Post by massachusetts on Mar 1, 2021 15:49:49 GMT -5
I live in a house once owned by a rumrunner who worked out of the New Bedford, MA area from prohibition until 1961. When he died, his family believed there was money hidden somewhere in the house. My parents bought the house from his daughter in 1989. I bought the house from my parents in 2013. Hoping I could find a clue as to where to find the money, I began researching the rumrunner and have discovered a possible link to the Lindbergh kidnapping.
This rumrunner - call him AF - was profiled in a local newspaper after giving an interview to the DOJ during the Hauptmann investigation placing Hauptmann in Oak Bluffs, MA, in August 1931 (Hauptmann was on the other side of the country at that time). This got me thinking - why? I decided to dig a little more into his past to see if I could find anything interesting.
AF was born in Manhattan in 1883 and grew up in Brooklyn. He joined the Navy at the age of 15 and deserted at 16. After that, he went into the Merchant Marine. He lived in the Bronx in 1915 and moved to Staten Island to work as a ship's carpenter at Downey Shipbuilding in 1917. He lived on a yacht in the yard with his wife and daughter. He was also listed as working as a chauffeur in the Mariner's Harbor neighborhood. He was active in freemasonry in the German community. He moved to the New Bedford area in 1925 and was doing something sketchy in real estate, I believe laundering money through building houses, including the one I live in, with some local gangsters loosely connected to King Solomon out of Boston. There were many unexplained fires and subsequent insurance claims on his property and on his boats.
AF owned a number of boats that ran between southeastern MA, Martha's Vineyard, Cuttyhunk, New York, and the Bahamas. One of them was seized for rumrunning off White Beach in Cape Cod in 1928. By the early 1930s he was investing in large yachts & storing them at a local shipyard with known rumrunning connections.
In December of 1931, AF and his wife attended a Christmas party at the home of a local sea captain - call him MC. In March of 1932, MC and his wife abruptly split up, and she along with her parents relocated to Asheville, North Carolina. MC appears on record on 3/24/32 returning from Bermuda on a passenger vessel accompanied by his father (no record of travel to Bermuda; most likely they ran a local boat down there to drop it off). Just after that, MC's house was sold to his wife's brother and MC moved in with his father. I read somewhere that Edgar Cayce gave a reading that mentioned the baby being held on Adams Street in New Haven. This Christmas party was at a house on the corner of Adams Street in Fairhaven (MA). Why did MC's wife and both of her parents leave the area they'd lived in all their lives in March 1932? Could be a coincidence.
I had heard there was a Condon connection to people on boats in SE Mass. I found notes that said he wanted to talk to a "Captain Ailes from City Island" who was working on a boat out of Cuttyhunk. I found a newspaper article where AF and a Captain Benjamin Ailes from City Island (NY) were rescued together from a boat fire in the 1950s. Could be a coincidence.
I pulled AF's draft records from WW1 and WW2. In WW1, AF had no tattoos. In WW2, AF had a "tattoo of a figure 8 knot" on his right wrist. That symbol on the ransom notes sure looks like a figure 8! Could be a coincidence.
Most of the people I know think I'm crazy. What are your thoughts?
This rumrunner - call him AF - was profiled in a local newspaper after giving an interview to the DOJ during the Hauptmann investigation placing Hauptmann in Oak Bluffs, MA, in August 1931 (Hauptmann was on the other side of the country at that time). This got me thinking - why? I decided to dig a little more into his past to see if I could find anything interesting.
AF was born in Manhattan in 1883 and grew up in Brooklyn. He joined the Navy at the age of 15 and deserted at 16. After that, he went into the Merchant Marine. He lived in the Bronx in 1915 and moved to Staten Island to work as a ship's carpenter at Downey Shipbuilding in 1917. He lived on a yacht in the yard with his wife and daughter. He was also listed as working as a chauffeur in the Mariner's Harbor neighborhood. He was active in freemasonry in the German community. He moved to the New Bedford area in 1925 and was doing something sketchy in real estate, I believe laundering money through building houses, including the one I live in, with some local gangsters loosely connected to King Solomon out of Boston. There were many unexplained fires and subsequent insurance claims on his property and on his boats.
AF owned a number of boats that ran between southeastern MA, Martha's Vineyard, Cuttyhunk, New York, and the Bahamas. One of them was seized for rumrunning off White Beach in Cape Cod in 1928. By the early 1930s he was investing in large yachts & storing them at a local shipyard with known rumrunning connections.
In December of 1931, AF and his wife attended a Christmas party at the home of a local sea captain - call him MC. In March of 1932, MC and his wife abruptly split up, and she along with her parents relocated to Asheville, North Carolina. MC appears on record on 3/24/32 returning from Bermuda on a passenger vessel accompanied by his father (no record of travel to Bermuda; most likely they ran a local boat down there to drop it off). Just after that, MC's house was sold to his wife's brother and MC moved in with his father. I read somewhere that Edgar Cayce gave a reading that mentioned the baby being held on Adams Street in New Haven. This Christmas party was at a house on the corner of Adams Street in Fairhaven (MA). Why did MC's wife and both of her parents leave the area they'd lived in all their lives in March 1932? Could be a coincidence.
I had heard there was a Condon connection to people on boats in SE Mass. I found notes that said he wanted to talk to a "Captain Ailes from City Island" who was working on a boat out of Cuttyhunk. I found a newspaper article where AF and a Captain Benjamin Ailes from City Island (NY) were rescued together from a boat fire in the 1950s. Could be a coincidence.
I pulled AF's draft records from WW1 and WW2. In WW1, AF had no tattoos. In WW2, AF had a "tattoo of a figure 8 knot" on his right wrist. That symbol on the ransom notes sure looks like a figure 8! Could be a coincidence.
Most of the people I know think I'm crazy. What are your thoughts?