COUNTERFEITING CHARGES

The United States marshal arrested in Harrison county, Missouri, Thursday last the following parties charged with counterfeiting: Samuel JOHNSON, age 28, Robert JOHNSON age about 21, and Joseph JOHNSON aged about eighteen, and William STRICKLAND. They were taken to St. Joseph, Missouri, where the three JOHNSONs confessed to their wrong. STRICKLAND pleaded innocent and will be tried we hear today. The work was done in a farm house, and had been discovered and peremptorily stopped by the father of the JOHNSONs before the detective came, he having made the discovery through a sister of the workers. The work was done as follows: An aperture was made in a piece of wood of sufficient size. Plaster paris was then run in around a new silver dollar, which when the dollar was removed left a mold into which babbit metal being poured enabled them to construct an article that looked like a genuine dollar. Only three, so far as known have been put into circulation. All will deeply sympathize, with the parents of the guilty parties in this sad affliction.

Independent Patriot, Lamoni, Iowa
August 19, 1897

COUNTERFEITING CHARGES

Wm. STRICKLAND and the three JOHNSONs who were arrested last week in Harrison County, Missouri, for counterfeiting, are all in jail at St. Joseph, Missouri, in default of $2,000 bail each. The three JOHNSONs waived examination, two turning state's evidence. STRICKLAND stood a trial, but was bound over with the rest. The federal officers are after a young man named GARRISON and several Ringgold county men are implicated.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, 2008

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