The False Evangelist
A traveling preacher who claimed a massive inheritance is locked up in Seattle on charges of forgery.
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.
Rev. James A. Smith, a temperance evangelist of Portland who has been traveling in America for the past three years, was arrested last evening while at his devotions in the city mission in the Seattle National Bank building. Smith, who is an old man, very large but not prepossessing, has been doing evangelist work in California for some time. About three months ago, he began to search for a wife and, after showing letters purporting to show his right to a fortune depending on an English law suit, married Miss Hattie Lawrence. He later claimed he would soon receive $150,000. On the strength of these credentials, he lived like a lord at hotels before disappearing. He was arrested in Seattle on a warrant sworn out by the secretary of the Santa Cruz Y.M.C.A., charging him with forging his name to a check. Smith protested his innocence, claiming his only crime was being a 'vain boaster' who told stories to make his talk sound big.
“I have all my life been a vain boaster... I told him I would take the land, although at the time I hadn't a cent. I merely said I would take the land to make my talk sound big.”
Smith’s 'fake it till you make it' hustle reveals the precariousness of itinerant preachers in the 1890s, when personal reputation was a currency as volatile as the gold standard mentioned elsewhere in the paper. The Seattle National Bank building, where he was apprehended, is a vanished landmark of the old commercial district.
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