1909

ON TUESDAY THE MONSTER CAME TO TOWN

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

He showered Fourth street in silver coins and 3,000 attended his debut, equivalent to every third person in town in 1909. He was a showman famous throughout the West: The Great Fer-Don, lecturer, traveler and philanthropist. He was also a monster, and if there’s such a thing as a criminal genius, he was probably that, too.

(This is Part II of an article about the “Great Fer-Don.” Have you read Part I?)

Santa Rosa had never seen a scam artist like James M. Ferdon, who introduced a new kind of confidence game wrapped inside something old and familiar. He combined features of the traditional medicine show – a ballyhoo and parade, leading to a free evening stage show with entertainers to draw an audience and a pitch to buy an elixir for what-ails-you – but all that was now just the warmup. Waiting at a nearby hotel, Ferdon told the crowds, were European doctors who were experts in the ultra-modern technique of “bloodless surgery.” They could cure the most serious medical problems: Complete blindness and deafness. Paralysis. Gallstones. Appendicitis. Tumors. Cancer. All without a scalpel or the loss of a single drop of blood.

(RIGHT: James Ferdon portrait in the Salem, Oregon Daily Capital Journal, June 15, 1910)

It was such a brazen collection of lies that it apparently had the effect of shock and awe, even fooling people who thought they were the sort who never could be fooled. According to Ferdon, his European Medical Experts were so esteemed that local physicians flocked to them to be healed themselves of serious diseases. “Each day hundreds of people are cured by my doctor’s method,” Ferdon was quoted in an article that appeared in the Press Democrat. “Many local physicians come to us in diffent cities we have visited. We removed a cancer from a prominent physician in Dallas, Texas.” Claiming to perform such miraculous cures “bloodlessly” was the cake icing. What exactly that meant was never made clear, but some of the procedures described in the ads sound remarkably like “psychic surgery,” where tumors and such are pretended to be removed without breaking the skin – the “surgeon” uses basic sleight-of-hand techniques to palm animal organs and other gory bits that could be flourished in front of the patient as diseased tissue. If so, this apparently would be the earliest example of psychic surgery fraud in the United States.

Ferdon was also fuzzy on how much treatment would cost. In one instance his “Medical Expert” asked for $175 to remove gallstones, and demanded a $300 advance from someone else for the same “surgery.” (In Santa Rosa at that time the annual household income was about $500.) Ferdon was not only duping people into believing life-threatening illnesses could be cured by mysterious and unbloody means, he was stealing every cent they had, which probably denied them the hope of seeking real expert medical attention after they wised up. This made him a monster twice over.

As much as Ferdon was a villain, it’s hard not to stand agape at his salesmanship skills; this was a man who could sucker you into buying an interest in his new breed of racing horses that had wheels for legs and were powered by gasoline engines. His audiences simply didn’t see there was something discordant about world-class physicians teaming up with a man running a cornball show crafted to appeal to yokels. At one Santa Rosa performance he had a “ladies’ woodsawing” contest; the next night a live pig was given away (“the person winning it will be obliged to carry it out in their arms”). Ferdon had a particular affection for showing off tapeworms preserved in jars; no matter where he went, to hear him tell it, there was always someone ready to shower him with gratitude for having rid them of a gargantuan 50, 70, 90-foot parasite (which they measured how?) after all other treatments failed.

Another factor in his success was the manner in which he shamelessly bought off local newspapers, including both the Press Democrat and Santa Rosa Republican. Yes, he placed big ads announcing his shows, and nothing wrong with that. Yes, he also made claims that his European Experts could perform impossible cures, and there was nothing wrong with that, either, at the time; as discussed here earlier, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 enforced truth in labeling but didn’t even mention truth in advertising – the newspapers here (particularly the PD) routinely published ads for miraculous potions, including drugs that were supposed to prevent tuberculosis or repair heart disease. But Ferdon and the newspaper editors crossed an ethical line because his ads didn’t look at all like ads: They looked like regular news stories. They appeared above the fold in line with other articles (ads were usually at the bottom of the page or grouped together in the back section) and except for the headline font and layout being slightly different from the rest of the paper (Ferdon apparently provided his own headline typeset block as part of the deal), it was impossible to tell at first glance that it was fake news.

The articles that appeared in the Santa Rosa papers were written in general newspaper style, clearly adapted by someone using copy provided by Ferdon – phrases, even whole paragraphs, can be found in similar articles published in other towns. While some of the prose is rather purple (“the great Fer-Don [has] caused the whole of Europe and America to talk about his wonderful medical discoveries and the citizens have been patiently waiting for his arrival in our city”) much of it could pass for a real article of the day. The trusted local papers had become willing accomplices to fraud.

