exploitation of local social capital for private gain.
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