Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Zeren Elizabeth Zaren.

Yeah, what girl?

How are you doing?

Pretty good?

Are you feeling?

You know?

I got like I said always, I'm upright and taking nourishment.

I'm on the right side of the grass.

I got nothing plain about.

Above ground and getting paid.

No, girl, that's right, that is right.

Uh, do you know what it's ridiculous?

I do tell me this one.

I think you might like because that has to do with animals, and I know you like the animals.

Animals, So you know Coco the Gorilla, right, not personally, well, you know, Cocoa the Gorilla could speak with sign language, yes, right, and they like they would ask and then Coco Guerrilla to respond and they go back and forth and have conversations in sign language.

Well, Coco the Gorilla wasn't the only ape that we've taught sign language in fact, since like nineteen sixties, so you're talking decades, like six six decades of teaching sign language to apes.

There's one thing that they have never ever done in sign language.

You know what that is?

Ask a question.

Apes have never asked us a question.

We ask them questions, they answer them, They express themselves.

They talk about their emotions, they talk about their inner reality, they talk about their desires, their hopes, like Cocoa wants a kitten.

I mean they say all this stuff, Coco sad.

But wait, so they don't give a tinker's damn about us.

And it's not even that where you take it, But it's the idea that they don't formulate in terms of questioning reality.

They accept reality as it is and comment on it.

So this may suggest an animal form of consciousness that it just is and you can interact with reality, but they don't question it.

And this may be the not that animals don't think, but they don't think the way we think.

And this is actually what separates us from the animals.

Is not just our opposable thumbs, but the fact that we ask questions.

Isn't that wild?

That is wild?

And I just think that's kind of ridiculous in a light scientific.

Yeah, but that's really interesting here.

I'm like, you don't care about me, Coco.

I feel like this is kind of a one sided relationship, except.

Yeah, I got you another Coco, you love me?

Now?

Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?

I do a gentleman's tiger.

Is that a euphemism?

You mean me?

This is Ridiculous Crime, A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons.

It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous.

Oh you damn right.

The Scots and the Brits, they sure know how to name something that's true.

Oh my goodness, I'll give it to them like that, even if it's silly.

It's so.

Scotland has a tradition of giving amazing names to the gritter trucks that they used to clear the roads of ice, and so it all started.

They were letting school kids name them, and then during COVID they moved the naming pole online.

Here are some of the best ones thus far.

Sleetwood, Mac Good Spready van Halen, Nice, sweet child, O'Brien, You're a blizzard Harry Carrie, Bradthaw Okay, Brinstone, plowboy like that, buzz Ice clear and clever, Betty white out Yes, Sir, David Atton Burr, Gritney Spears and picture snowing me, snowing you.

I like the Britney spears I imagined her and Gritty the had a child and named.

It and it's a truck exactly.

So this is like the Scouts are an incredibly language savvy popular.

Oh yes, and their insults are always beautiful.

And then there was that auto sub used by the UK National Oceanography Center that in twenty sixteen was allowed to be named by the public and the poll's clear winner was body mcboat face.

That's what I was thinking of.

Yes, yeah, so that's a classic.

It's been often mimicked.

The proprietor of some of the best social media accounts, the Orkney Library.

I don't know if you.

Followed I'm familiar, made me familiar.

They named a.

Boat that they used to take books out to remote islands bookie mcbook face good and so you know it's the repetition that hooks yet.

Yeah, so let's go back.

In history a little bit.

I loved doing it, or a lot bit y oh, I really loved that.

I remember a while back I told you about Gregor McGregor cod I got a mcgridg got I forget the repetition of it.

So he was a Scottish adventurer, con artist.

He tried to get investors in England.

Scotland France to get on board of the fake country that he said he was establishing, and that was in the early eighteen hundreds mix South of Marya.

Yeah, yeah, that guy Mosquito Coast.

And he breaks the Scottish bank.

Oh yeah, pretty much like he just it was.

It's horrible.

So about fifty or so years after Gregor MacGregor was on the scene, another repetitive name con man emerged in Scotland.

This one called himself Lord Gordon Gordon.

Not Goon, Lord Gordon Gordon Botros Gordon from him is Bold Bold flavors with that name.

So that's the guy I want to tell you about today and is with many of our con artists.

His origin story is murky, so like some say that he was the illegitimate child of the son of a preacher man and his family's made.

There's also the narrative that he grew up in an upper middle class family, but from childhood always talked about how he wished he was super wealthy and a member of nobility.

We hear that in background information on some of these con artists that they like always wanted to be royalty or famous or something like I can't and you did that but did you know anyone who did that?

My sister, Oh, really, she wanted to be royalty.

She wanted she still has.

He's still like a royal watcher.

And she's like into like the British royalty and all that.

Yeah, also not just the Brits, like if you are a royal of any world or any land or well, I guess she's like a fan.

She just loves the idea of royalty shoes.

She would be like princess whatever in her made up name.

She should have been born to it.

She really should be like I was over there, just a man of the people.

From the get really frustrated her that.

You know, I just I never knew anyone who did come across these things.

That's actually far more common.

Yeah.

I met people in college.

I tell them my sister, they're like my brother.

I would have had to have friends find out about those things.

So the sort of consensus is that he came from a very cultured family, and his speech, his accent, knowledge of social customs that suggested that he'd gone to like boarding school.

Or had to pull off that world.

Yeah, and he it must have.

Been somewhat familiar with British upper class life.

He was fluent in French, like maybe a couple other languages.

He had this cultivated understanding of aristocratic genealogy, which is very convoluted, the clan histories and estate management.

So these really niche things about Scottish nobility and it doesn't reveal his origins, but it reflects the type of environment in which he was educated or trained.

The people who interacted with him described his speech as quote, refined English with a slight Scottish intonation, gentlemanly but indistinctly local.

Now did the I don't know this did Did the upper class Scots, after their interaction and melding with the English, tried to have English accents with a slight Scottish lilt?

Or is it rare for someone like him to have a English accent?

I need to know when you get into because so many English who come in and taken the higher that like the hierarchy of being landed in.

