10. The Most Brazen Crook of the Gilded Age
James Addison Peralta-Reavis (1843 – 1914), AKA “The Baron of Arizona” was the greatest conman of the Gilded Age, and might be the greatest conman you have never heard of. He defrauded thousands of people, and literally stole most of Arizona from its legal owners. Reavis’ father was a Welshman who arrived in the US in the 1820s, and his mother was a part Spaniard proud of her Spanish heritage. He grew up in Missouri, and in his childhood, Reavis’ mother filled his head with Spanish romantic literature and fired up his imagination.
As a result, Reeves ended up with grandiose notions of himself as a romantic hero in a melodramatic novel. It was reflected in his speech and writing, which was reportedly overly grandiloquent and bombastic. When the Civil War broke out, an eighteen-year-old Reavis enlisted in the Confederate Army. However, he soon discovered that the tedium and travails of real soldiering were not like his romantic image of war. It was right around then that Reavis discovered that he could make a perfect reproduction of his commanding officer’s signature. So he began to issue himself passes, with a forged signature, to escape the drudgery of soldiery and visit his relatives.
