Herbert Chaffee's $25,000 Gold Brick Swindle Ended on the Titanic
A North Dakota farmer lost a fortune to a fake gold con in 1909 and died two years later while searching for the suspect.
By Elena Castillo ·
Herbert F. Chaffee, a wealthy farmer from Amenia, North Dakota, lost $25,000 to a fraud scheme in 1909. The loss equated to more than $900,000 in modern currency. He died in the Titanic sinking on April 14, 1912, while traveling to continue his search for the con artist.
The scam began in 1909 when a man named John Armstrong visited Chaffee's home. Armstrong claimed to be a miner from Mexico who owned a gold mine with $25,000 in liens. He proposed a deal: Chaffee would pay the liens, and Armstrong would give Chaffee two gold ingots worth about $40,000. Armstrong drilled samples from the ingots, and a local assayer confirmed the metal was gold. Chaffee and his son Eben handed Armstrong $25,000 in one-thousand-dollar bills. A later test revealed the ingots were brass.
Police launched a manhunt after the Chaffees reported the fraud. Over 50 people visited the Minneapolis police station to see the brass discs. The family offered a $2,000 reward for the suspect's arrest. In April 1911, Eben Chaffee learned that a man named Cornelius W. Caddagan had pulled the same con in California. The Chaffees hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which identified Caddagan as the suspect. Eben identified Caddagan in a Los Angeles courtroom, leading to an extradition order to Minnesota.
Caddagan filed a malicious prosecution suit against Chaffee for $27,000 in damages before he disappeared on May 20, 1911. A week later, a weighted body was found in San Pedro Harbor. Caddagan's wife, Eudora, identified the corpse as her husband, though police noted the body was two inches shorter than Caddagan. The Chaffees filed a grand larceny suit against the Caddagans and raised the reward to $5,000. They posted notices in various languages across the Western Hemisphere to find Caddagan.
In January 1912, a witness swore he saw Caddagan in Waterloo, Iowa, but the lead stalled. Chaffee and his wife, Carrie, boarded the Titanic in April 1912 to return to Britain. Carrie Chaffee told reporters she watched the ship sink from the deck. She held $20 or $30 in cash given to her by her husband in case they were separated. She never saw Herbert Chaffee again. Her nephew, Walter R. Reed, continued the investigation after the sinking. The Los Angeles Times reported in December 1912 that Caddagan was declared officially dead. The case remained unresolved.