The Edinburgh accent is much softer and more English than like the you know, the Luigi to speak, or further up into the Highlands and then closer you get to like the Orkney's like forget it anyway, So yeah, there is that influence though, and I think it has a lot to do with who's owning that land and from whence they came.

So there he is.

There's those that believe he was born Hubert Campbell Smith.

Sometime between eighteen thirty five and eighteen forty he floated the idea to some that he had served as a lieutenant or lieutenant in a Scottish regiment in India ins and he may have also gotten a job at a commercial house as a young man, but he was unhappy with the salary so he quit.

Like who's to say, only Lord Gordon Gordon.

These are the other aliases that are associated with him, Herbert or Hubert Hamilton, Lord Glen Cairn, George Gordon, George Herbert Gordon, John Herbert, Charles Gordon.

It's like he's got four options, yet he just slips them all back and forth.

Just think it's like a Rubik's cube of names.

Well, I'm just thinking, like the refrigerator poetry, but he's only got four pieces.

She's just gonna slide around.

So summer of eighteen sixty eight, dude rolls up to Edinburgh.

He's like, hey, guys, the name's Hamilton, and I'm a normal, boring guy.

According to the Manitoba Historical Society quote, no one knew anything of him, and there was much surmising as to who he was.

But as he paid his bills, punctually, lived quietly, and had the manners of a gentleman, no one could find anything against his character or conduct.

Normal guy, boring dude.

So off he went when the summer ended by, and then he showed up again the next summer, summer of sixty nine in Edinburgh, and only this time he was calling himself Lord glen Cairn, a pile of rocks, pyle of rocks.

So he had a story that would like kind of make sense though.

So he was the same guy, but a lot had happened to him.

It's a crazy year, you guys, so he told He told people that his grandpa had left money to him, tons of money, but he could only access said money if he accepted the title of glen Cairn when he reached the age of twenty seven and the old curse of twenty seven.

Do you know how many musicians are in the twenty seven club?

It's not a few, it's all yeah.

Robert Johnson, the og Yeah, one of the first Ryan Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, pig Pen from The Grateful Dead, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Christin Faff the bass player for M some other kind of lesser known musicians anyway, how.

Else other stars as well, not just musicians, just not just limited.

But it's most of the musicians you made it famous, Yeah, Keith Ledger missed it by like a few months.

And then at twenty eight.

Yeah, yeah, so twenty seven is big for old glen Cairn here, but not hopefully he makes it he spoiler alert, he does so.

Our boy Gordon Squared aka the Glencarn he was just about to turn twenty seven.

He's like, I hope I make it, you guys.

According to him, his agents in London were just finishing up the paperwork on the whole inheritance thing.

In just a few months time he would officially be named heir to his grandfather and the Earldom of glen Cairn.

And he didn't elaborate about this or tell people what land holdings this might involve.

He got really vague about that.

If it's an earldom former Viking lands, Elizabeth.

I think so, as Skull because of the Yeah, so he didn't talk hard numbers about his inheritance, just that the amount was like positively eyewatering.

There's a castle or two.

Yeah, it's just I couldn't even begin so constructed credibility by dressing impeccably in the style of a young landed gentleman.

They say, dressed like that all you want to be.

That's so true.

Every single time he had this exaggerated but really informed knowledge of clan histories.

Like I said, he spoke with authority when it came to a state's rents tenants.

He was a huge tipper and he'd make all these like small charitable gestures far yeah, and always with cash.

So it makes it seem like there's a lot more where that came from.

And I just spend this jump change.

And he had someone with him at the time.

He employed a young valet or valet as they would have said.

There are a handful of articles about Gordo that say this type of valet was referred to as a quote gentleman's tiger at the time.

Oh and when I researched the term, the only place I found it come up in reference to a valet is in those same articles, I think, so it's nowhere else.

So like, who's started this notion?

I feel like one of these sources.

Made it up and the rest ran with it because by the tail.

Yeah, there's nowhere else do I see anything about a valet being called a gentleman's Like you go to search it in Gentleman's Tiger and it comes up with like signet rings with a tiger eye, and so you'd start eliminating you know, ring and jewelry and stone and then add in valet and it's like, no, only these articles makes no sense.

I mean, it's badass, don't get me wrong, I'm with it, but it just makes it makes no sense a gentleman's tiger.

Like, how could a gentleman so?

According to historian W.

A.

Crawfet Gordon, Gordon kept this boy quote dressed in buckskin breeches, long boots, blue coat with gilt buttons, and an immense cockade upon his hat, which in Great Britain denotes that his master holds a commission under the sovereign.

That's an outfit.

He's close to the king with his hat, and he's close to the colonies with his pants.

That's that's when people knew how to dress Sarah, I'm telling you, or how to dress their tigers.

A cockade, by the way, is a knot of ribbons.

I imagined it to be like a huge plume of feathers.

That's what kind of going with a pile.

It's like a round, pleated circle of ribbon.

Still an amazing outfit.

It's very Andre three thousand.

I could see the outfit anyway.

So there's Lord glen Cairn just lording it up in Edinburgh.

He's swanning around with his gentleman's tiger, is cozied up to a well to do Scottish clergyman named mister Simpsons.

Clergyman.

Yes, mister Simpson, mister Bartholomew Simpson.

No, it's not his first name.

We don't know what it is, just Simpson.

No, no for his name.

So this was the move though, Like you get a member of the clergy with some means and you get close to him and he's your opening into society.

Like you can get you in anywhere and people trust you because they trust him.

Smart move somebody to go.

Yeah, it's like you paler around with Father Brown.

You're good.

The Lord and the King that's right, gotcha, And so The.

New York Times described this as such quote In England, persons who are termed confident swingers, which like again a gentleman's tiger and a confidence swinger, like what I feel like this is something a little.

Off English private school, right boys school.

Jeez, so very quote very often worm their way into the books of the tradesmen through the agency of clergymen.

Gordon made very liberal use of this plan.

There's this website, hoaxes dot org, which I'm like, did you start the whole gentleman's tiger thing?