It may have come as a surprise to editors Ernest Finley and Allen Lemmon, but not all newspapers were eager to sell out their readership to hucksters; some investigated his claims and exposed him as a fraud, warning subscribers to stay away.

In the first in a series of front page muckraking stories, the Seattle Star in January 1910 described what happened when a reporter sought treatment under the guise of being a workman. Ferdon’s medical expert diagnosed “a heart affection” and a “bad case of the ‘nerves'” which could be cured by a two month treatment. As for the price, the doctor said, “I will let you down light. You say that you are an electrician and have a good job with the Seattle Electric company. Well, I’ll make it $50 for the entire treatment. This includes your prescriptions for the first month. After that you will be charged extra.”

When Ferdon entered the room to collect the money, the reporter confronted  him on operating a “fake medical bureau.” Ferdon denied the charge and tried to change the subject. “In California, mothers and invalids worship me. Every week I visit the orphan asylums and scatter gifts among the waifs. The newsies I remember on Christmas with huge Christmas trees. I intend to do the same thing in Seattle.” As the reporter continued pressing, Ferdon threw out another red herring: “There is not a business or profession that is free from faking…the grocer will advertise milk as the best, but in reality it is half water. The ethical physician tell you a man is hopeless, but at the same time he will treble his visits until the victim passes away. The politician is a faker–we’re all fakers, if you put it that way.”

Ferdon told the reporter “My treatments consist of massage, vibrators, medicines and the violet rays.” The medicine, he claimed, was formulated by his doctors in a “laboratory”  elsewhere in the hotel building. The reporter checked and found the so-called lab just another hotel room.

Most of all, Ferdon seemed irate that the newspaper didn’t play along. “The Star is doing wrong in trying to drive me out. I bring lots of money to this city. Why in hell don’t you and your editor quit and leave me alone. The P. I. and the Times are not molesting me.” In its introduction, the editor commented, “If The Star had chosen to accept the advertising instead of exposing these fakers it would have been richer by probably $3,500.” The Seattle Star also found that in 1907 the Portland Daily News had similarly investigated him rather than accept the fraudulent ads. The Star summed up Ferdon’s advertising strategy: “Their scheme, highly successful in most cases, is to buy up venal newspapers with large advertising contracts at hush money rates, and then take advantage of the credence the public puts in these prostituted journals.”

The Seattle Star continued its front page exposé, even printing an interesting letter from a woman, Mrs. E. J. Eakin, who lived in Napa just before Ferdon came to Santa Rosa that revealed his other activities in this area (which were never mentioned in the PD or Republican):


I was residing in Napa, Cal. two years ago when Fer-Don and his band of ‘fakers’ came to town…For the first two weeks he did not make a cent. Then one Saturday night he managed to sell $4 worth of medicines to the ranchers. That gave him his opportunity. Ascending the stage steps, he said that he did not sell the medicine for money — but to cure the sick. Then he threw the $4 among the audience and a general scramble occurred. When it was noised about that Fer-Don was throwing money away the audiences increased rapidly…gradually every home in Napa had his medicines…

…The last week he was there, Fer-Don gave away coupons with every sale. The coupons entitled the holder to an examination by one of his “European Experts.” The simple people were made to believe that they had awful diseases, and the agony that they would suffer was pictured to them by the experts. Then a ‘treatment’ was advised, and it usually ended with the victim depositing from $10 to $500 with the fakers…[T]he victims began to awaken to the fact that Fer-Don and his experts were fakers and the medicines nothing but colored water. When Fer-Don found that the people were wise, he skipped out to Petaluma. He stayed there for several weeks, then returned to Napa. Then the town authorities took up the matter and raised his license so high that he had to leave town.

Normally Ferdon would milk a large metro area like Seattle for weeks or months, but the heat generated by the Star series drove him out after a few days. He made brief stops in Everett, Washington and Medford, Oregon, where his fake news stories boasted of his great cures (epic tapeworms mentioned, as always) but also included a new claim of being persecuted by busybodies: “[E]nmity always follows success, and there is always a certain class of humanity ready to cry ‘humbug,’ ‘fake,’ and ‘quack,’ but such howlers and defamers of honest characters are very seldom successful in any line of business because they do not attend to their own. They are too busy sticking their noses into the affairs of others.”

