Hello! It is Richard Howie, and I am back to make stories great again! I am coming to you live from the Great State of Texas! Now that Super Bowl LI is in the history books, and everyone is leaving area 51, aka Houston Texas. We all experienced an incredible game, and the amazing half-time show given by Lady Gaga and I am optimistic that it has left everyone of us feeling very patriotic. Nothing is more patriotic to us Americans than NFL Football, New England, and the Great State of Texas. Today I am going to bring you an amazing story that includes all the above except for the football. I hope you enjoy it!
In 1908, the bureau was born as a force of special agents, which was created by Attorney
General Charles Bonaparte during Theodore Roosevelt's presidency. The agency became known as the Bureau of Investigation, It did not become what we know it today, The (FBI) until it was re-named in early 1935 as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). I am going to use (FBI) as a general term in the following story.
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| President Rosevelt, his cabinet, and Gen. Charles Bonapart 3rd from left. |
Today the FBI is led by the current Director James B. Comey. You could probably stop anyone on the street and ask them who James Comey is, and they would probably be able to come up with FBI. Over the past year the name, and the title have become synonymous with Wiki Leaks, and/or scandal. The department sure hasn’t come very far over the past 100 years. Let be tell you why I make this comment. Dramatic FBI stories bring images of movie characters such as Agents: Dana Scully, Clarice
Starling, or Special Agent Jack Malone to name a few. I also think of The Sopranos, and of the notorious Al Capone. I will never forget Geraldo Rivera and the mystery of Al Capone’s vault which turned into much of nothing, and mud on the face of everyone involved.
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| James B. Comey |
As a genealogist this is the second FBI story to be uncovered in my family tree. Many years ago was my first. I discovered it all on my own. I got captivated by the agents reported interviews. I went as far as to contact the FBI, and the federal prison at Leavenworth Kansas to obtain documents on my outlaw cousin. Then I quickly lost interest. I don’t believe I even wrote a blog post about that first encounter, but maybe someday I will.
I can see why so many television and movie writers love to write about FBI drama. The stories are so easy to get drawn into. They build the scene, they describe the characters they intrigue with their encryptions. Today’s story is no different, even if it is a hundred years old.
This past week I have been combing through some 8,000 documents. I actually read somewhere over 200 of them. The documents are fascinating! They’re exiting! But are they just “Alternate Facts?” A phrase recently coined during the TRUMP Presidential election. Oh, and lets not forget, although I really want to forget, all those endless emails of Hillary Clinton.
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| Camp Wilson, San Antonio, Texas |
I feel that I could easily write the script for a twelve episode series on Hulu, or Amazon
Prime. Which I won’t here. This is a blog! But I must apologize; even as I wish to make this story brief, it will be longer than normal. Let me set the scene. It is (WWI) World War One. Thomas Woodrow Wilson is our 28th acting President of the United States, and as I mentioned above, the FBI is still very much it its' infancy during this period. Which begins in 1914 and ends in 1918.
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| Pres. W. Wilson |
I will need a location. Oh, how about Texas? Better yet, lets build the set on Camp Wilson in San Antonio. Now we need the Characters. Lets say a couple FBI Special agents: Austin, Green, Guy and Stone. Now lets add some women. Lets start with the mother of the main character, Susie. Then we will add a girl friend, or two; a department store clerk named Kate, possibly the main characters wife and finally a librarian. Thinking in terms of Hulu or Amazon Prime, we will need some folks of color or the story just won't be watched. I know of at least one. His contribution to the FBI case was small, but I am sure after I do some investigation, I will be able to build a great character. We have to have conflict, and boy is there conflict; there is the anti war labor union called the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and finally a well known issue that takes place in Mexico. Now that I have mentioned Mexico, the FBI also has added in Pancho Villa, and Max Weber the German Consulate in Juarez Mexico (pictured below). We can end the story with a Marshall and a couple politicians from the U.S. House of Representatives.
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| Max Weber the German Consulate standing with his wife in front of their home in Juarez Mexico. He is wearing the knee-high black riding boots. Also pictured are the President of Mexico, Francisco Madero and Alena Arizmendi Mejia who established the Neutral White Cross organization during the Mexican Revolution. |
You think I am kidding don’t you? America was going crazy! People were coming out of the woodwork as you might say. History kinda sounds a lot like today doesn’t it? However, unlike today, we are not talking about Muslims, the issue was German Americans, and the anti-German sentiments. President Trump is currently stirring similar sentiments, just as President Wilson did one hundred years ago; when he mandated, hunted down, and locked up 1% of the population of the United States. Roughly 480,000 Americans were imprisoned between 1917 and 1918. The phobia and the mania was out of control, and the FBI had a big hand in this hysteria.