They said, quote I tried to find like who who at hoaxes dot org wrote this show yourself powards no no bylines quote.

His basic method of operation was the foot in the door technique.

He would make small requests of people to gain their trust, and then he gradually increased the size of his requests, and having gained the trust of a person, he would use them as a reference to gain the trust of other possible victims.

Con Men have taught us that if you want to earn someone's trust, ask them to do you a favor, and then they feel like somehow tied to.

Exactly so now Glenn Kern, and he's pals with He's got this network of fat cats that he's hanging out and through them and Simpson, he's able to establish credit with jewelers both in Edinburgh and London.

Okay, score.

So he was introduced as Lord Glen Cairn to the Edinburgh jewelers Marshall and Company.

And this was the place at the time for metals and gems.

It was like the height of fashion.

I was wondering if that' say this sound familiar.

I was wondering, what do they make like the Queen's necklaces.

That now they have stores all over now called Marshals.

It's a discount clothing store in the next of course, I'm not when am I serious?

So he told these jewelers all about his estates in England and Scotland and Ireland, about his solicitors, lawyer mister Patterson, he handled all his business for him.

Oh and and he had so much money he just didn't know what to do with it.

Maybe buy some jewelry.

Oh maybe he should just go ahead and start a tab at the jewelers, like it only made sense, right guys, And they're like, yeah, sure, right on.

So he starts to peruse the goods and he has this like super keen eye for the best stuff, like, oh, excellent taste.

Soon.

One item he really loved was a small silver casket made in Venice, Italy.

Casket for a body.

Well, that's the thing.

Okay.

So I saw a casket.

I'm like, I need to do a little investigation here.

Yeah.

So it's Venice, Italy, not Venice, California.

And it's not a casket like rip, let's get you six feet under.

It's a casket in the sense of a small decorative box, so not as big as a chest, but maybe slightly bigger than a jewelry box.

Okay.

And so glen Cairn sees this silver one loves it, has to have it as the jeweler.

To have it delivered to his hotel is like a very posh place in town.

And then he came by with Simpson a few days later to rave about what an incredible shop this was and the stuff.

They're convinced he's the real deal.

As far as they're moving to a clergy, he's like, you, I'll tell you, you tell the Lord.

So from there he's like, okay, bye, I got to go to London.

Off he goes, and there he starts talking to a diamond dealer and he tells that guy, you know, Marshall and Company up in Scotland, they can vouch for me.

He's like, hey, Jared, I got a friend in the diamond.

Business for you, yes exactly, and then he says, well, you know what, In fact, they'll vouch for me.

I've worked with them for several years.

So the diamond dealer writes a note to Marshall and Company and says, you know this man that you've known for several years, is he on the up and up the whole several years?

Thing through Marshall and Company for a loop?

And like they just the guy, like why is he saying this?

So they sent one of their employees, this guy, mister Smith, to London to look into the matter.

Mister Smith goes to London precisely.

So Smith goes to London heads to the lawyer Patterson.

Patterson was appalled that anyone would be asking anything about the credibility of Lord glen Cairn, and he told Smith to like shut his pretty mouth about it.

That's a direct quote.

I was there, Like, don't you dare say anything against that man, he's one of my best clients.

So Smith, he's not buying it.

Patterson said that he'd have Lord glen Cairn return the jewelry that had been fronted to him, and then he'd cut a check for the amount of anything that he had already been given away.

All right, Like what good is a check?

Smith says, well, if he doesn't pay it by March twenty fifth, eighteen seventy, I'll cover the debt.

I believe in him that much.

So what Smith wasn't aware of is that glen Cairn had gifted a lot of that jewelry to Patterson and his family, and Patterson had advanced Glen Caaren like forty five thousand dollars basically the equivalent of a million dollars today.

Hot.

Yeah, So Patterson had given Glen Karen the last four thousand of that chunk of cash, and then suddenly started to wonder, like, wait, was that about idea?

Is this a little hanky?

So Glen Karen Gordon whatever his name is, tells Patterson, thank you so much.

I'm heading back up to Scotland.

I'm going to close out this account at Marshall and Company.

Off I go Patterson thought about it for a bit and was like, I'm going to send someone up to Edinburgh and I have them ask around and see what's really going down.

So they're constantly sending people.

It should come as no surprise that Glen Karen Gordo big G wasn't in Edinburgh, he wasn't in Scotland, he wasn't in the UK at all.

Frankly, no one knew where he was.

At this point, the victims of his swindles start coming forward.

People in London, people in Edinburgh had to cop to the fact that they fell for the old I'm about to come into money thing.

One jeweler believed him when he said he was a close power of the Duke of Hamilton and the Marquis of Hastings.

The Duke of Earl.

Yes, and so much so that the guy's like, oh, you know them, here's fifty thousand dollars credit line.

And then someone asked the nobleman in question, like, hey, do you know this guy?

They're like, I don't know who you're talking about.

Get out of my face.

And then that was it.

So let's take a break.

When we come back, we're going to track down that pesky Gordon.

Yeah, Zaren Zaren.

When we last saw Lord Glen Cairn, he was conning people in Scotland.

Then he vanished.

Yeah, I'm picturing a young Ewan McGregor playing this part.

It's working for me.

Oh it's good.

Let's run with it because take it.

He surfaced fifteen months later in Minnesota.

I did not expect that, I know, right, And he was no longer Lord glen Cairn.

Now he was Lord Gordon.

Gordon.

Okay, yeah, I'm still waiting for you to go.

No, not really, that one for real.

So his earliest documented Minnesota residence was in Saint Paul.

He stayed at this prominent hotel there, and then he moved into private accommodations.

He quickly became a familiar figure in Saint Paul and Minneapolis society.

He went to these receptions, dinners, legislative gatherings.

He's just a man about town.

He was just as elegant and reserved as before, and like maybe a little more reserved because this time he didn't come out and say that he had a title and money.

Instead, he was discreet, so he would let it slip.

He'd like casually mentioned that he was the of the Great Earls of Gordon, cousin of the Campbell's collateral relative of Lord Byron, oh descendant of the bold locking Ver and the ancient kings of the Highlands.

