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Millersburg – Fraudster Claiming To Be Polar Explorer “Bounces” Hotel Bill, 1881

An old photo, recently colorized of the square in Millersburg, showing the Freeland House (at left), near the end of the 19th Century, nearly 20 years after a fraud occurred there, as was described in an article that appeared in the Harrisburg Telegraph, February 19, 1881. The building at right was in 1881 known as the Washington House, but by the time of the photo had become the Hotel Freck, the porch having been added by the new owners after they purchased it in 1896.

A FRAUD ABROAD

Look Out For His Gray Beard and Black Wig

Millersburg Herald:  On Saturday evening an aged man about six feet in height, wearing a long gray beard and a long black wig, arrived here from Harrisburg on Fast Line and registered at the Freeland House.  on Sunday he attended the regular services in the Methodist Episcopal Church, evidently to curry favor among the trustees to secure the use of the church to delivered a lecture on the following evening.  He represents himself as Captain A. B. Tuttle, an old “salt,” who has traveled all over the world, and as having lately made some important discoveries in the polar regions.  The object of his lecturing throughout the country on this subject, he stated, was to raise funds to make further explorations and then procure an appropriation from Congress to equip an expedition to his new country.  The suspicious appearance of the stranger and his contradicting statements induced the officers of the church to refuse his request, when on Monday, after proving himself an imposter by trying to raise funds on various schemes, he suddenly “bounced” his board bill and disappeared, the last being seen of him was between this and Georgetown [Dalmatia] on a pedestrian expedition toward the north pole.

_______________________________________________

News article from Newspapers.com

Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.

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March 14, 2024 Norman Gasbarro

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Upper Dauphin High School – Eugene Ernest Spicher, 1964 → ← Lykens – Bressler’s Central Livery, 1898

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