The "Criminal Stogies" Story

The house on the left with the Young Funeral sign in front is
315 E. Orange Street in Lancaster.  If you click on the image
and enlarge the photo, you will see 315 on the front door.  The
Young Funeral home is entered through the home on the right,
but 315, where Mr. William Jacobs and his family lived, is now
part of the funeral home.  

It was an ordinary day.  Traveling west on Orange Street in the city of Lancaster when I came to the 300 block.  Parked the car and took a photo of 315 East Orange Street.  That was the house where one of Lancaster's most famous criminals lived in the early 1900s.  I doubt if many people know the story behind one Mr. William Jacobs, but it is an interesting story to say the least.  Goes like this ...... while investigating criminal behavior in Philadelphia, a Secret Service dragnet caught several prominent cigar makers in Lancaster who had been making counterfeit revenue stamps.  On March 3, 1878 the United States Government issued tax stamps printed in black ink on blue paper.  The stamps were to be used for tobacco products and helped raise a sizable amount of money for the national budget.  These stamps where used to raise money until 1910.  In 1879 Pennsylvania was the largest grower of cigar tobacco in the country.  Seems that in 1897 Mr. Jacobs, along with Arthur Taylor, Baldwin S. Bredell and William L. Kendig were producing and using counterfeit revenue stamps.  Taylor and Bredell were expert engravers and were captured working on the engraving plates at their headquarters at 930 Filbert Street in Lancaster.  Shortly after the capture of those two, agent John Wilkie went to the Fulton Bank, Farmer's Bank and National Bank where he placed attachments on Jacobs deposits which amounted to $25,000.  Jacobs was then placed under arrest and his bail was fixed at $45,000.  $100,000 worth of counterfeit goods were confiscated.  The Secret Service agents also found enough counterfeit revenue stamps to cover 440,000,000 cigars.  It was determined that $140,000 worth of bogus stamps had already been used to wrap cigars that had already been sold and delivered.  Much of the money that they had already made was used to perfect the "scattered fiber" paper which they used to make the revenue stamps.  Mr. and Mrs Jacobs, along with their children lived in the third house east of Shippen on Orange St.  Most of his neighbors knew that 35 year-old Mr. Jacobs seemed to be doing very well in his tobacco business, but when the "Black Maria", a prisoner's wagon, stopped in front of the Jacobs' house and placed a handcuffed Mr. Jacobs in it, that something was amiss.  It was only a few years before that a suspicious fire burned Mr. Jacobs' tobacco warehouse and now the neighbors were really talking.  Jacobs finally admitted his guilt and was sentenced to 12 years in jail at the Atlanta Penitentiary.  So how did they catch them?  Well, a Mr. William J. Burns, master detective, came from Chicago to Philadelphia for the initial investigation.  They found that Taylor and Bredell were making bank notes and tied them to the tobacco revenue stamps.  Burns then came to Lancaster with a boy who worked for the Secret Service.  He was told to sell candy at the Pennsylvania Railroad Station opposite William Kendig's tobacco warehouse on North Queen Street.  One day Jacobs and Kendig were seen leaving the building to go to lunch.  The boy, Lawrence Ritchey who was to be one of President Hoover's secretaries at the White House, threw a ball which broke a window in the warehouse.  He then crawled through the broken window and left Detective Burns into the building where he discovered the illegal revenue stamps.  After arresting the engravers, they went to Kendig's warehouse to arrest him and then to Jacobs house.  The engravers turned government witnesses, testifying they were going to print $10,000,000 worth of bogus stamps.  Both Jacobs and Kendig got 12 years, were released after seven and went back into ordinary life.  The house that I photographed today was sold after Jacobs arrest and the Jacobs' family wasn't heard of again.  Good old Orange Street and it's residents could hold their heads high again.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.