Ah, you know those kind of oops.

I can't believe I just said that.

I've said too much.

You might people.

And he he had an income also he let slip of over a million dollars a year.

That just slipped out.

Yeah, oopsie, Oh did you see that?

Did you see my bank book open?

For all my fellow inflation calculator officionados out there, that's twenty six and a half million dollars today.

A year a year income.

I would very much like for that to be my annual salary.

What would you do with that?

I would live the basically the same life why you needed that, But I wouldn't work, and I would just like I would outfit like my kitchen super nice, okay, and I would I don't know.

Like finally spread the slots.

Little upgrades for stuff here and there.

Oh, little upgrades, okay, But that's basically it.

I think you would actually run like a Brewster's million style charity where you're just giving out a million dollars.

Would I probably would.

I would be I would hand it out so fast that's okay, But I'd still like night, I'd still get a new kitchen anyway.

So he's super casual about this though, right, and so casual.

He goes to a bank in Minneapolis.

He's like, I'd like to deposit forty thousand dollars please, And that's the cash that he got from Patterson.

Yes, and remember that's like.

A million dollars today.

So cruise down to the bank, Navy, Federal, Zaren, go in there.

Okay, here's a.

People talk, Zaren.

I know that people talk.

Word got around about this Scott lord who was just flushed with cash.

According to the Manitoba.

Trying to beat criminals is what he's like.

No drafting, you know, he's just gotta.

He's gotta scent.

The Air.

Manitoba Historical Society, they said, quote a lord in Minneapolis in eighteen seventy one with great resources, was obviously a social lion, and was made a house guest of one citizen and take it to Minnetonka on an elaborate picnic by another.

Among much entertaining, the husbands were interested in business deals for their mutual advantage.

He was courted and banqueted and entertained in the best of style at private and civic functions, and lavishly.

It's reported that he spent rather freely.

It's odd how when you have money people give you more.

Yeah, right, No, one like like, oh, we got these impoverished people.

Let's like lavish that.

They're like, no, we found the richest guy we've ever met.

We've given him all this stuff we had drobe and everything else was Oh my goodness, Gordon, whatever brought you to the Land of ten thousand Lakes?

That is a good question, a very good question.

I'm so glad that someone asked it.

I don't want to disclose.

I'm just here to report.

He told folks that he arrived from Scotland to do land deals.

He planned to invest a million dollars or more in the wild railroad lands o Lumber.

No.

So here's how folks who met him described him, so you can get a mental picture.

Is he going to remain you in McGregor we shall I don't know.

I'm curious.

I think he will quote slender of build about five feet ten inches in height.

So far as they're good and dressed with the greatest care, usually wearing gloves, patent leathers, and a silk hat.

His hands were frequently manicured, and his hair was brushed as smooth as curly hair could be.

He was clean shaven, except for two tufts of side whiskers along glaise.

He was exceedingly self poised, calm and deliberate of speech, articulated with much precision, and posed with an amount of ceremony seldom seen on the American continent.

Additionally, he was calm and demeanor, poised, ceremonious, and spoke excellent English with careful articulation.

He was apparently a successful after dinner speaker.

Successful who who wants to hear me?

Go?

I'll just stand rock back and forth.

He was fancy, y'all wine glass.

Everyone wanted to be around him.

They wanted to hear what he had to say after dinner speaking voice.

That's me and the dogs man, I'm like, okay, ding ding ding ding, They run they run far away.

Everyone wanted to ask him questions, but he was cagy, so if someone was like, hey, are you really a large he said, it made little difference if he was or he wasn't.

A lord and in any case, he didn't want to talk about it, and like, that's how you get people to think you're a lord.

In the course of his Minnesota days, he met Colonel John S.

Loomis, and Loomis was a lumber tycoon from Chicago.

He was also the land commissioner for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Okay, yeah, he has nothing to do with Loomis Fargo.

I was figuring different.

Yes, it's different.

So Gordon told Loomis that he eventually wanted to buy hundreds of thousands of acres of railroad land in Minnesota.

He said he was going to ship in a bunch of tenants from his quote overcrowded Scottish estates onto that land.

That's always some thing keep the feudalism going, you know.

So right then he said he was interested in getting his hands on somewhere between like fifty to sixty thousand acres.

Here's the thing.

The Northern Pacific Railroad wanted to expand they wanted to go west.

West Coast is the best coast and all that they said it not me.

West Coast is the best coast.

That was painted on the side of all the trains they wanted to connect up and eventually get that golden spike Son, which they did.

Oh that's what the continents I figured it was.

Once again, I'm still going with logging.

I'm like, they want to connect to Seattle to get that stuff out of the body.

But they wanted to hold hands and West Coast is the best coast and spike yeah baby.

So in order to stretch out, the railroad had to raise some money, and they'd just begun construction at this point.

The government had granted them forty million acres and they'd been selling that off to raise money already.

If they could get some goofy rich Scott to buy up a bunch more land, it would more than fund the projects.

So Loomis told the railroad big wigs about Gordon's plans, and they're like drooling all over themselves, I mean, just puddles.

So they spared no.

Expense when whining and dining Gordon in order to get their hands on what could be like millions and millions of dollars for them.

This was the railroads were the AI of their day.

Yes, first the NFTs, then the AI.

It takes money to make money's errand I've heard this, so they put Loomis in charge of rolling out the red carpet for our guy here.

He set up an all expense paid tour of the railroad lands in Minnesota and the Dakotas for Gordon.

Keep in mind these railroads weren't really built then.

Yeah, so building the horseback what they're doing.

But they weren't rustic trips.

The trips were posh.

So dinner service every night was attended by waiters in white aprons and white silk gloves, with silver platters and fine china.

Like when they pull the wagon over.

They served all the finest, most gourmet items available, everything fresh and exotic.

As the New York Times put it, quote from Woodcock to Buffalo.

That's just about to say, I bet you liked Woodcock.

Tropical fruits, an apple figure, it's the two thousand snacks.

They also apparently had champagne three times a day.

