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The Most Deceitful Events that Played Out In History

Khalid Elhassan March 27, 2022 37 min

11. A DIY Bid to Extradite This Master of Deceit Threatened to Trigger a War

Jay Gould was taken in by Gordon-Gordon's deceit — Jay Gould was taken in by Gordon-Gordon’s deceit. Library of Congress

After he jumped bail, the fake Lord Gordon-Gordon’s whereabouts were unknown for months. Jay Gould offered a $25,000 reward for the arrest of His Lordship, and eventually, word arrived that the conman was living in Manitoba, Canada. Gould tried to get him extradited to the US, but Gordon-Gordon convinced the Canadian authorities that the charges against him were false. A little bit of deceit helped. His Lordship offered to buy large tracts of Manitoba – an investment that promised to bring great prosperity to Canada. That explains the Canadian authorities’ reluctance to extradite him. An understandably incensed Gould financed a Minnesota posse to cross the border into Canada, and kidnap Gordon-Gordon.

The kidnappers seized their target from his front porch in Manitoba. However, they were undone when they were stopped at the border, arrested, and thrown into a Canadian jail. An international incident then ensued, and American newspapers urged an invasion of Canada to free the Minnesota kidnappers. Eventually, things simmered down, and the Americans were released through diplomacy. Lord Gordon-Gordon settled down to enjoy his loot, but then in 1874, he was finally identified as the “Lord Glencairn” who had fleeced London jewelers in 1868 out of £25,000. As the Canadian authorities moved to deport him to Britain, the fake lord realized that the jig was finally up. He did not want to spend the rest of his life behind bars, so he hosted a farewell party in his hotel room, then shot himself dead on August 1^st, 1874.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.