Allan Pinkerton

Birth Name:

Allan J. Pinkerton

Birth Date:

August 25, 1819

Birth Place:

Glasgow, Scotland

Death Date:

July 1, 1884

Place of Death:

No. 554 West Monroe Street, Chicago, Illinois

Age:

Cause of Death:

Gangrene (disputed)

Cemetery Name:

Graceland Cemetery

Claim to Fame:

Crime and their Victims

Associates:

Abraham Lincoln

Allan Pinkerton was a Scottish cooper, abolitionist, detective, and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency during his time in the United States. When the Civil War began, Pinkerton served as head of the Union Intelligence Service during the first two years, heading off an alleged assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland while guarding Abraham Lincoln on his way to Washington, D.C. as well as identifying troop numbers in military campaigns. His agents often worked undercover as Confederate soldiers and sympathizers to gather military intelligence. Pinkerton himself served on several undercover missions as a Confederate soldier using the alias Major E.J. Allen. Following Pinkerton's service with the Union Army, he continued his pursuit of train robbers, including the Reno Gang. He was hired by the railroad express companies to track outlaw Jesse James, but after Pinkerton failed to capture him, the railroad withdrew their financial support and Pinkerton continued to track James at his own expense.

Fun Fact:

In 1861, while investigating a railway case, Pinkerton uncovered an assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln. The conspirators intended to kill Lincoln in Baltimore during a stop on his way to his inauguration. Pinkerton warned Lincoln of the threat, and the president-elect’s itinerary was changed so that he passed through the city secretly at night. Lincoln later hired Pinkerton to organize a “secret service” to obtain military information in the Southern states during the Civil War. In Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi, he performed his own investigative work and traveled under the pseudonym “Major E.J. Allen.”

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Graceland Cemetery

4001 N Clark Street

Chicago, Illinois, 60613

USA

North America

Map:

Map of Graceland Cemetery, Chicago, Illinois

Map courtesy of Jake Coolidge and Joe Collier.

Grave Location:

Section C, Lot 554, Space 25

Grave Location Description

After entering the cemetery, head northeast on Main Avenue for about 750 feet. Then turn left on Center Avenue, and head north for about 720 feet until you reach the intersection. Allan Pinkerton’s grave will be on your right, about 50 feet east from the intersection.

Grave Location GPS

41.95776099206102, -87.66026858708979

Visiting The Grave:

Photos:

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Videos Featuring Allan Pinkerton:

The Sad Fate and Controversial Life Of Allan Pinkerton That You Didn't Know

How the Pinkerton Agency Laid the Foundation for the FBI and CIA

Pinkerton's National Detective Agency Documentary

America's Private Eye - The Pinkertons - One Minute History

10 Exciting Adventures of the Pinkertons

See More:

Vincenzo Rao

Johnny Torrio

Mary Lily Flagler Bingham

popular name: Mary Lily Flagler Bingham

date_of_death: July 27, 1917

age: 50

cause_of_death: Edema with myocarditis along with high levels of morphine, arsenic and mercury

claim_to_fame: Crime and their Victims

best_know_for: Mary Lily Kenan Flagler Bingham was an American philanthropist and heiress who became notorious when she married one of the richest men of the Gilded Age - Henry Flagler - a founder of Standard Oil with John Rockefeller. Growing up in an affluent household, she soon moved with her family to Wilmington in the late 1870s. Her affluence afforded her education, uncommon for a woman on the cusp of the twentieth century. She first met Henry Flagler in 1891 at a party in Newport, Rhode Island. Kenan was only twenty-three years old; Flagler was sixty-one, and still married to Ida Alice. As they became more romantically involved, Mary Lily’s family grew suspicious of Flagler’s intentions, at least until the tycoon gifted her two million dollars’ worth of jewelry and stock in Standard Oil, along with a mansion in Palm Beach that would come to be known as Whitehall. Flagler also set about divorcing Ida Alice, which resulted in him paying Florida state legislators off in order to have insanity declared a viable reason for initiating divorce proceedings. Two months after the law was passed, Flagler divorced her, and he married Mary Lily, a woman nearly half his age, on the Kenans’ family plantation ten days later in 1901. Henry Flagler and Mary Lily Kenan Flagler by most accounts had a comfortable and loving marriage. Their marriage lasted until May of 1913, as after a fall down the stairs at Whitehall, the 83-year-old Flagler passed away, leaving his massive fortune to her. Mary Lily Kenan thus became the world’s richest woman. Three years later she became reaquinted with and married Robert Worth Bingham. A seemly healthy and active socialite, she slowly succumbed to a mysterious illness and died just 8 months later after her marriage to Bingham.