Okay, so you're just sitting on a horse glugging.

It, just like drink to night.

I like to start with the brandy, Lord Gordon.

Gordon wasn't solo on this.

He had his valet, the Gentleman's Tiger, reporting for duty.

Sir.

Okay, so this guy he would shave each morning, not himself, he was Gordon, and get him Gordon dressed.

You got to get the test to be sharp, exactly clean.

People were marveling at the fact that Gordon traveled with fourteen different outfits, four fourteen for this like I'm going to go into the back country.

Yeahfferent color, so that the valet would take dictation of the lord's correspondence, like penning them out, sealing them with the official seal of Gordon whatever that was in that situation, and he always referred to Gordon is my lord.

So there they are tripping about in luxury.

Gordon would stop every so often at like potential sites to see if he should or they would be good places for towns or schools or what have you for this incoming Scottish band of indentured servants.

And he dramatically like think up and then select names at each place.

Really yeah.

A historian that W.

A.

Crawford wrote, quote, his lordship saw the state thoroughly and inspected and selected vast areas of arable land that would rejoice the soul of a highlander.

He also incidentally located and named several cities explaining that it would be necessary to have churches and schools well organized before his colonists would flock thither in large numbers.

Sites for cities were selected, and the historic banner of the Gordons of Scotland and the stars and stripes fluttered side by side.

Oh so they that with flags and like this one day will be Gordon Landia.

Whatever Gordon mcgordon face.

And so this went on for three months, wow, three months, and it took a crew of twenty men to run this adventure.

Yeah, thirty to forty horses.

I say all the waiters, this is no joke, this is absolutely no joke.

So all told, the railroad spent about forty five thousand dollars on the trip.

If you'll remember, that's a million.

That's why my eyes did that.

And they came out and then I was like, what catch them quick?

Quick?

Put them back in.

The railroad figured though they were going to see at least five million from Gordon.

This is like chump change, five million in their money.

In their money, which is like nine hundred trillions today.

So January eighteen seventy two, Gordon bid them farewell.

He's like waving holding a handkerchief.

He told the railroad that he had to head back east to get the money transfers going.

He was eager to get the rail road paid so he can enact his dream.

And like all the irritated Scott's and dump them in Minnesota.

And the railroad guys, they're stoked.

They want to help in any way they can, and they just want to get their grubby fingers.

So they gave him letters of introduction to the cream of the crop of New York society.

How did they know the cream of the crop of New York society.

You know, like a lumber tycoon.

So and he's like, my name is Louis, I'm fencing.

You'll fence it to this guy's fancy.

Let's be fency to get us.

And so now they just got to wait.

It's just a waiting game.

And they wait and they wait.

And I know this is really hard to believe, but Lord Gordon Gordon never went back to Minnesota.

He was not feeling Minnesota.

Plucked around there for a while.

He he did tell the truth a little bit.

He did go to New York.

He arrived in New York in early eighteen seventy two, and you know what was happening.

Then eighteen seventy two an election.

Something called the Eerie War.

Oh the Canal.

Yeah, let me lay this out on you.

So the Erie War was a violent, highly publicized corporate and political battle that went on from eighteen sixty eight to eighteen seventy two.

And it was all about control of the Erie Railway that was one of the most important rail lines in the United States post Civil War.

Okay, so it.

Involved some of the era's most powerful financiers and politicians, Jay Gould, James Fisk Junior, Daniel Drew and then indirectly Cornelius Vanderbilt.

And if I'm not mistaken, grant us grant.

Yes he avoids mention here.

Yes, yes, So it was one of the most infamous episodes of Gilded Age financial corruption.

Oh, totally manipulation.

Bribery, forged securities, courtroom warfare, literal armed standoffs.

Yeah, like so much crime on paper or paper work based crime he could manage.

So the Eerie Railway connected New York City to the Great Lakes and this was a major freight shipping like Western expansion control of the Eastern transportation.

Yes, so much shipping back and forth.

Yeah, whoever controlled this railroad would make huge amounts of money and have incredible political power and influence because.

I think like two thirds of the income in the United States went through the Port of New York, and this was a huge artery for.

The Port of exactly exactly, So people were obviously fighting over this.

And you know who was at the time the director of the railroad who boss tweet of Tammany Hall Fame.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So when I say people fighting, I mean Cornelius Vanderbilt, the commodore.

He already controlled New York Central Railroad.

He wanted to absorb the Eerie and build a transportation monopoly.

Then there was Daniel Drew.

He was a longtime Wall Street operator.

He was treasurer of the Erie Railway, and he was also a master of stock watering, which is issuing new shares to manipulate prices.

Okay, so it's like what Zuckerberg did to his co founders, right r.

Value.

Yeah.

One of his initial allies was Jay Gould, and he was a rising financier and a brilliant strategist.

He wound up partnering with James Fisk Junior aka Diamond Jim Oh Fisk was a showman political operator, and he handed out bribes like Candy Nice and then so together Goldfisk and Drew became known as the Eerie Ring.

In early eighteen sixty eight, Vanderbilt began buying large quantities of Eerie stock to gain the majority control.

So Drew, Fisk, and Gould came up with their counter attack, stockwall watering.

They issued floods of new stock without authorization.

Then they sold that stock to Vanderbilt at inflated prices, and that became their bribe in money.

So Vanderbilt spent millions buying stock that was like rapidly diluted out from under him.

The courts issued injunctions against gold, Fisk and Drew.

In response, they fled to New Jersey with the corporate books.

Back then cross Lines kept Chaser, and then they.

Physically barricaded themselves in the Jersey City Erie offices.

Vanderbilt's men tried to seize control in New York with armed guards posted on both sides.

This was the centerpiece of what newspapers at the time called the Erie War.

So the Erie Ring they needed to strengthen their position, so they bribed members of the New York State legislature, and they also sponsored a bill to legalize their previously illegal stock issuances, and they paid off influential political powerworkers.

Will not be surprised that the bill passed no, so the fraudulent stock was retroactively legalized, stripping Vanderbilt of potential legal victory.

So we've always been like this.

