Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 115, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1914 — CHARLES W. CLIFTON RETURNS TO RENSSELAER [ARTICLE]

CHARLES W. CLIFTON RETURNS TO RENSSELAER

Deserted Family and Left Bonds* men to Settle Debts Almost Thirty Years Ago, Charles W. Clifton, whose departure from Rensselaer under a cloud some thirty years ago will be remembered by all who lived here in the early eighties, has been visiting his brother, James Clifton, at Fair Oaks for the past ten days or more and Thursday was in Rexfsselaer. He stopped in at The Republican office and made himself known, apparently not thinking or not caring if his conduct here was recalled. Clifton is apparently about 65 years of age at this time and has somewhat of the southern colonel appearance except that he wears no goatee nor other hirsuit adornment When he left here he was about 35 years of age. He was married here in the early seventies and when he left he deserted a wife and three small children. He also left Ezra L. Clark, Ezra C. Nowels and Moses B. Alter to settle indebtedness of about $1,400 to insurance companies which Clifton had represented and . which these men, now all dead, had signed a bond pledging Clifton’s faithful settlement of all claims. The first bond was signed in September, 1883, and a little over a year later the bondsmen were notified that Clifton was indebted to the Indianapolis agent in the sum of S6OO and interest and that he had refused to make any settlethat the bondsmen were expected to pay it The letter which accompanied the demand for settlement, stated that Clifton was then working some place in Illinois. Later he secured endorsement from the same bondsmen to work for the Union Mutual Life Insurance Co., represented by Alleif G. Fowler, of Chicago, and 4n March, 1885. only a few months after hq had been bonded, the company made demand of the bondsmen for SBOO, which they stated he was Short and calling attention to the fact that the. amount due bore interest at the rate of 8 per cent and that they would save ( a lot of trouble if they made prompt settlement. - Clifton is said to have disappeared entirely for some time and a few months later a shotgun which he owned was found at the edge of a clift in the mountains of Colorado, and to all appearances Clifton had lost his life by falling over the precipice. He carried insurance and the company was asked to make settlement, but Instituted an investigation, So it was told here at the time, and proved that Clifton was alive and the insurance money was not paid. Borne seven or eight years later one of she bondsmen who had paid the money which Clifton owed the insurance companies learned that he was in Kentucky going under another name and laboring as a Baptist preacher. He at once entered into correspondence with persons in Kentucky and procured a photograph of Clifton and another woman whom he had married and was living with there. This picture is still in possession of Rensselaer people A letter written April 22, 1895, from Concord, Ky., stated that Clifton, or at least the man in the picture had been known there as William Russell or Bussell, which was only one of several aliases under which he had traveled according to Dr. W. L. Day, a physician. His letter said: -

“He is the finest preacher I ever beard and can make the grandest prayer” Another letter from Greenbrier, W. Va., says: “I do not know Rev. Bussell. I expect hfe name is George Washington Wesley. He has been keeping a woman and one child, also a wife and five ehiWren. He married her in Summers county, W. Va, and was at one time pastor of several churches but conducted himself so badly that he was excluded from the church. He then took a girl, Miss Forehand, and left the county. His family followed to Kentucky a year or tiwo ago. He sent his family back here to his brother-in-law, Jos. E. Meadows. Soon after I had a letter from Rev. Reynolds, of Louisa, Ky., inquiring about Mr. Wesley. They ran him *off and he left the woman and came baek here and left soon and sent for his family. He is about 6 weighs about 170 or 180 pounds, is getting gray, wears a mustache, has large bine eyes, a good deal of white in them.”

The identification ae Wesley does not seem to have been positive, but the ministers who wrote in response to inquiries were certain he was the Same man. Cfiifton called at The Republican office and seemed to think that he should be given a eordlal welcome,

and evidently not knowing that It takes more that one generation to outlive an act of embezzlement, the desertion of a wife and children, an effort to make them believe him dead in order to collect life insurance and the marrying of another woman before being released from the bonds of his first marriage. Clifton seems to have gone through with his life of deception in fairly good style; however, and' looks young for his years and la apparently enjoying good health and a fair amount of prosperity. He says that he has been spending a considerable part of reeent Team to California.