Two weeks later he was in Spokane, where the Spokane Press followed the Seattle Star in exposing his fraud in front page stories. “The ‘marvelous cures’ that he is alleged to have performed by his ‘psychic,’ ‘magnetic’ or ‘mesmeric’ process of ‘bloodless surgery’ have been heralded in large double column display ads in some of the papers, and the ‘wonderful’ Fer-Don has been preparing to rake in the shekels, as he has in the past, where exposure has not been present to lay bare his game. The Press was offered his advertising and refused it.”

The Spokane paper also offered an interesting tidbit about what happened after Ferdon left Santa Rosa: He tried to setup operations in Sacramento, but the City Council there moved quickly to get rid of him, passing a special ordinance requiring a $100/day license for any “medical minstrel shows.”

Even though Ferdon wasn’t in Spokane long, the muckraking newspaper kept the story alive. They found a woman from Pomona, California who had been diagnosed with “nervous trouble” by one of his “Experts” and her husband had raised the money for Ferdon’s treatment. Later the couple consulted a real physician who discovered she had an incurable tumor (which might have been breast cancer, judging from the newspaper’s description): “It was just too late then to effect a cure and leave her a whole woman, though had your Mr. Dunning been a physician he would have discovered the trouble in time to have given her a chance.”

That March, 1910 item in the Spokane Press was the paper’s last exclusive about Ferdon’s misdeeds; by April, the Great Fer-Don and his band of fraudsters were fugitives and drawing the attention of more newspapers.

Ferdon’s downfall began with a warrant from Everett, WA charging him with practicing medicine without a license; also wanted on a criminal charge was one of his staff, William Ramsey. By the end of April, the Sacramento grand jury indicted Ferdon and H. Thayer Thornberg, another associate, for obtaining money under false pretenses. And sometime around this period, Dr. Seth Wells, Ferdon’s main accomplice (see Part I) lost his Utah medical license after a conviction for assault.

Thornberg went to trial in June, where the prosecution presented evidence that Ferdon’s “medicine” for gallstone cure was 98 percent water with the rest being alcohol and coloring. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years in prison.

Meanwhile, “Where is Fer-Don?” articles began popping up in Utah, California and Washington papers. The Los Angeles Police Department was keeping a close eye on his home. Ferdon and crew, however, were hiding in plain sight; in June and July they were up to their usual business in Salem, Oregon. To accompany his fake news articles there, the Daily Capital Journal even ran two pictures of “Fer-Don,” the only time known his photograph appeared in a newspaper.

By the summer of 1910, there can be no doubt that the publishers of the Press Democrat and Santa Rosa Republican knew Ferdon was running a con game, and a potentially deadly one at that. Items about the police pursuit and the Thornberg trial had appeared in the San Francisco and Oakland papers, as well as in other well-read dailies from Sacramento and Los Angeles. The criminal charge against his associate, William Ramsey, even had been filed by someone in Santa Rosa. And, at the risk of projecting modern ethics onto the past, the editors had to realize that Ferdon had committed wrongs far worse than the objectives of usual medicine advertising, which was selling harmless, inexpensive snake oil to rubes – and he had done these bad things with their collaboration. At the very least, one might hope that editors Finley and Lemmon also recalled all the serious diseases that Ferdon’s “Experts” claimed to cure in the news-advertisements that appeared in their papers, and wanted to alert subscribers that any diagnosis and treatment was probably bogus. But not one word, as far as I can determine, ever appeared in either Santa Rosa newspaper to discredit him in any way. No mention of warrants or other legal woes, not even the complaint made against Ferdon’s accomplice came from someone right here in town. Once his show left Santa Rosa, he was never written of again. It was a second, and fundamentally worse, betrayal of their public trust.

Thornberg’s conviction marked the end of “The Great Fer-Don,” but there was a footnote of sorts: In December his wife, Mrs. Alpha Ferdon, made a plea deal in Sacramento to pay a $1,000 fine for “conspiracy to commit a felony through fake cures.” Her husband received the same offer but did not appear in court. Alpha paid another $1,000 for his bail, which was forfeited.

Fer-Don the “European Medical Expert” agent might be dead, but long live “The Great Lavita.” Through a 1912 Illinois medical newsletter and a Tacoma newspaper we find Ferdon and Seth Wells were still partners, this time Wells posing as Dr. A. E. Williams who treated the sick using the “marvelous Lavita method.” Except for the lack of the medicine show angle, it was identical to the Fer-Don scam; placement of fake news articles, bloodless surgery, wonderful cures, and as always, descriptions of a lady thrusting into the doctor’s hands a jar containing a monstrous tapeworm.