Basically, I read that it's exactly what I thought, like, there's nothing new under the sun.

Vanderbilt ultimately like accepted.

Here's another one, a financial settlement, a classic Gilded Age quote, buy out of peace.

Okay, sounds familiar totally.

So after the victory against Vanderbilt, though, the eerie ring, they start to fall apart.

They gotta be fighting each other.

They need a common enemy, so they start turning on each other.

First, Gould manipulated stock to ruin Drew financially.

Drew loses his fortune.

Ok.

Fisk turns on Gould.

Fisk and Gould start plotting against each other.

Gould temporarily lost control in eighteen seventy, regained it and then lost Fisk as an ally.

But things kept falling apart.

There were investigations, lawsuits, all this like political pressure.

By eighteen seventy two, Gould was forced to resign from the Erie Railway, and under his management, the Erie had become a symbol of absolute corruption.

It was financially unstable, it was plagued by fraudulent accounting.

Yeah and fortune correct, now here comes Lord Gordon Gordon.

So, according to that Manitoba Historical Society quote, it is apparent that he spent some time looking over the situation.

Whether the J.

Gould Erie Railway development was a flash of inspiration or a pre arranged scheme cannot be proved.

Either Khan's illusion could fit the method of Gordon.

Gordon arrived in New York at the height of a speculative boom and at the peak of the commercial and political corruption which followed the Civil War.

In the two months following his arrival, he obviously gained much information about past operations from the men with whom he was associating, so he got a suite of rooms at the Metro Hotel.

He used those letters of introduction from Colonel Loomis to meet Horace Greeley, then founder and editor of the New York Tribune, Go West Young mang Right.

He became acquainted also with Horace F.

Clark, the politician and railroad executive, so he's just collecting Horace's everywhere he goes.

Gordon told Greeley that he owned sixty thousand shares in the Erie Railway and quote, with this and the holdings of his English friends, he intends to control the next election for directors.

So Greeley he's stoked.

Right.

The idea that a group with their wits about them come in and reform the railway was refreshing.

Greeley wanted to make sure that Gordon met all.

The big players, so he takes him around like.

He's the clergyman for him.

So, according to writer Charles Lewis Shaw, quote, word of this imminent management shakeup quickly spread throughout New York's business community and caused Gordon Gordon to receive a frantic visit from Jay Gould on March second, eighteen seventy two.

Let's stop here for a bit, okay, and when we get back, we'll see what happens when the con man meets the robber barons.

Zarin, we're back.

We're back, bite good ads, right, Oh the best, gimme some.

I just kept throwing money at my ears.

That's the only way to do it.

Why bye, so bye.

Let's get back to this story.

Jay Gould robber baron.

Yes, he had been pro I love robbing robber barons, so I'm so screws turned.

He'd been the president of the Eerie Railroad, but no more.

After the Eerie War, his position had become fragile.

He had power still as treasurer and the de facto controller of the company, but then he had been ousted from official control March of eighteen seventy two.

So all these new factions are fighting for dominance on the board.

Newspapers and political rivals are like attacking his credibility.

Lord Gordon Gordon, thanks to the introduction letters from Loomis met Horace Greeley.

Greeley connects him.

Greeley's supporters thought that maybe Gordon could help raise funds for Greeley's eighteen seventy two presidential campaign.

That one did not go well, right, and so that introduction, though gave Gordon political credential.

Goulds impressed, so Goulden Gordon.

They first met March second, eighteen seventy two, at the Erie Railway offices in New York.

Gordon presented himself as acting on behalf of British shareholders.

He said he was committed to supporting Gould's leadership and ironically opposed the eerie corruption.

It's so easy to say, but also it's you know, it's like it's projection, it's you.

Know, yeah, of course I'm against.

You are literally implement.

Every accusation is a confession.

So he wanted to negotiate a truce among the warring factions and Gould he's like accustomed to all these like elaborate financial maneuvers, but he was really impressed by how fluent Gordon was and stuff like railroad governance and European investment practices and even eerie shareholder distribution.

I guess, yeah, he was well versed.

He's a good con man, like he just tips, yeah, And I think he focused on obscure information to really hone in like and give the impression of this deep knowledge.

So he also it seemed like he knew details about the eerie capitalization structure that weren't widely published.

So it's not like what you would find in like essentially the business not business newspapers, but like the publications of stockholding right, So.

Gould later said under oath that Gordon Gordon displayed quote a perfect knowledge of Eerie's shareholder politics.

I mean like he almost certainly learned things from newspapers but also public filings.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering.

But this seems like he knows even more than.

That, figured out how to get information out of people.

He's also just a good researcher, charming fellow, a big time reader.

Yeah.

So Gordon said that he held power of attorney for a major block of Erie stock owned by English and Scottish investors, and he could deliver enough votes at the upcoming shareholder meeting to restore Gould.

Right, he could also prevent the anti Gould faction from consolidating control.

Okay, because the percentage you own.

Sure this is entirely false.

Of course, no part of this is true so Britain, I mean the true part.

They did hold large amounts of American railroad stock, which made the claim plausible.

And Gould he's just like politically isolated, He's hungry for allies.

Andy's got charming believable, He's so believable, American susceptible to a charming bri accent.

He dressed and he spoke and behaved convincingly like a Scottish aristocrat, and he had like financial authority, can.

Put his elbows on the table.

The barn door was never down, zipper up.

It would come out later that there were several respectable New Yorkers had already been taken in by him, like he was conning, like just doing little side gig cons so Gordon.

Gordon told Gould that to persuade British shareholders to side with him, he needed to demonstrate that Gould was trustworthy.

So to prove this up, he needed temporary cut study of eerie securities, you know, as like a good faith bond.

But don't worry, these are going to be returned once the shareholder alignment is secured.

I just want to hold him real close and put him in my pocket and get them warm.

Gould thought he was engaging in like a private political negotiation, not a criminal act.

He believed Gordon.

He was sure that the shares would serve only as like symbolic collateral during these negotiations.

So mid eighteen seventy two, Gould delivered to Gordon about a million dollars worth of negotiable eerie securities.

