Treasury of the United States

[Idahodutch]

Clay,
That’s quite the post 👍
I visited the links, and was glazed over in no time 😵‍💫 (no offense intended 🙃)

If I could give you some extra credit for your efforts, I would 🥳👍
It’s more information than I’m prepared to try to absorb right now, but at a later time, I might be up for it.

I’m not sure what to say about fake or forged, or not. I don’t know enough about it to give opinion.
I appreciate the eye opening response 👍

 

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[Clay Diggins]

Yeah U.S. Code can be really boring. A great cure for insomnia. Even so the answers are in there and no where else. Everything else is just someone else's version of what they think it might mean.

I'm not trying to imply that any particular individual forged the name or changed the text or anything. The name would have been written by the Treasurer when he filled in the Draft form. I use forged in it's dictionary sense.
By forgery I mean a legal document that has been altered (cropped) so as to give the impression it's something it is not.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Steve Creager, a well known researcher and author of numerous articles on Arizona was running down this draft in 2006 when he suddenly passed away.

Steve had found the draft was part of a 3 document process, the middle document.
Steve's research found the following:

The draft is a Transmittable Draft on Accountable Warrant draft #1453 and warrant #2250 transferring $7000 dollars US money to be deposited in the National Bank of Lawrernce, Kansas and be made payable to the directions of the assigned individual named on the draft.

The money was transferred on August 24, 1881 and received at the National Bank at Lawrence, Kansas on August 27, 1881.
The money was to remain at the Lawrence National Bank awaiting the disposition instructions of the individual named on the draft.

Several other people took up the search after Steve passed away and found the same things Steve had.

Steve's research found several other interesting things concerning the draft which he shared in public prior to his death. I know some here remember Steve and that research and was hoping someone would be able to add something to the issues.

 

[Clay Diggins]

Steve Creager, a well known researcher and author of numerous articles on Arizona was running down this draft in 2006 when he suddenly passed away.

Steve had found the draft was part of a 3 document process, the middle document.
Steve's research found the following:

The draft is a Transmittable Draft on Accountable Warrant draft #1453 and warrant #2250 transferring $7000 dollars US money to be deposited in the National Bank of Lawrernce, Kansas and be made payable to the directions of the assigned individual named on the draft.

The money was transferred on August 24, 1881 and received at the National Bank at Lawrence, Kansas on August 27, 1881.
The money was to remain at the Lawrence National Bank awaiting the disposition instructions of the individual named on the draft.

Several other people took up the search after Steve passed away and found the same things Steve had.

Steve's research found several other interesting things concerning the draft which he shared in public prior to his death. I know some here remember Steve and that research and was hoping someone would be able to add something to the issues.

A lot of conjecture there from a cropped portion of a purported draft. Honestly it sounds made up. All we need is the whole image of the draft and all questions will be answered. If Steve didn't have the whole draft he was working off a bunch of unsupportable assumptions.

Since you don't actually have a copy of the draft you could check Steve's assumptions fairly easily. Of course you will need to get the name of the bank right first:

Lawrence National Bank and Trust Company

That should be a good beginning. The bank closed years ago but their records are still available for free to the public:

Kenneth Spencer Research Library Archival Collections​

Lawrence National Bank and Trust Company Records

Collection: Lawrence National Bank & Trust Company records | Kenneth Spencer Research Library Archival Collections

archives.lib.ku.edu

Is that the type of information you are looking for?

Enjoy your rabbit hole!

 

[Matthew Roberts]

The bank on the draft appears as the National Bank of Lawrence Kansas.

Nothing else is mentioned about ... " and trust company " ... so that must be a different Bank. It is already know the $7,000 dollars was transferred to the Lawrence Kansas National Bank. That is a not on question.
What Steve Creager and others were trying to establish was the disposition of the $7,000 dollars per the direction of the named individual.
Everything else is already understood.

 

[Cubfan64]

 

[Matthew Roberts]

Screenshot of the National Bank from Steve Creagers file on the draft.

There is no question.

Downloading various random things found on the internet do not change the facts.

 

[Cubfan64]

I'm pretty sure knowledge and mention of this document within the LDM community (maybe not at large, but at least within a reasonable size group of people) began in the early 2000's. When Helen Corbin's "Bible" was published around 2002 unless I'm mistaken, there was an image of more than the snipit posted at the start of this thread. I know by the 2004-2006 timeframe, there were exhaustive discussions, disagreements, theories, etc... surrounding the document and I'm 100% positive there is a photo of the entire document along with signatures that exists somewhere - I'm at work, so I don't know if that was in Helen's book, or ended up being posted on some now defunct LDM forum, but I'm positive it exists.

It's interesting primarily because it would be one of the few documented pieces of evidence we have of "our" Jacob Waltz having access to fairly significant $$. It won't get anyone closer to finding his source of gold, but if it were proven to be authentic (not a forgery) and tied to the AZ Waltz, it would be convincing evidence that he was not a destitute pauper.

 

[Clay Diggins]

View attachment 2094707

View attachment 2094708

Thanks for that.

With that note and my prior research as well as having viewed the entire "Draft" now I think we can positively say this paper is a forgery.

