History Focus for August 25

History Focus for August 25

A short focus on a person or event associated with this day in History.

Allan Pinkerton -

Vesuvius Allan Pinkerton, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on August 25, 1819. He arrived in the U.S.A. with one silver dollar and settled near Chicago in 1842. While engaged in business as a barrel maker in 1846, he captured a gang of counterfeiters and was consequently elected county sheriff.

Allan created the first, private detective agency in 1850 when he organized Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. He was appointed the first city detective in Chicago. He recoved a large sum of money stolen from the Adams Express Company. He discoved a plot to murder Abraham Lincoln in 1861. All these incidences led to his fame. Abraham Lincoln then hired him as the first Secret Service officer. During the American Civil War he organized the secret service of the U.S.Army.

During the railroad strikes of 1877, his agency provided strikebreakers. They were called Pinks -- possibly the origin of the slang word, fink. Those who worked in his agency were called Pinkertons. The Pinkertons were the ones who were called upon when Rangers, in-house detectives and the law had failed to conclude a chase or mystery. With offices in New York, Philadelphia, Denver, and Los Angeles, their detectives were responsible for ending the criminal exploits of Western frontier bandits, East coast spies and head-rolling gangsters. Men like Billy the Kid, the Reno Brothers, the James Brothers, Nathan Maroney, the 'Invincible' Piper, Jack Canter, H.H. Holmes and several Mollies of the Molly Maguires all were hounded by the Pinkertons.

The Pinkertons logo was an open eye, combined with the words "We Never Sleep." It was this logo that was the root of the term 'Private Eye'. The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, stands out for providing the cream of fugitive trackers in 19th century and beyond. Alan Pinkerton was truly the first "Private Eye."

Sources: Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 96