Now remember a million, then twenty six point five mil today.

Gould delivered these personally, He's like, here you go, Gordon, Gordon.

He immediately starts selling them in New York and Chicago, selling these securities like hot sheeting of like, like, folks, what we got here is some good old fashioned fraud.

When the securities began turning up on the market, brokers notified Eerie officials and Gould realized he'd been duped, so he demanded their returne He confronts Gordon.

Gordon's like, whoa, I sold them to test the market.

In fact, I need more securities to complete the deal.

Come on, this is this is how it.

Works, don't you know how high finance.

It's like big nope, no, no, no, We're not doing that.

So Gordon returned all the cash, but he only had some of the shares he'd sold the rest.

Gould calculated the missing shares as being worth about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, so he filed a formal criminal complaint against Gordon in New York for fraud, larceny, and grand embezzlement.

Oh it was grand Gordon.

He gets arrested on April ninth, eighteen seventy two, and in a surprising turn, Horace Clark Horace paid Gordon's forty thousand dollars bond.

Whoa, yeah, so he's walking free, saying I didn't expect Yeah.

So Gordon gets brought before a police court like magistrates court in New York City to answer the complaint.

So it's like a preliminary here.

Yeah, it's not a formal trial.

So Gould presented his accusations and witnesses described the transfer of securities.

Gordon responded with all He's like, I got well, see here's the thing.

It's might a little complex.

See for your tiny little brains, what had happened was But he says, look I was acting in good faith and this was all within an agreement.

And his lawyers also argued that the dispute was civil not criminal.

What are we doing here in criminal court?

This is civil matter.

I've been there.

This is criminal here.

May seventeenth, eighteen seventy two.

Gordon Gordon.

He spent the day being questioned and he denied everything.

Gould's lawyer was asking Gordon about his family, and this kind of caught Gordon out.

He gave the names and addresses of people he said were his stepfather, sister, a brother in law, and an uncle.

And then he said he wouldn't answer anything else about his family because it was irrelevant.

Okay, Yeah, So the judge agreed and adjourned the court for the day, and Gould's lawyers immediately sent cables to the American consulates in Paris, London, and Burne, asking them to look into the names and the addresses.

They checked and they responded, no one Gordon mentioned had ever lived at any of those addresses.

How is he forgetting that a telegram goes across the I don't know.

But what is interesting is I did I didn't mention it earlier, but about like his life history, there was like a theory floated that he came you know, he had this like step stepdad and a sister in all and they were from the Isle of Jersey, and they were well to do because they were the heart the center of an international smuggling ring, but like the high level, like the capo, right, and so that was kind of never it wasn't There wasn't enough to back it up, but I thought it was interesting they named off the same you know, family members for that anyway, so no one knows Gordon at any of these places.

So, but where's Gordon now?

Where he's on the night train to Montreal.

Yeah.

Gould then puts up a bounty twenty five thousand dollars for Gordon's arrest.

He's not hiring pinkertons, Like, what the hell?

Bro.

He also sent detectives to Europe to investigate Gordon's past.

I pray those were pinkertons.

Oh God.

The detectives found out about the whole Lord glen Cairn thing from the jewelers.

When they were there, they showed photos of Gordon.

They're like, oh, that's Lord glen Cairn.

He stole from us.

What a Gordon care?

He's hiding out in Canada.

So the bail bondsman got wind of this though about the Canada thing, and they sent a dispatch to Minnesota.

If they could get together a group of bounty hunters to snatch Gordon and bring him back across the border to face justice, they could make a pretty penny.

Oh, Jay Gould would see to it.

I bet Zarin, close your eyes.

I want you to picture it.

It's the evening of July second, eighteen seventy three.

You are a merchant in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

You got word that a guy calling himself Lord Gordon.

Gordon had skipped bail in New York and was hiding out in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

You remember the guy he fleeced some railroad guys in Minnesota a while back.

You were currently in a saloon in Fort Gary, Winnipeg.

You and a couple of pals made the trek up from Saint Paul to get this Gordon character and take him back across the border.

You talk to locals who told you about the Scott who liked to drink here, and you matched him with the photo the Minneapolis police had provided you with.

And that's how you.

Find yourself sitting next to Gordon, getting him incredibly drunk.

It's a lively crowd, lots of hooping and hollering.

Gordon thinks you're matching him drink for drink with your wee DRAMs of whiskey, but in truth you've been slyly dumping your drinks into a bucket next to your chair.

One of the other guys in your party is nursing beers, getting them down about a third and then jumping up to declare that he needs a refill.

Gordon's too slosh to notice, his eyelids are getting heavy, and he's entering the maudlin drunk portion of the evening.

You chatted with the piano player earlier in the evening.

You look over at him and nod the signal.

He begins a mournful rendition of the Bonnie Banks O La Polomen.

Gordon lifts his head toward the piano.

Tears begin to rim his eyes.

He mouths the words to the first verse, and when the chorus begins, he belts out at full volume.

Oh you take the high road, and I'll take the lo and I'll be in scarl Duffior, but me on Metrolaw will never meet again.

On the body money Banks soul lock Loo Man.

Fat tears fall from his face onto the scarred, lacquered tabletop.

You put your arm around him as you turn and wink at the piano player.

He nods back at you.

You tell Gordon that maybe it's time to call it a knight.

You and your pals will get him home.

Where are you staying?

You ask?

He mumbles the name of a hotel, and you and your posse all stand, bringing a limp Gordon with you.

He continues to sing Lochloman with boozy vigor, punctuating verses with comical hiccups.

You get him outside and load him into the back of a wagon.

What you don't see is a telegraph man standing in the doorway of a post office.

He's got his eyes on you, his flaming red hair and bushy beard glow in the moonlight, a tartan vest visible under his jacket.

You toss a blanket over Gordon, and you and the posse hop in the front bench seat and whip horses into action.

You tear down the street and head south befoard the border.

About fifty miles away is the Pambina border crossing.

It's the port of Emerson.

The wagon is screaming along at full speed, dust flying up behind the wheels in the darkness.