My go-to fact checking source is snopes.com. If I feel something sounds like an urban legend, or an alternate fact, I turn to snopes.com. Unfortunately, they didn’t have such a source a hundred years ago. As I read through page after page of Special Agent pomposity. I quickly realized and began to roll my eyes. The accounts were not all real, or were they? The aliases alone were so far fetched to be real. However, each interview, each account rolled up into the next. Each agent had to do one better. Or be seen as a failure. In the end they got their man, but not without the help of President W. Wilson who wrote a Presidential mandate to arrest the spy. Jobs were lost. Marriages broken. Friends turned on one another. Fortunes lost. Life was made hell, and all this before being arrested, and imprisoned for being outted as a Germans sympathizer.
The FBI gave this guy, our “Spy” so many aliases I can’t remember them all now. The best alias I recall was Barron Karl Emil von Haagsman. They described him as well off, well dressed and spoke perfect English. He held himself in an erect military fashion. Had blond hair, and blue eyes. He was able to move from city to city because he worked for: The Santa Fe Railroad, Western Union, and The Associated Press. He was a special telegrapher. A real Harry Houdini if you ask me. He moved between so many cities this fact alone became very difficult for me to follow. He was in San Francisco during the great earth quake. He had a wife in Tacoma Washington. He kept an apartment in El Paso, San Antonio, and Los Angeles. He was seen in Pocatello Idaho, and briefly stayed in Ogden and Salt Lake City Utah. He had a very wealthy sister who lived in Bordueax France. I think she was also a Baroness. His father was a diplomat who traveled extensively in South America. The stories went on and on. Although, they were interviews from reliable citizens who stated they were just looking out for the welfare of this country. It truly turned into a national witch hunt. Our spy was on the run from the FBI and was trying to get to Honolulu Hawaii, and/or Mexico. Special Agent E. B. Stone was responsible for introducing the alias Von Brosson. While Agent Rathbun in the San Fransisco office of the FBI introduced a brother Heirich who live in Vienna Austria, and a wife Katherine from Houston Texas. Later referred to as "The Texas Girl!" Over a two year period the FBI agents, and there were many, opened more mail, and interviewed more people than I can possibly read all of their reports in just one week. Could this have happened? Sure it could. Just not all of it I don't believe. Can I debunk all the reports? NO! Nor would I. I sure would not be go on national TV and open the mysterious vault in front of all of America either. That one has been done, and we know how that story turned out.
In August 1917, just before Carl, his actual real name being Carl Edwin Hollender, our spy and main character is captured; Agent R. L. Barnes sends in a telegram that he is on his way to Bisbee Arizona to collect data on the strike situation with the I.W.W.. He is questioning if a conscientious objector to conscription is worthy of investigation. Let me describe briefly what was going on at the time. I think Carl said it best in one of his many letters he wrote home to his mother in Brattleboro Vermont. Carl really made it clear to me; his words spoke volumes. Thousands were forced to buy war bonds to show their loyalty.
He was very upset that people were coming to his job and telling him that he had to buy bonds, or he would be seen as a German sympathizer. At this point I am not sure which came first. If someone had already ratted him out to the FBI. Or if his dislike for being told he had to buy war bonds was what made him an enemy alien of the State. By this time the FBI was getting organized and had all of his mail intercepted before he read it. So I feel ultimately the letters from his mother, combined with all of the FBI reports, investigations and first hand interviews is probably what got him. Does that sound like a spy?
