“Wicked City Men Got His Wad”

Those of you who follow my writings know that I have a passion for what I call “wicked history.” Frequently when I lecture around the county, people in the audience ask me if I feel guilty writing about the wicked side of history? My response is usually the same, it is a quote taken from Anne Lamott, “If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better,” and such was the case of Charles Dutcher.

Charles Dutcher was a farmer from a small hamlet in Ulster Counter called Big Indian, where he lived with his wife Allie, their two sons, and a daughter. In the spring of 1907, he decided to journey to Uptown Kingston where he visited one of its many saloons. The most famous of which was Hannah Markle’s. He had two hundred dollars in his pocket when he entered the saloon however, when he left later that evening he would have only twenty-five left.

By all accounts, Dutcher entered the saloon looking like a high roller. Almost immediately,  he produced a roll of bills and proceeded to flash it around. Many of the people there had never seen that kind of money or if they did not as frequently as they liked. One such man, Bob Freer, became determined to part Dutcher from his money.  The stranger from Big Indian cozied up to the bar and started to throw back more than a few strong drinks. He was having himself a grand old time becoming more inebriated as the evening progressed. 

The next morning, in addition to having a vicious headache from the previous night’s activities, Dutcher felt for the money that had just last night. A panic seized him as he went from place to place looking for the two hundred dollars.  Dutcher first believed that he misplaced his money. He continued to search frantically as panic morphed into anger because he became convinced that someone had stolen it. The anger went back to panic when he imagined having to explain to his wife that he lost such a large sum of money.  Mr. Dutcher sat down for a minute and went through the night in his head quickly coming to the conclusion that he had in fact been robbed.  Charles Dutcher put on his coat and hat to file a complaint with the Sheriff’s office; he also hired a lawyer named Francis C. Merritt. It took the lawyer no time to get to the bottom of the missing one hundred and seventy dollars… 

Apparently, Mr. Dutcher drank so much alcohol that he did not remember that he had engaged some gamblers in a game of pinochle run by a man named Bob Freer and some his friends. In fact, he played several games and posted the minimum fifty dollar bet for each one. According to a local newspaper of the time, the lawyer was able to strike an agreement with the gamblers who agreed to return seventy-five dollars to Charles Dutcher who, still somewhat unsatisfied, returned to his home in Big Indian.

Picture courtesy of the HISTORICAL SOCIETY
of the NEW YORK COURTS