By at least 1914, Ferdon had changed persona yet again and emerged as “The Great Pizaro” (sometimes Pizarro). While the Fer-Don scam undoubtedly made him rich, being Pizaro kept him more-or-less out of trouble with the law, and it was something he enjoyed doing: Pitch man for an old-fashioned traveling medicine show, with musical and comic acts. There is available a wonderful first-hand account of the show from someone who worked for it as a child: “We basked in the lurid flames of the gasoline torches for the big evening performance. We helped to hand out free samples and pass along the bottles containing tapeworms purged from local citizens now able to live full and happy lives again for the first time in seven years….”

(RIGHT: Worker setting up the stage for the Pizaro Cactus Juice Show, c. 1920. Photo courtesy Durham County, North Carolina library collection)

This time he sold homemade nostrums such as “Cactus Juice Compound,” mineral salts, and his “Great Catarrh Remedy” (which the Cleveland Board of Health had analyzed and found to contain just soda, borax, and salt) but what he was really selling was nostalgia for the old-timey form of entertainment. Through that means he also gained a kind of respectability. He appeared in the 1920 census as a “manufacture of medicine” living in a very nice house in Hollywood, just off Sunset Boulevard. Billboard magazine reported on his comings and goings as they did all legit traveling performers: “Jim Ferdon (Great Pizarro) was wintering in Galveston, Texas” (1938) … “Mr. and Mrs. James Ferdon have opened their med show in Reading Pa., after spending a profitable and pleasant winter in the Sunny South. Mrs. Ferdon reveals that Sunshine Sal and Her Little Pal, of radio fame in the South, are none other than herself and daughter, Barbara Ann. They will be with the Piazaro med opera this summer” (1942).

Until his death in 1944, Ferdon toured the country with his Pizaro show, except for the three years he served in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. The Great Paul/Fer-Don/Lavita/Pizaro had yet another alias: inmate #23328. In 1924 he and four others – including Seth Wells – were convicted of “oil promotion fraud.” No other details of the scam can be found, but if Ferdon was behind it, you just know that a jar filled with tapeworms was involved somehow.

BLOODLESS OPERATION PERFORMED
UPON  PROMINENT EUREKA PHYSICIAN BY FER-DON’S EUROPEAN MEDICAL EXPERT
Dr. Goyer Has Large Tumor Removed to Test Bloodless Surgery–No Knife Was Used

“As we grow older we grow wiser,” is a saying that has followed humanity down the corridors of the centuries. True in every department of life, it is especially true with reference to the science of medicine and surgery. Never since the world began has medicine and surgery been reduced to such an exact science as at present and never have there been so many improvements and discoveries as within the past few years. All of the great discoveries in medicine and surgery have been by European doctors. Prof. Koch of Berlin, Germany, discovered the germ of consumption and other death dealing germs. Dr. Lorenz of Vienna, Austria, discovered bloodless surgery, whereby cripples, paralytics, hip joint disease, tumors, gallstones and appendicitis and diseases of women could be cured without the use of the knife. American physicians who for years have resorted to the knife and still keep in the same old rut today with their foggy ideas, are slow to recognized the new methods of the European Experts. It was left to Dr. Lorenz and the Great Fer-Don to bring into America the new method. To see is to believe and there are thousands who have seen and do believe; thousands who have been drawn from the yawning mouth of the sepulchre and restored to perfect health and happiness.

Eureka Physician Tests Method.

Among the many who came to test the healing power of these European Medical Experts and Bloodless surgeons who are now demonstrating upon the sick, crippled, and afflicted every day, there came one of Eureka’s most prominent physicians, who for years has enjoyed a successful practice. His reputation as a physician and surgeon has spread throughout the Sate of California and extended into other States. Broad minded, good natured, liberal in thoughts and deeds, he has won for himself many friends in Eureka. Dr. Goyer is his name. “For years I could have removed it myself with a knife if I could have got at it. I have heard whereby that tumors could be removed without the knife by the European Expert’s methods. I went and saw for myself. I am always willing to yield to science, and made up my mind to have my tumor removed by the Bloodless method. I am over 70 years old and I had confidence in Fer-Don and his experts. Well, it took about six minutes for Fer-Don’s European doctors to remove my tumor. No knife was used and no blood. I am perfectly satisfied. I am a practicing physician here in Eureka and have lived here for years.”