Carl Edwin Hollender was born May 25th, 1883 in Brattleboro, Windham, Vermont. One of the FBI agents did such a good job. He discovered this early on in the investigation, that Carl E. was an American citizen. The agent traveled all the way to Burlington Vermont, and obtained the birth certificate. The birth certificate listed his mother as Susie (Vaughn) born in Halifax Vermont, and his father, also Carl from Germany. However, what the agent found when he got to Brattleboro was a town full of German sympathizers. To include the public librarian. Just like most of Texas. Brattleboro was an enclave of German immigrants. Susie, Carl’s mother was not just going to local meetings for her German friends and neighbors, she was subscribing to German newspapers, and even encouraging her son to subscribe to “The Fatherland” a German magazine. Carl’s father was German born. His nativity was on Christmas Eve in 1847, born in Celle; a small but beautiful German town in lower Saxony, situated on the banks of the Aller River. He was an organ builder,
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| S.S Saale |
Sorry, but hold on a minute. In 1903 he was back in the United States. He was just across the Vermont border in Amherst Massachusetts attending College. I don’t know anything about Germany. So I really can’t speak to the requirements for their military. I just must assume that it is similar to the U.S. That boys of a certain age are required to sign up, and if you are going to be registered in college you do not have to serve. Does this sound about right? He graduates from Amherst College. Then in 1908 we find him in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Yes! He was now going to (MIT) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He became an engineer. Landing what looks like his first job in Dallas Texas working for Stone & Webster. An American engineering services company based in Stoughton, Massachusetts, and founded by Charles Stone & Edwin Webster in 1889. They were introducing trolleys to most of the big cities of the U.S. to include Dallas, Houston, and the greater metropolitan San Antonio area.
Change the setting to Camp Wilson in San Antonio. Carl Edwin was very busy working on getting the camp built for the troops. The FBI has letters from/to/between him and his mother during this time. His mother was a prolific letter writer, to the final detriment of her son Carl. However, during this same time period, the FBI also has Carl and his wife “Kate” (Kathleen Blake) staying in El Paso, a suspected spy for the Empire of Germany. I could not prove nor disprove this, as there were several Kate Blakes in and around the area at this time. However, after his capture he did tell a reporter that he had a wife in Seattle, Washington. Also after he was captured another wife appeared in the national news. She was Nellie Hollender. She claimed they were married in Washington District of Columbia, and that he abandon her, never to be heard from again, until his capture. Not being able to find her last name. I could not prove nor disprove her account. More on Nellie later.
There is one more very important person and event that the FBI investigated and attempted to link to our spy Carl Edwin, oh I mean Karl Emil. His name was Captain Paul König, and the event was the largest submarine of that time, The Deutschland. The FBI reports by reliable sources that Barron Karl Emil von Haagsman had been traveling back and forth to Germany on the Deutschland and was good friends with the Captain.
I only can find online two journeys of the submarine, and that of the Captain described in history, and neither of these say that the submarine docked in Galveston Texas. Be that as it may, there were several such accounts described in the FBI files. Would the War Department really have let a German submarine get that close to the center of our country during the war?
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| Captain Paul König and the U-Boat "Deutschland" |
March 16, 1918 an Official telegram goes out over the wire to all United States Marshalls. President Woodrow Wilson signed his twelfth Presidential Proclamation. Under this regulation the Marshalls were hereby authorized to arrest non-naturalized men residing in the borders of the U.S. On a side note; the Official act to also include women did not go into effect until April 19th, 1918.
Tuesday April 9th, 1918 headlines in over 200 major newspapers read
“DANGEROUS AGENT OF AUSTRIA, AND FRIEND OF GENERAL VON HINDENBURG CAPTURED.”
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| Gen.Von Hindenburg |
Two aliases were also reported; Chauncey Hollender & Carl von Haagsmar. Alleged spy. Alleged Imperial Agent. Caught by R.F. Austin. Special Agent Richard F. Austin with the FBI office in San Antonio Texas was reported to have captured the spy in Prescott, Arizona attempting to flee into Mexico.
Here is where the mysterious wife comes forward! Nellie Hollender it appears could not get in the news enough with her story. She was described as a plump little woman with a full bosom and large pathetic brown eyes. She reported that she married him seven years earlier. That he was a captain in the Austrian Army, and that his father was an Austrian Consulate working in both Norfolk, Virginia and at Boston, Mass. She said that Chauncey was anglicized for his mothers maiden name, “Chaunaise.” Her claim didn’t end there. She said he was injured in the Boer War, and that she only learned that his real name was Barron Carl von Haagsmar after she received a cable from his sister Ms. Devereaux the wife of a wine agent in Bordeaux France. The cable was to inform Carl that his cousin Baroness de la Roque, who was an aviatrix had crashed in an airplane accident, and broken both of her arms, and both of her legs.
