The Gold Brick Swindle
A small-town banker loses his life savings to a sophisticated confidence scheme involving a fake Indian and a worthless brick.
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.
Sheriff Woolery will leave today for Chattanooga, Tenn., with requisition papers for John Russell, one of the gold brick swindlers who victimized Charles T. Wooding, cashier of the Bank of Aberdeen, out of $5,000 early last fall. Wooding was approached by Russell, who claimed he had met an Indian named Oolah who possessed gold bricks stolen from Fraser River miners. Russell told Wooding that the Indian could not sell them without suspicion and needed an honest man of standing to help. After being taken to the woods near Ballard, Wooding was shown a 'wild, fierce looking fellow' with long black hair who was actually another gang member named Knowlton in disguise. Wooding bought the bricks, only to later discover they were worthless. Russell and Knowlton are well-known confidence men; Knowlton is known as 'Rebel George' and had previously served time in the Oregon penitentiary.
“Wooding's cupidity was instantly aroused, and after an apparent reluctance to give the poor Indian away, Russell finally consented to bring about a meeting.”
Confidence games targeting the greed of the upwardly mobile were common in the boom-bust atmosphere of 1890s Seattle. The 'gold brick' con remains a classic archetype for modern digital scams that exploit the same human desires for a quick, secret financial windfall.
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