Rensselaer Union and Jasper Republican, Volume 8, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1876 — The Case of Mr. E. D. Winslow. [ARTICLE]

The Case of Mr. E. D. Winslow.

It is an extraordinary career that has, been suddenly terminated by the discovery that Rev. and Hon. Ezra D. Winslow, a member of our Massachusetts House and Senate, prominent Methodist, leading Prohibitionist, and of late publisher of two Boston papers, has been forging other people’s names to the amount of some hundreds of thousand dollars, and, flndingexposure imminent, has fled to Europe. A native of Whitehall, N. Y., his family moved to Hampshire County, in this State, when he was a bdy, and he alternately went to school and worked in a mill at Ware till he had got sufficient training and earnings to study theology at the Methodist Institute in Concord, N. H. During this period he was for a* year clerk in Tinkham & Co.’s store in this city, where he is remembered as a bright, clever fellow,. The breaking out of the war found him a young Meihodist minister of twenty-one, at Chester Factories (now Chester), and he promptly enlisted in the army as a private, but soon became a Chaplain, serving in that capacity, in either army or navy, through the rebellion, and for a year or two after. It was while in this service, by the way, that he developed the mania for speculation which has proved his ruin; the vessel to which he was attached lay for some time in San Francisco harbor, and he got to dabbling in mining and fancy stocks, with which species of gambling he became quite infatuated. Returning then to the ministry, he was for a while at Franklin, where he combined preaching on Sunday with selling boots and shoes the rest of the week; next was led by some sudden freak to emigrate to Missouri, but was back in a year, to preach in Boston and vicinity, till he became publishing agent of Zion's Herald, where he stayed till early in 1871. Settling down then in Newton, he soon drifted into politics, and was elected to the lower branch ot the Legislature in 1872 and 1873, and to the Senate in 1874. Meanwhile he had been building elegant houses (among them two Of the finest in Aubfimdale, now' occupied by Messrs. Pulsifer sjuid Haskell, of the Boston Herwell as the mansion in which he himself lived till its somewhat mysterious destruction by tire a few weeks ago), and launching out in real estate speculations generally in a way that was surprising to people who knew that he had hot the capital which his operations implied. Then he took to the newspaper business, getting hold of the Boston Hews, and doing a good deal to improve its character, though the enterprise was one which demanded a manager with a deep pocket. Last year he added to this the nominal control of the Boston Post, and, for some time, has had the name of owning “ two papers, both daily,” as different in character as could" well be imagined. Through ail these varied experiences, “however, he has maintained his connection with his old profession, and he was at the meeting of the New England Conference In tbi* city last spring, when be fervently assured the brethren that, though he was unable to preach on account of lung difficulties, his heart was as much in the work as ever. For a man of established fortune to have done all this might have been set down as one of those vagaries in which millionaires sometimes indulge, but how Mr. Winslow could do it has long been a mystery to steady-going people. The explanationi TOnieß at last in the revelation that it has aU. been a sham—that, while outwardly good Methodist, upright citizen, moral man, he has Wen swindling people/ right and left. How much his swindling loots up is not yet known, but ft threatens to exceed rather than fall below a quarter of a million dollars. The heaviest siifferers are his associate in the Boston Post Company, E. F. Porter, whose name was forged to the amount of *150,000; W, E. Hheldon, whp has been business manager of the Boston News, *100,000; and Daniel Chamberlain, *BO,000 —though, as there were several indorsements on some of the worthless

notes, the same amounts sometimes appear twice in these totals. Francis B. Hayes, Leopold Morse and several others suiter to the extent of nearly SIOO,OOO more, while there are very likely some victims who wifi never say anything about it; and it is now established that Winslow lias made large over-issues of the Boston Post stock—how much cannot yet be told. In fact, it will take some days yet to decide the extent of bin operations and the losses ot individual sußerenT True to bis character to the last, Winslow recently got hold of a Beacon street residence. and was fitting it up in grand style, running up a bill of *2,000 for frescoing, and ordering costly carpets and furniture. His last appearance in Die pulpit was at Auburndale last week Sunday, his subject being the good that is found among men, the nobleness of human nature, and the sermon being remarked as one of much power. The fact that Pond, the Worcester swindler, and Winslow hud been intimate and indorsed each other’s notes, naturally suggested the theory that there might have been some collusion between them, but Pond stoutly denies It and sayS Witwiow’s performances surprise him. as much as anybody. Winslow left for New York on Wednesday with his wife, sister and child, and it was supposed had sailed, thence io Brazil, but it proves that he took a steadier for Rotterdam, Holland, Friday, and, as we have no extradition treaty with that country, he is at present safe from arrest. Of course, all this comes with a shock to the general public, though we fancy few close observers of the man will be greatly surprised. Such persons have seen all along that he had no moral foundation, that, witli all his plausibility of exterior he had not the root of honesty in him. The mystery of it all is the length of time lie has succeeded in keeping up the illusion. But the end lias come at last, as it, has been inevitable it must conic from the first. There is no need to draw a moral of such a career—it draws itself. —Springfield (Mass.) IlepuMican.