1. There is no history of a "National Bank of Lawrence" during that period or any other.
2. The Warrant was issued to the Interior Department and there is no record of a Jacob Waltz being a "Disbursing Officer or Agent" (as required under the terms of the Draft) for Interior or any other Cabinet agency.
3. The absurdity of exactly "50 pounds of ore" being valued at exactly $7000 is a huge red flag.
4. There is no countersignature on the forgery.
5. The origins of this forgery are very questionable. It appears that persons claiming to be relatives to Waltz originally produced this forgery.
6. IF there was a draft and IF it was redeemed how the heck did this xerox copy suddenly appear 20 years ago? Redeemed drafts are kept in the Treasury records at NARA. NARA will not let anyone xerox copy an original nor are you allowed to touch originals. If a copy was ordered from NARA it would not be xeroxed it would be imaged and the copy would have been marked "COPY" and had the NARA stamp applied. Those items are not on this forgery.
7. During that era and throughout U.S. history until 1933 gold ore was exchanged at the U.S. mint for finished coin. Not at the department of Interior or the Treasury but specifically at the U.S.Mint. More than half the gold to mint U.S. coins during that era came directly from U.S. gold mines and the rest from foreign mines.

 

[Cubfan64]

I had a few moments to look through some notes from an old LDM forum discussion about this document. I never had the fortune of meeting Steve Creager, but I suspect I would have enjoyed his company A LOT!! I don't know if it's the sort of thing many people enjoy, but I could spend hours, days, months and years digging through archives trying to find the tiniest lost and obscure pieces to solving a puzzle. I've never visited the National Archives - partly because I know I would be overwhelmed and maybe never leave .

As Matthew said, Steve was digging into the provenance of this document for awhile and was hoping to put together a good history for the SMHS Journal when he passed away unexpectedly. He did mention that the origins of the document actually go back to the 1928 timeframe. I don't want to cut and paste his words here, but suffice to say Clay Diggin's comment #5 is correct that a copy of the document appeared during a period of time when someone was claiming to be a relative of Jacob Waltz of LDM fame.

I don't really have an opinion on whether the document is authentic or not - I just don't know enough about all the in's and out's of how banks, warrants, drafts, etc... worked back then and I get lost pretty quickly in the jargon when trying to flesh it out.

If anyone has a copy of the FULL document, it would be nice to see a copy of it posted here though.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

What we know for certain from Steve Creager's research is the draft is definately real. We don't know however if it was altered or not. I don't have a personal opinion one way or the other on this.

What Steve was trying to do when he passed away was find the last piece of the process which was the dispersement instructions by the individual noted on the draft.

That piece would have also been with the National Bank of Lawrence, Kansas and would have showed who received the funds. Was it the individual noted on the draft or someone designated by that individual ?

That would have answered several important questions.

 

[Clay Diggins]

That piece would have also been with the National Bank of Lawrence, Kansas and would have showed who received the funds. Was it the individual noted on the draft or someone designated by that individual ?

That would have answered several important questions.

There is no history of a "National Bank of Lawrence" during that period or any other. In fact an entirely different bank was granted the name "First National Bank of Lawrence" in 1930. Kind of tough looking up the records of a bank that doesn't exist.

I think to answer your question you are going to have to resolve the fact that either the person writing the draft didn't know the name of the bank (improbable for someone living at the time and taking responsibility for a huge sum of public money) or discover where the "secret" "National Bank of Lawrence" named in the draft is hiding.

Or you could apply occam's shovel and realize with zero evidence to support this "Warrant" the odds of anything about this story being worth investigating further is pretty much zero?

I'll leave that for you and others. I want nothing more to do with this forgery.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

That's OK Clay. Thank you for your input and your opinion.

 

[Matthew Roberts]

The National Bank of Lawrence Kansas did of course exist. There never was any question.

Photo from the List of National Banks, (state of Kansas) page 57.

Source: The Alphabetical list of National Banks by States

the office of comptroller of the currency May 7, 1912

Library of Congress Digital Collections.

Thank you Paul and Roger !

 

[Cubfan64]

The National Bank of Lawrence Kansas did of course exist. There never was any question.

Photo from the List of National Banks, (state of Kansas) page 57.

Thank you Paul.

I did the easy part (clipping it) - Roger dug it up, so he should get the thanks

 

[Cubfan64]

Roger and I found a few things online that shed some light on the Lawrence, Kansas bank associated with the draft posted at the beginning of this topic.

I'm not sure I have it all straight yet, but below are some comments and I'm attaching some newspaper clippings that fit the timeline. Please feel free to correct anything that doesn't make sense....

January 1866 – The National Bank of Lawrence has it’s first ever annual shareholder meeting. It appears it was established in 1865 which fits with earlier documentation

1868 – The National Bank of Lawrence lists a quarterly report in the newspaper with W. Hadley as cashier and A. Hadley as Notary

1878 timeframe (I haven’t dug through things between 1865-1878) – The National Bank of Lawrence lists A. Hadley (son of Washington Hadley) as a cashier (A Hadley signed the draft document as the cashier)

1886 timeframe – W. Hadley listed as cashier of The National Bank of Lawrence

June 1889 – the end of August 1889 (THIS IS THE INTERESTING PART) – The Hadley’s (owning 2/3 – the majority - of the shares of The National Bank of Lawrence) decide to sell all their interest to The Douglas County National Bank who plan to liquidate it and in the process rename themselves as The Lawrence National Bank. In a shareholder vote of 261 against and 749 for liquidation, the sale goes through, the liquidation takes place and The Douglas County National Bank absorbs as much $$ as they can and rename themselves to become The Lawrence National Bank.

All of this is the long way of saying the draft document in Helen Corbin's book has the signature of A Hadley who was indeed a cashier and son of Washington Hadley who both are involved in The National Bank of Lawrence in 1881. The bank WAS named The National Bank of Lawrence in 1881 and did not become The Lawrence National Bank until 1889.