She went on to say that Chauncey spoke perfect English, and worked as a Telegraph agent where they lived in Chicago. In 1913 Nellie went to visit her mother, and when she returned home, Carl had deserted her. She learned through friends that he went to join Lee Christmas the Honduran Revolutionist. Now the story is beginning to sound more like truth than fiction. Remember the movies, “The Expendables, and Expendables II” where one of the hottest British actors of our times, Jason Stratham plays Gen. Lee Christmas? Nellie tells the reporters that Carl was on the machine gun crew. I did some research, and while I have not found Carl mentioned, the timeline is almost correct. As history has it, on January 25, 1911 General Lee Christmas supplied with U.S. Army surplus Colt model 1895 machine guns, used them in the Battle of La Ceiba. This is believed to be the first time automatic weapons were so used in such a wartime battle. The battle of La Ceiba was studied, and machine guns were then used again during World War I. She said Carl had contacted her in 1915, and apologized. That he was sorry for leaving her. He also told her that he had a large roll of money, a large land grant in Mexico, and that he was injured during the expedition to Mexico and that he was then convalescing in St. Louis. “Again, more facts, and truth.” I recall that one of the FBI agents who had been following Carl the Spy, and described him as walking with a limp, and that he was a heavy drinker. Did Nellie, the self described ex-wife actually live this story; or did someone in the FBI feed her the story, and have her come forward to sensationalize their capture? Americans wanted blood, so someone better give them a story to make them loyalists. We may never know!
United States Marshal Aquila Nebeker, was appointed as Marshall by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914. He personally took custody of Carl Hollender in Prescott and transported him to the jail in Salt Lake City Utah where he was held for the department of Justice. Carl was then transferred to Fort Douglas Utah, where he was interned with many other German prisoners of war. Prior to Aquila Nebeker being appointed as Marshall, he was a Utah State Senator, and active in politics.
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| Fort Douglas, Salt Lake City Utah c. 1918 American internment camp for German Spies and sympathizers |
His wife Kate (Blake) Hollender, described in the case files, as the Texas girl did not rest in her attempts to free Carl. She began a letter writing campaign and got the attention of Edward M. Vanderslice, the President of Universal Motor Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He in turn contacted his friend E.B. Howard, a representative of the 2nd District of Oklahoma with her letter. He then contacted, and past along the request to the Honorable Frances Patrick Garvin, assistant to the Attorney General of the United States in Washington D.C.
She wanted Carl moved back to Texas and out of the internment camp in Utah. The letter that was past along, stated that he had a heart condition and that his health was weakening at the high altitude and he would not live long. An independent Doctor was sent to examine
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| Carl E. was employed in Dallas Working for the Texas Traction Company |
Carl E. Hollender, who determined that nothing was wrong with him. Not sure yet of the exact amount of time Carl spent at Fort Douglas, but it wasn’t too long. Probably less than two years. In 1920 he is living with some of his friends from Texas, residing in Fairfield, Connecticut still working as an Engineer for Stone & Webster, and listed as single in the 1920 U.S. Census. He married a nurse in 1923, and then married again in 1934 in Washington D.C.. He had a long life, living to the age of 85. He passed away in Cuttingsville, Rutland, Vermont, October 25th, 1968. I was able to confirm that Carl worked for the Texas Traction Company and Stone and Webster. I never found anything to confirm he was employed with the Western Union, or the Associated Press as a telegrapher.
As you can see there is an amazing story here. I have left much of it out, and added just enough mystery to make you want to know more I hope. You are probably saying to yourself, great story, but how does this relate to the Howie Family Tree? So, before I leave this story, I must introduce the Librarian. I mentioned her in the beginning of this story, and you have waited this long. Her name was Mary Pratt!
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| Mary Pratt, The Librarian Controversy |
Mary the librarian, in this real life story, was the aunt of one of my third cousins. You can read more about her, and my connection in the next story, titled from Germany to the University of California at Berkeley.
I want to thank, Jerry Carbone, the director of the Brattleboro Library, now retired. About ten years ago he discovered this story and contacted one of my cousins Jennifer. Mary was the sister of her Great Grand Father. I also need to thank Jennifer for sharing the many photos to come in the following story, and for her persistence and dedicated hard work to contact the public institutions to obtain these amazing photos of Mary Pratt. I feel stories are nothing without some pictures, and this is one amazing story.