JOHN MOORE, MASTER COUNTERFEITER
By W. T.Block
In the aftermath of the Battle of San Jacinto, one might expect to find a horse thief, a highwayman, or a murderer fleeing across Southeast Texas, but certainly not a counterfeiter. Nonetheless, the gang of John Moore and his nephew, Edward Glover, counterfeited for 20 years near Deweyville everything except the Declaration of Independence, with very little intervention from law enforcement.
Their first effort at bogus reproductions was in fake land certificates. In 1837-1838 the Texas General Land office was busy, issuing 360-acre bounty land grants to veterans of the Texas Revolution. Moore got a New Orleans printer to reproduce blank land certificates identical to those issued by the land office.
Such a 360-acre certificate might be worth $100 or more when traded to a merchant, although no estimate of the number of fake certificates produced by Moore was ever published. One such certificate was issued for a square mile of high land near the waterfront at Sabine Pass.
In 1838 Dr. Niles F. Smith bought that certificate from Barney Lowe, a schooner captain, but neither man had any idea that it was counterfeit. In 1839, Smith, Pres. Sam Houston, and other directors of the Sabine City Company surveyed the site into 2,000 city lots, and sold several hundred of them to buyers.
In the meantime the authenticity of the certificate was questioned when its location conflicted with a league of land at Sabine Pass that had been issued to John McGaffey. The coutnerfeit document was such a superb reproduction that it took the Texas Land Office 4 long years to declare it a forgery. All of the buyers lost their investments, and it was 1845 before McGaffey eventually received a clear title to his league.
In 1844, Glover was arrested for passing bogus banknotes at the Millard Grocery in Beaumont. The Jefferson County docket book for 1844 reveals that a grand jury, for some unknown reason, failed to indict Glover.
Except for one arrest of John Moore, the counterfeiters continued to operate with virtual impunity for the next 12 years, and with so little notoriety for either that Glover was able to be elected sheriff of Orange County in 1855.
In March, 1851, St. Louis Times reported the arrest of Moore by Capt. John Cozens, Marshal Felps of Houston, and a bank's private detective. Moore was counterfeiting the bank notes of several Louisiana and Mississippi banks, and his reproduction of the $50 note of a St. Louis bank was almost perfect.
The officers confiscated Moore's "counterfeit bank note printing press, his engraving tools, and $200,000 in spurious bank notes..." After serving a short jail term, Moore was back on Sabine River, plying his trade once more.
On March 15, 1853, Nacogdoches Chronicle observed that the counterfeiters near Orange were once more "...engaged in making bogus money. Large quantities are being circulated throughout the state...."
Glover continued counterfeiting even while he was sheriff, and the final destruction of the ring seemed to be almost a quirk of fate. Galveston Tri-Weekly News of July 15, 1856, devoted an entire page to the Orange County Regular-Moderator war and to the deaths of both Moore and Glover.
The counterfeiters were leaders of about 75 Regulators, when a band of Moderators trailed them to Moore's log cabin, south of present-day Deweyville. During the shoot-out, Moore and Glover were killed by Jack Cross, two of the 12 assassinations that occurred during the "Orange County War of 1856." A month later, Cross, a West Texas killer fleeing eastward and wanted for 6 murders, was lynched at Lake Charles. He argued in a saloon with Jake Morrison, killed him on Ryan Street, and Morrison's friends broke Cross out of jail and hung him.
A locked chest under Moore's bed contained "...the Sabine bogus mint, printing plates, engraving plates for 2 1/2, 5, 10, and 20 dollar gold pieces, Mexican pesos, melting crucibles, and bogus metal containing lead and powdered brass, and $600 in bright counterfeit coins..." After 20 years of virtually uninterrupted existence, the counterfeit ring was finally annihilated.
W.T. Block. Used with permission.
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