Mystery
Monday:
The Pinkerton Agency and Its Early Years
I’ve always been intrigued by the Pinkerton Detective
Agency. Founded in 1850, by Scotsman Allan Pinkerton, only eight years after he
emigrated to the United States, the agency still exists as a subsidiary of the
Swedish company Securitas AB. Leaving school at the age of ten after his father
died, Pinkerton was primarily self-taught and by all reports a voracious
reader. He was a cooper by trade, and his job is the reason he became a
detective (albeit by accident).
While in the woods looking for trees appropriate for
use as barrel staves, he came upon a gang of counterfeiters. As the story goes,
he watched their movements for a long time then snuck away to inform the local
sheriff who arrested the men. As a result Pinkerton was appointed the first
police detective in Chicago. The following year he partnered with Edward Rucker
to open the North-Western Policy Agency, later becoming Pinkerton & Co.
During the first two years of the Civil War, Pinkerton
was head of the Union Intelligence Service. Part of his duties were to guard
President Lincoln, and it was said that on one particular trip, Pinkerton
thwarted an assassination attempt. He went undercover for the remainder of the
war, often working in the deep south to determine Confederate plans. This
counterintelligence work is comparable to the work done by today’s US Army
Counterintelligence Special Agents in which Pinkerton’s agency is considered an
early predecessor. After the war, the agency continued to track down train
robbers, outlaws, and gangs as well as work heavily against the labor movement.
The agency’s logo of a large unblinking eye with the
tagline “we never sleep,” gave rise to the nickname private eye for detectives.
Pinkerton is also noted for hiring the first female detective, Kate Warne, a
widow who convinced the Scotsman that she could “worm out secrets in many
places to which it was impossible for male detectives to gain access.”
Pinkerton would later declare her one of his best investigators.
At the time of his death in 1884, Pinkerton was
working on a system to centralize all criminal identification records (such as
mug shots, case histories, suspects’ distinguishing marks and scars, newspaper
clipping, raps sheets, known associates and areas of expertise.
Stop by next Monday to learn more.
______________________________
With most U.S. boys fighting for Uncle Sam in far off
countries, Rochelle Addams has given up hope for a wedding in her future. Then
she receives an intriguing offer from a distant relative to consider a marriage
of convenience.
Conscientious objector Irwin Terrell is looking
forward to his assignment at Shady Hills Mental hospital to minister to the
less fortunate in lieu of bearing arms. At the arrival of the potential bride
his father has selected for him, Irwin’s well-ordered life is turned upside
down. And after being left at the altar two years ago, he has no interest in
risking romance again.
Despite his best efforts to remain aloof to Rochelle,
Irwin is drawn to the enigmatic and beautiful young woman, but will time run
out before his wounded heart can find room for her?
Inspired by the biblical love story of Rebekkah and
Isaac, Love’s Allegiance explores the
struggles and sacrifices of those whose beliefs were at odds with a world at
war.
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