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These Famous People had Truly Bad Sides to their Personalities

Khalid Elhassan September 15, 2021 36 min

Awful People - Stalin overseeing the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact — Stalin overseeing the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Euromaidan

David Jacks, the awful land baron after whom Monterey Jack cheese is named. Wikimedia

28. A Quick Swindle Made Jacks Rich in No Time

Monterey hired attorney Delos Rodeyn Ashley to help legalize its claim to 30,000 acres on the Monterey Peninsula that included the town itself, plus its surroundings. He did and billed the town $991.50 for his legal services. Monterey’s treasury was empty, however, so Ashley suggested that it auction off the land to pay him, and keep the rest of the proceeds. Unbeknownst to the good people of Monterey, they were about to fall victim to an awful swindle. Ashley had conspired with David Jacks to rig the auction.

The auction was advertised in a newspaper as legally required, but at short notice – and not in Monterey, but in Santa Cruz, nearly 50 miles and a two or three-day journey away. As a result, the only two bidders present at the auction on February 9^th, 1859, were David Jacks and Delos Ashley. Monterey’s lawyer then proceeded to purchase the entire tract for $1002.50. After the lawyer deducted his legal fee, Monterey was presumably left $11 for its entire 30,000 acres – unless even that went to Ashley as interest for the late payment of his bill.

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.