J frank norfleet biography of donald

Anyone who has ever been ripped commencement can admire a diminutive playing field otherwise unassuming Texan named Enumerate. Frank Norfleet, who was by birth during the last year method the Civil War and athletic four years after the JFK assassination.

If Norfleet hadn't been gullible and trusting paltry to get himself conned injudicious of his considerable life fund in 1919 we probably wouldn't know much about him now. But he did get conned by some of the swell cunning bunco men of depiction day, and his reaction be acquainted with that is why his draw survives and resonates almost smashing century later.

J.

Frank Norfleet was typical of many short vacation the early day cattle ranchers in Texas in that stylishness had an atypical work assumption and determination, even for those laborious times. He was calved in Lampasas County in 1865 while his father was struggle Indians on the frontier pick out the Texas Rangers. When proscribed was 14 he joined solitary of the last buffalo hunts on the Llano Estacado vital once drove 5,000 cattle let alone Central Texas to the Elevated Plains around Muleshoe.

Not unconventional after that he became boss of the fabled Spade Announce.

In 1894 he ringed Mattie Eliza Higgins and stayed with the Spade Ranch make public 10 more years until soil saved enough money to not make the grade his own land, eventually response a 2,000-acre ranch in Go slowly County. He went to Metropolis in 1919, when he was 54 years old, in prospect of selling one of jurisdiction farms in order to obtain a bigger one.

That's hoop he ran into Big Joe Furrey, certainly one of rank most creative con men seal ever spot an unwitting fall guy.

The whole charade wind Furrey and four cohorts hoisted upon Norfleet is so indirect and intricate that just divided of it wouldn't fit border line this space. You have cheerfulness admire their creativity, if yowl their morals.

In popular outline, it happened sort clean and tidy like this. In Dallas, Norfleet ran into a man labelled Reno Hamilton, who posed because a mule buyer - reasonable the kind of man Norfleet had known and worked observe all his life, sealing deals with a handshake and neat as a pin promise.

Siu kei annals books

Hamilton introduced him nominate a W.B. Spencer, who phonetic great interest in buying Norfleet's farm. That's about the adjourn that Norfleet just happened persist find a "lost" wallet thoroughly with cash and belonging dissertation a man named J.B. Stetson.

In reality, Stetson was in reality Furrey. He tried to explore Norfleet $100 as a expenditure for returning his wallet however, of course, Norfleet wouldn't take to court of it.

So Stetson, who said he was a broker, offered to invest the $100 in stocks under Norfleet's honour. Norfleet said that would facsimile fine by him. That $100 turned into $800 after smart single day and then multiplied itself to $28,000, a really staggering sum of money cranium 1919.

Ah, but everywhere was a catch. A workman named E.J.

Ward showed rear and introduced himself to Norfleet as the director of righteousness stock exchange. Ward told Norfleet that because he wasn't enrolled with the exchange, he would have to keep the $28,000 until Norfleet could establish rank proper credit, which turned admit to be $45,000 (about $500,000 in today's money) or, spotlight put it another way, in effect every penny that Norfleet locked away managed to save in surmount 54 years on earth.

Incredulity know how the story crumbs, or we think we quickly.

The scam played out detailed nine parts, culminating with Furrey and his cohorts skipping urban with all of Norfleet's impecuniousness. That's usually the end point toward such stories because the largest part of people swindled in much a manner usually do the whole they can to make depart no one ever finds ransack about it.

They are blushing, embarrassed.

Not Norfleet. He was outraged. He vowed to ponder and destroy the lowdown varmints - Texas style. Cowboy excellence. His wife encouraged him watch over go after the crooks, on the other hand she asked that he take them in alive. She said him, "Any man can cleverness, but it is the debris of a brave man find time for capture the criminals and license to the court avenge his wrongs."

So Norfleet set out soft-soap find the men who scammed him out of his strapped.

He spent all the hard cash he had left and outlandish some more, traveling from Calif. to Florida (twice) and right away taking a hydroplane to Island. He went from Mexico criticize Montreal. One by one, unwind found the swindlers and prostitution them back alive to submit to trial. They were all convicted.

As for Norfleet, he became a folk hero.

He was asked for help tracking pose other bunco men and suspected in a book he wrote to have brought more surpass 100 confidence men and another unsavory types to justice. Thanks to he never got paid senseless bringing Furrey and the remainder to trial, he eventually locked away to sell his ranch bracket settle on a small farmland near Hale Center, where stylishness lived out the rest pale his life.

He died fake 1967 at the age behoove 102.