In 1898, James Colby Harrington was known in Schuylerville as an honest and friendly young man, yet only four years later he had gained the title “Schuylerville’s Star Swindler.”
And that is only the beginning, as this story spans 30 years and traverses a thousand miles as it follows the life of this notorious con man.
The son of MacGregor Harrington and his wife Margaret Ann, James Colby was born in Schuylerville, Saratoga County, New York, in August 1873. When James arrived, he had two siblings: a seven-year-old sister named Kate and a brother, Joel, who was five. His father was the captain of a state work boat on the Champlain Canal.
James’ teenage years seem to have been plagued with bouts of ill health, likely the worst being in the summer of 1890 when the Schuylerville Standard reported that he was critically ill with spinal meningitis and suffering from what they called “paralytic shocks.” In the 19th Century, treatment for meningitis was dangerous and often ineffective. Cold compresses, hot baths, and the consumption of alcohol and morphine often provided more comfort than medical treatment.
In what must have been a miraculous recovery, in April of 1891, seventeen-year-old James Colby Harrington began working as a wagon driver at an express office in Schuylerville. Unfortunately, he resigned his position only four months later due to continuing ill health. He soon recovered and by January of the next year, he had taken a job at the Victory Mills.
It is possible that this work was obtained through his older brother J. Potter Harrington who worked at the mill as an assistant bookkeeper. This job must have been short-lived as it was reported that by that March, Colby had moved to New York City and taken a position at the Hamilton Bicycle Works. Only a month later he succumbed again to illness and in April of 1892, he resigned his position in the city and returned to Schuylerville.
By the summer of 1892, now going by the name of J. Colby, Harrington again recovered and opened an ice cream shop in downtown Schuylerville. An announcement in the June 15, 1892, Schuylerville Standard gave his establishment this glowing review:
“J. Colby Harrington has opened a first-class ice cream parlor in the room of the McNamara block, formerly known as the “Free Reading Room.” It is an excellent place, convenient to the public, and always cool. The fine quality of the cream can be vouched for by the Standard force, who were the recipients of superior sample dishes, last Thursday.”
For the next two years, this business continued to expand, with J. Colby adding features such as electric call bells at each table and expanding to other locations in Schuylerville including a stand at the nearby Victory Mills horse racing track. Adding to his success was his marriage to Miss May Pike of Fort Edward in December of 1894. The couple moved into a house on Ferry Street in the village, and two years later moved to Victory Mills.
The move to Victory Mills was likely connected to his employment as by this time he was again working at the mill with his brother. While there is no record of when he again started working there, this announcement of his leaving was reported in the August 24, 1898, Schuylerville Standard:
“J. C. Harrington has severed his connection with the Saratoga Victory Manufacturing company, to accept a more lucrative position with Prince, Forres & Prince, cotton cloth manufacturers of Gomez, Palaco, Province of Durango, Mexico. While assistant overseer of weaving in the Victory mill, Mr. Harrington gained by his genial conduct and uprightness, many friends who will miss his departure, but wish him the greatest success in his new position.”
Whether Harrington ever made it to Mexico is unknown, as only six months later, in the spring of 1899, it was announced that Harrington had taken a Supervisor position at the Frankfort Linen Manufacturing Company in Herkimer County, New York. Established in 1895 to manufacture linen yarn, clothes, and textile fabrics, the Frankfort Linen Manufacturing Company had taken over the vacant Diamond Match Factory complex along Moyers Creek in the village of Frankfort, Herkimer County.
J. Colby Harrington’s job as a supervisor at Frankfort Linen only lasted from April 1899 to January 1900. In November of that year he moved his wife and child to the village of Herkimer, and at that time announced that he was making plans to buy the Frankfort Linen operation and move it to Herkimer. With this announcement and his presence in the village, the people of Herkimer embraced the family and businesses extended them credit. Soon the family was falling behind and unable to pay debts to several businesses.
The most substantial of this debt was a one-hundred-dollar diamond ring that Harrington had taken on credit from the jewelry store of M. C. Prince as a Christmas present for his wife. When asked to return the ring, he told the jeweler that he had used it as security to a man in Utica and they parted with Harrington’s promise to retrieve it and get it back to the jeweler.
In January of 1901, having failed with his fraudulent claims of taking over the Frankfort linen mill, Harrington left Herkimer, moving his family to Fort Edward, New York, a village on the Hudson River in Washington County. Here J. Colby approached businessmen in Glens Falls seeking financial backing to put up a factory in that city.
His attempt to promote this new business was quickly rejected and he soon moved on to seek oteeher locations more receptive to his schemes. His next attempt at promoting this business opportunity was offered in Amsterdam, but before anything was established he was arrested and brought back to Fort Edward on the charge of grand larceny brought against him by the Herkimer jeweler.
When Harrington was brought before the judge, the charges were quickly discharged when the ring was returned and unnamed friends, possibly including his parents, paid the other expenses that he owed.
The businessmen of Whitehall were his next victims, and here he found success. In the spring of 1902, he began promoting his scheme to establish a linen mill in this village at the northern terminus of the Champlain Canal.
Appointing himself as supervisor of the project, he was soon able to convince local businessmen to hand over money to finance the plan. Once he obtained this cash, he quickly moved on, leaving the community to stew over their poor business decision.
While the hue and cry from Whitehall was still raging, Harrington perpetrated an even greater fraud at Crown Point. Here he turned his energy to his old standby, establishing a linen towel factory. With the village desperate for new industry, this opportunity drew numerous unwary investors.
