Free A Counterfeiter's Paradise by Ben Tarnoff

business much longer than Sullivan.
    Without the Boyces, Sullivan would probably never have found out about the Oblong; they had been there as early as 1742, counterfeiting currency with a group of accomplices in the rugged wetlands along the New York–Connecticut border. In fact, their undertaking was so successful that within a few years they had aroused the alarm of the governorsof New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, who exchanged agitated letters about the moneymakers. In early 1745, Jonathan Law, the governor of Connecticut, wrote Governor George Clinton of New York to complain: “the place where this Wickedness is supposed to be carryd on is the Oblong,” Law declared, “and it is possible that great Quantities of it are handed about by a confederated Gang.” In April, William Shirley, the governor of Massachusetts, urged his counterparts in Connecticut and New York to do everything in their power to capture and convict members of the band. “The Heads of this Confederacy have been bold and daring in their Villanies and have practised the same hitherto with so much success, that it will be next to impossible to Suppress this great Mischief without Suppressing them,” he warned.
    Despite their tough talk, the governors did little to stop the Boyces. The job was left to the initiative of a private citizen, a native of Uxbridge, Massachusetts, named Robert Clarke, who first encountered the gang when one of its members swindled him. After discovering he had been cheated, Clarke confronted the criminals, who tried pacifying him by offering him large quantities of forged bills. According to an affidavit filed by Clarke in the spring of 1745, the counterfeiters “Endeavour’d to make him one of their party,” hoping to secure his services as a passer. He feigned interest and drew himself deeper into the ring in order to collect evidence that could be used against the moneymakers.
    Clarke would end up giving the authorities a detailed picture of the Oblong crew’s operations: they forged the notes of multiple colonies and enlisted passers, whom they dispatched to distant locations to buy horses, cattle, and other goods that could either be used or resold for genuine money. Clarke swiped two of the gang’s plates—one for printing Rhode Island currency, and another unfinished panel for making New York money—along with some printing implements, and resolved to turn the incriminating items over to the authorities. When law officials from New York refused to help, he found a magistrate in Connecticut who agreed tobring the criminals in. Clarke managed to lure the young Boyce and his coconspirator Hurlbut across the border into Connecticut, where they were seized and carried off to the New Haven jail. Hurlbut ratted out his confederates, fingering no fewer than twenty-two of them. While Clarke’s efforts succeeded in dispersing the Oblong gang, many of them remained at large, including Boyce and Hurlbut, who escaped from the New Haven jailhouse shortly after their arrest.
    A STUDENT OF COUNTERFEITING could learn a lot from the Boyces. The most important lesson was that local governments had a hard time enforcing the law. Nothing resembling a professional police force existed: instead, ordinary colonists were elected or appointed to be sheriff, constable, or justice of the peace. Arresting criminals was only one of their duties; they spent much of their time on more mundane work, like inspecting taverns for drunks, chasing runaway pigs, and fixing potholes in the road. When it came to bringing down a counterfeiting gang tucked away in a remote corner of the countryside, the lawmen simply didn’t have the manpower or the money to do the job.
    Moneymaking was also more complicated than most crimes. Simple offenses like larceny involved a culprit and a victim, but a counterfeiter’s impact was more diffuse. An engraver like Sullivan didn’t have to meet his marks to swindle them, and he would never know how many