The horse hooves and creak of wood the only sound while this is happening, and Scott, who runs the telegraph and Fort Garry, takes the initiative to send a message to Pembina.

He says, it looks like some Feenians have abducted a nobleman and are headed for the States.

Take action.

He tells the custom house.

There you can see the dim light of the Pembina Customs building in the distance.

Almost there.

You're so close to a payday you can taste it.

But as you hit the rise right before the border, you have to pull back on the reins as tight as you can and come to a screeching halt.

In front of you is a wall of men Canadian police, English troops, guns up, aimed your way, your plans.

Aaron has been flied.

Damn right it has.

Wow.

So I was wondering if the amount of Scots over in Canada would be a problem, A big problem.

Yeah.

I was like, you know, that's the wrong place to go trying to grab a Scott, right.

So the kidnappers were sure that they were a few yards across the border in US territory.

It didn't matter.

They all got arrested and thrown in jail.

Gordon escaped into the night, Off he goes.

This kicked off an international set to so Canada.

The US and Britain fought over the legality of the pickup in the bar, the arrest of the posse, and like the court proceedings within their respective authorities.

The border and kings got tense, really this was he could have kicked off like.

The Queen Victoria would think, I'm coming back from Canada.

Yeah, like everybody grab your arms.

So so things are so tense.

A headline in the Saint Paul Pioneer of August first read quote our people should make ready, and then it went on to rant about the corrupt Canadian authorities harboring a criminal, and it went so far as to take the side of the Fenian Brotherhood, the Irish republican organization that was operating within the US with the aim of ending British rule in Canada in the spirit of Finn McCool.

So finally a solution was agreed upon.

The kidnappers would serve there twenty four hours in jail and then be released.

An arrest warrant would be issued by a Canadian court for Gordon's arrest in the matter of the Edinburgh Jewelry con and Gordon would be captured and extradited to the US, specifically to New York.

Oh wow, so Gordon was located.

I guess everyone gets their piece of the pie.

Everyone gets their piece Gordon.

They found him.

He met a very tragic end and I'm not going to tell that part of the story.

It's his life and his escapades that matters.

Okay, asking a question, but.

We now draw to a close the life and crimes of Lord Gordon.

Gordon.

I'm just gonna pretend he was eating by wolverine.

He just went out of the woods and cons right.

Yeah, yeah, I tried to see if like was there.

Now there's no chance you know what and scene drop the curtains.

What's your ridiculous takeaways?

Oh?

Man, one, I guess like the just straight straight off you and McGregor could probably still play the part.

But he really made a mistake not having this become a movie.

I think you could have done a heck of a job.

But he was like, I like doing period pieces.

You could do it now.

Yeah, I mean I think he could think he could play young enough to make it reasonable and whatever.

He could see g I D agent or whatever.

I don't know, but like he could do the charm part in the smart part, and they're like, oh, I'm also like able to go to Minnesota and being the rustic you know, like pretend I'm on a motorcycle, you know, like you get the idea.

But uh, more than that is I loved all the nuances of the northern latitudes of America, the Canadian border, the Scottish English, like the fact that, like, you know, there's so many Scots in Canada, and that the English law is still the law of the land, all of that because we don't normally talk about that here in America.

We're not too we forget all of our past involvements with one Canada, the UK Scotland in particular, And I thought that his story is nice bringing it back around, like of like, oh yes, and I want to know is how much the people in Scotland mostly and then also the English were tickled by him basically mugging the robber barons who think they're on their high horse at this time, or if if that's what it was even part of it, now, what would your ridiculous take away, Elizabeth?

I just love that it's Gordon Gordon.

My takeaway is that you know these cons all we see so many repetitive elements of them, and I'm just charmed by the weird little details so that the I could see in the end game the purpose of the Minnesota trip.

But it's hilarious of like You're gonna go to Minnesota and make them drive you around on horseback for three months, like that's a that's a long con.

Yeah, but go out to see the country.

Life.

I mean he's got.

Nothing anywhere exactly.

There's all these letters that like yeah.

And also the memories Elizabeth.

But I'm just curious, how did he think the eerie railway thing would resolve itself?

Because, like, I think he was planning on going over the border and getting away and then catching a boat up to Saint Lawrence and going back to St.

He went.

He went up with the big dogs.

On that one.

Why not.

He's been working his way up the ladder.

It's true.

I would like a talk back.

Oh my god, did.

I let cheat?

Hi?

I just wanted to share a ridiculous dream that I had the other night with Elizabeth and Zarn doing a live podcast episode, and you guys were just so funny, and I was laughing so so hard in the dream that I guess I ended up laughing in real life so hard that I was shaking the bed and woke my husband up and really freaks him out because I was just shaking.

It that hard.

I love it.

I love it that you're a fellow laugh in your sleeper because I laugh in my sleep and it's creepy apparently, but sometimes i'll laugh so hard I wake myself up and then I try to remember what was so funny, and I have a hard time remembering it.

But what a way to sleep, right.

Dude, I love That's like one of your dreams, you know.

Whe's just like, it's so ridiculous one you laugh out loud in real life, but also you're like, Okay, so there's this podcast I listened to and I'm at a live taping and it's so funny I'm laughing.

Of course, yours would involve, like, you know, a talking celebrity that no one can remember and an animal that is on their shoulder who's also talking.

That is true, but I like that.

You know what, Let's celebrate dreams full of laughing.

Oh yeah, you know, instead of sleep paralysis or no sleep at all.

Anyway, that's it for today.

You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com.

We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Blue Sky and Instagram.

We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod.

Email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, and please please please leave a talkback on the free iHeart app reach Out.

Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Lord Dave Dave Cousten, starring Annale Rutger as Judith.

Research is by Monarch of the Glenn Marissa Brown and Laird of the Realm Jabbari Davis.

The theme song is by Feenian up starts Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.

Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.

Guest heron makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre.

Executive producers are Railroad Baron, Ben Bollen and Tammany Hall, Groupie, Noel Brown.

Dick QUI Say It One More Time CUI.

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four More Podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.