In June of 1902, the Union Towel Manufacturing Company was incorporated with a capital of twenty-five thousand dollars. The directors of the corporation were twenty-seven-year-old miller John Daniel Bly and a peddler: fifty-three-year-old John H. De Wolf of Crown Point, and J. Colby Harrington as president and majority stock owner.
With projected employment for sixty-five men and women, a building for the factory selected, and machinery began to be delivered, the fortunes of Crown Point seemed assured. The Ticonderoga Sentinel bought all of Harrington’s lies and following their lead, on July 11, 1902, the Plattsburg Sentinel passed them on to their readers:
“While the linen industry is comparatively in its infancy, the greater part of the linen used here being imported from Ireland and other European countries it is gratifying to know that it is growing rapidly. In fact, there are few men in this country whose knowledge of the business is sufficient to enable them to conduct it successfully.
“Crown Point however is fortunate in having at the head of its factory one of these few. Mr. Harrington already owns a successful factory in the west and his knowledge of the business is probably second to that of no other man. With the present demand for linen and competent superintendence of the factory the success of the enterprise is practically assured.”
By this time J. Colby Harrington seems to have abandoned his wife Clara and their five-year-old son Ralph, with the two leaving Fort Edward alone and moving back to Schuylerville. While in Crown Point, Harrington soon caught the eye of Miss Anna Campbell of Brooklyn, a summer visitor to the area. Having kept his marriage and family secret, he soon won Miss Campbell’s affection and quickly proposed marriage.
Harrington’s scheme to marry Anna began to unravel by late October when an anonymous letter was delivered to the Campbell home in Brooklyn telling of Harrington’s current marriage. When confronted, J. Colby denied the accusation, lamenting that this was nothing more than the work of an enemy back in Schuylerville.
In an act equally heartless and shameful, Harrington assured both Anna and her family that he was an honest man and then offered to return to Schuylerville with her brother so he could learn the truth firsthand. J. Colby then planted men in the hotel where they stayed, with each one assuring Anna’s brother that Harrington was a single man. Once back in Brooklyn, the family quickly assured their future son-in-law that he was never actually suspected and the wedding, only days away, was back on schedule.
What J. Colby Harrington did not know was that his wife had also gotten wind of the pending nuptials. A visit to Saratoga County District Attorney Saulsbury soon produced a warrant for the arrest on the charge of abandonment. With the time it took to organize the arrest, it was not until two days before the wedding day that Saratoga County Deputy Sheriff McCarthy accompanied by District Attorney Saulsbury and Brooklyn Detective Sargeant Carroll made it to Campbell’s home on Macon Street in Brooklyn.
We will turn to the November 4, 1902, Brooklyn Daily Eagle for a description of the encounter:
“He paled when Carroll exhibited the warrant for his arrest. But recovered his composure almost immediately and walked along the hallway with the detective. The first person he noticed in the room was the District Attorney from Saratoga County. ‘Hello,’ he said to the attorney, with whom he was well acquainted, ‘what are you doing here?’ ‘You are a cool one,’ said the District Attorney, ‘to seek to wreck this young lady’s life. How could you do it?’ ‘I could not help it,’ was the calm reply, ‘I have loved the young lady since I first saw her. I cannot tell you why I did this.’
Once back in Saratoga, Harrington was sentenced to six months in the Albany penitentiary if he could not give bonds of five hundred dollars to support his wife. After much effort, he raised the money and was released only to be immediately rearrested on a warrant against him for grand larceny from Crown Point.
Exactly how he was freed is never revealed, but in January of 1903, Harrington visited Avoca, a village along the Cohocton River in Steuben County, New York to investigate the possibility of establishing a linen mill. Representing himself as the proprietor of a mill in Crown Point, he must not have found the same fertile ground he had encountered further north as he departed without making any progress with the con.
By the summer of 1903, J. Colby Harrington was again making the news, this time for forgery in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. After his conviction, he served five years in Wisconsin State Prison, though his freedom lasted only a few months, as in August of 1908 he was in Ohio State Penitentiary having been found guilty of an attempt to defraud. His criminal behavior was not curtailed in prison as while serving time in Ohio he attempted to blackmail a woman in New York.
By 1910 he had made his way to North Carolina, and there served a year for false pretense. Next, he was incarcerated in Virginia in 1912, released on parole, and soon was again serving time in that state’s Western State Penitentiary. It was also during this time that he was reported to be addicted to morphine, possibly something he had been battling since his bout with meningitis as a youth.
There were few periods over the next fifteen years that he was not under arrest, on trial, or in prison for everything from bigamy, grand larceny, and attempt to defraud. Often these prison terms were served in New York State, and during this time he was incarcerated in Sing Sing, Auburn, and Clinton Prisons.
Throughout his criminal career, he constantly used such aliases as George R. Salisbury and J. C. Huntington. L. M. Hiter, A. C. Curtis, James A. Herb, Jerry M. Claxton, and, my favorite, possibly in honor of his ex-betrothed from Brooklyn: Edward S. Campbell.
In 1930, he was arrested in Rome, New York, for failing to pay a board bill and held on a warrant from Pennsylvania. Now in his mid-fifties, a 1942 FBI wanted poster is the last Harrington is heard of in newspaper or other records.
However, who can say where or under what name he may have surfaced again and again in the years that followed?
Illustration: James Colby Harrington FBI wanted poster, 1942.
