Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land piratePitts, J. R. S. (James Robert Soda)
History
Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land pirate
Pitts, J. R. S. (James Robert Soda)
Copeland, James, 1823-1857; Criminals -- Gulf States -- Biography
Sometime after McGrath was married, Wages went over into Mississippi,
about old Brown’s, and sometimes down about Honey Island, near
Gainesville, and remained there from the summer of 1843 until the fall
of 1844, during which time I had seen him but twice, when he came over
to his father’s on a visit, in the fall of 1844. Wages and McGrath came
over to the vicinity of Mobile and sent for me, and then informed me of
the plan they were about to pursue. That they were going to commence
making counterfeit money: that they had procured a man who could
engrave their dies, and another who was a professed chemist and could
prepare the metal so well that it would take a very acute judge to
detect it. I told Wages that whatever he went at I was in; “but,” said
I, “I feel somewhat fearful.” “Oh,” said they, “we have made a large
acquisition to our clan, we now have Jim McArthur, Jack McArthur, Allen
Brown, Daniel Brown, Jim Bilbo and Wash Bilbo. We are to settle McGrath
at Honey Island; Wages at Catahoula; Allen Brown at Red Breek, and
the Bilbos and McArthurs are to range from Pearl River to Pascagoula;
and,” said they, “your party can range from Mobile to Pascagoula, and
you can pass horses or negroes from Georgia to Florida on this route
through to Louisiana, without discovery, and so from Louisiana in the
same way.” I then told Wages and McGrath both, that I was still afraid
of their new acquisition. I then proposed to them to remove our money
from Hamilton’s Creek, and place it somewhere near where Wages was
going to settle. I made this proposition because I believed that this
counterfeiting business would be the means of getting us into trouble,
and that we could procure our money more easily from that vicinity than
we could where it was.
I had then arrived at the age of majority and began to have a more
reflecting mind, and I never did have any reliance or confidence in
that money arrangement. Wages then informed me that he was engaged to
marry Allen Brown’s daughter, but did not know what time; it might be
a year before he did so. “McGrath,” said he, “is now married, and will
move to Honey Island shortly; I shall be engaged in preparing our shop
and arranging the materials, and making preparations for the settlement
of my home.”
They then told me that Niel McIntosh, would also be one of our clan,
and that he would travel to and from Mobile to our other places, as
a spy, and look out for us. They left the next day for Mississippi,
and I saw nothing more of either of them for over twelve months. Niel
McIntosh made several trips over and back, and always had plenty of
their money, but I was always afraid of it. He passed a considerable
amount in the vicinity of Mobile, and made something by it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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