User talk:DragonflySixtyseven/A mystery

Thoughts

DragonflySixtyseven, the claims of being governor and judge just have to be bogus. The list of governors is very well documented, the list of justices is fairly clear as well, and holding either of those offices would have created enough of a paper trail that we wouldn't have had any trouble finding him. This NYT obituary accepts the claim of being governor at face value, but it also adds that he was a "prominent lawyer of Jersey City" formerly involved in New Jersey politics. My best guess is that he really did go out west as register of the land office, returned without distinction (possibly after being injured in a train accident?), and then pretended to have held high office to help him in his East Coast political career (in this 1864 NYT article, he's already running for the U.S. House and claiming to have been "Governor of Washington Territory under Buchanan"). Claims like that would probably have been taken on faith in this era, although it's surprising that even major papers accepted it. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 08:45, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd been wondering if the listings could have been some sort of mistake, but the 1864 article makes it clear that he did it deliberately. I would assume he thought no one would ever check.

And, indeed, the lie went unexposed for over a hundred and twenty years.

He was lucky he didn't actually get elected to the House, where the lie would have blown up in his face very quickly. DS (talk) 17:59, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

Looks like at least one person noticed the obituary wasn't right. I'll have to check if Newspapers.com has anything on this once they get it working again. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:23, 29 January 2024 (UTC)

It'd be amazing if it turns out he does meet notability criteria, specifically because of the lie being exposed. (Probably doesn't. But it would be.) DS (talk) 14:52, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I checked Newspapers.com. Here he's supposedly about to be nominated as U.S. Marshal: not sure if it's actual confusion or just another lie, but he was certainly never nominated (Alphonso E. Gordon eventually was instead). A couple of https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-jersey-city-news-rankin/142605909/ papers] seem to be putting "Judge" in scare-quotes—perhaps they were on to him. Will keep looking. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 20:39, 3 March 2024 (UTC)