I have some follow-up to last week's post about Grampie's siblings. The colorful Uncle Art has gotten a little more colorful for us this week upon my discovery of a couple of very interesting newspaper articles.
The first article I found was called "Five Fugitives Are Freed in New York to Face Trial in Taunton in Hi-Jacking Case" from the Boston Daily Globe in 1927 when Arthur would have been about 34 years old. This Arthur Ryan gave a New York City address. This incident stemmed from "transportation a month ago of two motorvan loads of liquor from Taunton to New York". Rum running. Actually there are other hints in the newspaper that the Ryan boys were heavily involved in rum running back in the day. Anyhow, I wasn't sure this was "our" Arthur but I wasn't sure it wasn't either so I kept looking til I came across the articles above.
It seems this Arthur Ryan of Gloucester (of the right age for "our" Arthur) used an assumed identity as Ernest T. Leach and was arrested on grand larceny charges in connection with the theft of almost $100,000 (yes--that's the right number of zeroes) in GOVERNMENT securities from a New York City bank. The article states that Leach admitted obtaining these bonds through an underworld acquaintance. Bazinga--this matches what Sharen's mother thought she remembered. It's enough to make me believe this is indeed our Arthur. An official black sheep.
Jim says, "And there's your sign!"
1 comment:
Now, this is an interesting story of a very colorful relative! The only reason I love it is because I can imagine one of us (you) going on that show "Who Do You Think You Are?" Now we have a story they would love to follow!
I guess I always assumed we had relatives that did something like this... but $100,000 is alot of money now! Imagine what it must have been so many years ago! AND from the government? Oh my!
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