Northwest Chronicle: May 14, 1890

Got a Pair

Sheriff Adams Nails the Check Forgers and Has Them Under Arrest at Atlantic City.

Sheriff Adams has just added another to the long list of notches that he has to his credit for the capture of thieves, criminals, etc. Two months ago a stranger came to this city and perpetrated a number of successful forgeries and attempted to secure the cash for a check on the First National, to which the name of P. Butler was forged, and shortly after this he perpetrated a series of small forgeries on several merchants about the city, using the name s of L.E. Chapin and Fred Frost on the checks.

At the time he was successful in making his escape, but from the day after the forgeries Sheriff Adams has been endeavoring to place the man under arrest, and had had him located at Marshalltown, Boone, Des Moines and Carroll, and then again at Atlantic, and here he lost track of the man, who was masquerading under the name of Burke, but he furnished the sheriff of Cass county with a description of the man, and the result was that Monday he received a telegram from Atlantic stating that the man had been arrested there, and although they had tried the forged check racket in Atlantic, Sheriff Adams had been successful in getting his warrant served first, and they would be held for him.

Sheriff Adams departed for Atlantic Monday evening and will return with the man Burke and a confederate who was arrested with him, for identity by their victims here. Sheriff Adams has no doubt but that the identity will be complete and satisfactory that that the check forgers who have robbed northwestern Iowa of hundreds of dollars, will be given a long sentence and an opportunity to repent.

Tags: 1890, Adams, Burke, Butler, Chapin, Frost