A Real Case File of the Pinkerton Detectives

 

By Jennifer Uhlarik

 

Happy early Thanksgiving, HHH Readers! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday planned with plenty of good food, family, and friends. Thanks for stopping by in this
busy week to read on the Heroes, Heroines, and History blog. I know I speak for all the bloggers when I saw we are thankful for each of you!

 

If you’ve been following my posts from the last two months, I talked about Allan Pinkerton—the founder of the Pinkerton National Detective agency and the cutting-edge things he did—as well as Kate Warne, the first female Pinkerton detective. This month, I thought I would continue the Pinkerton theme by sharing a fun case file from the Pinkertons so you can see how thorough the agency was in their work. I present to you “The Expressman and the Detective,” as Allan Pinkerton referred to this case.

 

In 1854, a year after the Adams Express Company’s founding, the vice president of this company contacted Allan Pinkerton with a request for him to find the missing $10,000 that was stolen from a locked money pouch while said pouch was being transported between Montgomery, Alabama, and Augusta, Georgia. From the start, Pinkerton believed that the job had to have been done by someone within the company, and he said as much in his written response to the vice president. For a full year, the man didn’t get back to Pinkerton. However, in the summer if 1856, he wrote again with an urgent request. Please meet him in Georgia, as another $40,000 had gone missing from a sealed pouch.

 

George Bangs,
Pinkerton Detective

Pinkerton and one of his detectives, George Bangs, met the express company’s VP and learned that he’d had the manager of the Montgomery office, Nathan Maroney, watching the goings-on for any nefarious dealings. The money had been placed in the pouch, sealed, and yet didn’t make it to its destination. The vice president was adamant that it was not an inside job. Whoever had taken the money had used a razor to cut a square hole in the bag—inside the outer pocket, so that it was concealed from public view—and the money was removed through the hole. They’d originally thought it was one of the messengers who carried the money, but they’d interviewed any number of them and found none of them to be worth pursuing for these thefts. 

 

At this point, both Allan Pinkerton and George Bangs began to suspect Maroney, the Montgomery branch manager, of the thefts. At one point, he’d worked for a circus that had gone out of business due to someone embezzling all their funds—but in his dealings with the Adams Express Company, he seemed to have an impeccable reputation and good standing in the Montgomery community.

 

Two years after the $40,000 went missing, Nathan Maroney took a lengthy leave of absence from his job. Those investigating the case followed the man as he traveled in the East among other places. Based on their observations that he was buying expensive clothes for himself and his wife, as well as staying in fine hotels beyond what his Adams company pay should afford him, and also gambling heavily on racehorses, he was arrested. But the arrest was weak, and Maroney’s bond was paid by the Montgomery community, who respected Maroney highly and felt the arrest was out of line.

 

Soon after his release, Pinkerton set out to get unequivocal proof of Maroney’s guilt. He had Maroney rearrested in New York, on conspiracy charges this time. He was placed in the same cell as a forger, who had many appointments with his attorney.

Allan Pinkerton

 

Pinkerton also had people watching Mrs. Maroney, who began spending her time between New York and Pennsylvania after her husband’s second arrest. Interestingly, while she stayed at Pennsylvania’s Merchant’s Hotel, she met and began spending much time with a handsome young man with long black hair who wooed the frightened woman with sweet words and kind attention. She also met and began to confide in Madam Imbert at the hotel. Almost daily, she would see both of her new acquaintances, taking long walks with the gentleman, as well as having long, friendly conversations with Madam Imbert. 

 

When Maroney found out through an anonymous letter about his wife’s handsome suitor, he called her to the jail. She dutifully went to visit him and explained that the long-haired man, named Mr. De Forest, was just a friend. During the visit, Maroney also told her he’d had reason to speak with his cellmate’s attorney about this frustrating incarceration. The attorney assured him that his jail time could end quickly, and he was willing to represent Maroney to the court, but it would be a costly endeavor. Maroney told his wife to collect money and bring it to him at the jail.

 

She left there, not knowing what to do. She returned to The Merchant’s Hotel in Pennsylvania and found Madam Imbert. Mrs. Maroney soon learned that dear Madam Imbert was at the hotel, convalescing after falling into a longstanding melancholy mood, which came on because her husband was serving a ten-year prison sentence, and the courts had ruled that she could not see or speak to him during that time. The common theme of a husband being incarcerated brought Mrs. Maroney to tears, and she shared a tiny bit of her own husband’s troubles.

 

Not long after, Mrs. Maroney took another trip, this time to Montgomery, with Pinkerton Detectives watching her every move. She and her young daughter checked into a hotel and attempted to call on friends of her husband—but the formerly amicable attitude of Montgomery residents had cooled toward Nathan Maroney, and no one would entertain a visit from his wife.

 

Upon her return to Pennsylvania, Mrs. Maroney visited Madam Imbert in her hotel room, visibly upset by something. It was then she confided in her friend what her husband had done—having stolen $50,000 from his former employer. However, before Madam Imbert could comfort the poor woman, she departed to write her husband a letter. 

 

The letter was intercepted by the Pinkertons. In it, they discovered that yes—Nathan Maroney had stolen the $50,000, and Mrs. Maroney had moved it from its original hiding place to a new location. They continued to watch her for any chance she might lead them to the money. But the woman never did.

 

It was only when Mrs. Maroney asked Madam Imbert to travel to New York with her to meet her husband in prison that the case finally took a turn. Nathan Maroney was duly impressed with his wife’s friend and encouraged her to trust Madam Imbert. Mrs. Maroney did, indeed, trust her with the details of where the stolen money had been moved. It now rested 18 inches beneath a cellar in a local Pennsylvania home. The two women visited the site, dug up the money, and gave it to the attorney who had promised Maroney help in ending his incarceration. Little did Maroney know, that “attorney” was none other than Pinkerton operative George Bangs, who promptly returned the missing $50,000 (minus $485, which had been spent by the thief) to the Adams Express Company. In addition, Maroney also confessed to his cellmate what he had done. His cellmate was Pinkerton operative John White, who had been undercover the whole time, winning Maroney’s trust to gain the details needed for a conviction. Upon his confession and the recovery of the money, Maroney was taken back to Montgomery where he stood trial and was convicted. He was given a ten-year prison sentence for his crimes.

Kate Warne,
Pinkerton Detective

 

The heartbroken Mrs. Maroney took her young daughter and moved to Chicago. Madam Imbert also returned to Chicago, never revealing to the expressman’s wife her true identity…Kate Warne, Pinkerton Detective. Nor did she reveal that Mr. De Forest, the handsome gentleman suitor was also a Pinkerton sent to spy on her. In fact, Kate Warne as Madam Imbert and Mrs. Maroney kept a friendship for a while after their respective moves to Chicago, until they naturally drifted apart.

 

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has finaled and won in numerous writing competitions, and been on the ECPA best-seller list several times. In addition to writing, she has held jobs as a private business owner, a schoolteacher, a marketing director, and her favorite—a full-time homemaker. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers, Women Writing the West, and is a lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband and fur children.

Coming April 1, 2025

 

Love and Order by Jennifer Uhlarik

 

Separated as children when they were adopted out to different families from an orphan train, the Braddock siblings of Callie, Andie, and Rion have each grown up and taken on various jobs within law enforcement and criminal justice. When the hunt for a serial killer with a long history of murders reunites the brother and sisters in Cambria Springs, Colorado, they find themselves not only in a fight for justice, but also a fight to keep their newly reunited family intact. How will they navigate these challenges when further complicated by unexpected romances?