Fer-Don in speaking of the case said: “Each day hundreds of people are cured by my doctor’s method and many local physicians come to us in different cities we have visited. We removed a cancer from a prominent physician in Dallas, Texas. “You see,” said Fer-Don, “my office is crowded with sick. We will be in Santa Rosa at the Rex hotel for some time yet, then we go back to our main headquarters at 933 Market street, San Francisco.”

– Press Democrat, January 8, 1909

THREW THE MONEY AWAY
THE GREAT FER-DON ASTOUNDED A LARGE CROWD OF SANTA ROSA CITIZENS LAST NIGHT BY THROWING AWAY HANDFULS OF SILVER DIMES, QUARTERS, HALVES AND DOLLARS–VERITABLE SHOWER OF SILVER–DEMONSTRATIONS AND AN EXCELLENT SINGING SHOW ON THE BILL THIS WEEK

The Great Fer-Don, lecturer, traveler and philanthropist, the man, who, with his brother, has caused more comment than any other man who has [illegible microfilm] Oakland and San Francisco, is a man of many parts. During his stay many things have brought his name and his deeds to public notice. Last night on Fourth street he added yet to the entertainment by throwing broadcast into the crowd, money in handfuls until the air seemed filled with a shower of silver. To an observer it looked as if more than a hundred dollars must have been scattered in this way. It has also been whispered about that Fer-Don has assisted, in his own way in relieving a great deal of distress among the poor and sick of Santa Rosa. Presents of food, money and medicines have gladdened the hearts of many of the poor and many over whom the darkness of poverty and despair had settled found Fer-Don always ready to shed the sunshine of real help across their path.

Some people insist that Fer-Don is a spendthrift in throwing away money and in disposing of it so indiscriminately among those who need it, while others, wiser perhaps, say that all this is but bread cast upon the waters, to return in two ways; first, in the consciousness that he is doing real good; second, in the golden stream which flows into his coffers from the sale of his remedies, and which has made him the millionaire he is reputed to be.

At any rate the sales of these remedies all over the country are so great that Fer-Don is enabled to have the European Medical Expert, who accompanies him, treat all who come to their offices at the Rex Hotel, 533½ Fourth street, just for the cost of the medicines alone during the week. And here probably in making the cost of treatment so low, as these experts do is the most good done, for many who are sufferers from chronic diseases who would probably not be able to pay the price asked by most specialists are taking advantage of these low rates.

The Great Fer-Don will hold another entertainment tonight. Fer-Don does not lecture of sell medicine on Sunday  [illegible microfilm] troupe that accompany give an entertainment on that evening.

– Press Democrat, January 10, 1909
A SILVER SHOWER PARADE
THROWS MONEY AWAY AND CREATES BIG EXCITEMENT IN SANTA ROSA
The Great Fer-Don Greeted by Crowds of People Saturday Night–A prominent Lady Relieved on Monster Tape Worm.

The newspapers have been making announcements daily of the arrival of the great Fer-Don, the man who had caused the whole of Europe and America  to talk about his wonderful medical discoveries and the citizens have been patiently waiting for his arrival in our city.

There were thousands of people out Saturday night to see and greet this great man, who is noted for his charitable deeds to the poor and afflicted, and they say that he has given away hundreds of dollars to the poor and destitute of Los Angeles and Oakland.

His name there is a household word. All men, women and children know him by his kindness and deeds, and they say he has won a warm spot in the hearts of many of the people of Los Angeles and vicinity.

Fer-Don will be long remembered here in our city, especially by the young people, for Saturday night, just about 7 o’clock, Ferdon was escorted to the Pavillion Rink by his band.

Fer-Don amused himself by throwing handful after handful of money to the vast crowd that followed the parade. The amount Fer-Don threw away nobody knows, but a banker who saw the silver shower estimated the sum at one to two hundred dollars.

When Fer-Don arrived at the show he was greeted by 3000 people, and when he appeared upon the stage he held his audience spell bound by his magnetic manner and eloquent flow of speech. The audience was interested and pleased, as we could tell by the expressions on their faces.

Fer-Don told of his great success in San Francisco and Los Angeles, gave one testimonial after another with the names and addresses of people cured of rheumatism, stomach trouble, tumors, gall stones, tape worms and cancers and then he asked for people to come upon the platform to test the methods of his wonderful treatment.

Crowds Eager to Buy

When Fer-Don offered his remedies for sale, everybody wanted to try the remedies and secure a card to consult the European Medical Expert about his method of healing the sick.

Office at 533½ Fourth street Crowded

Saturday was a busy day for the European doctor. Over sixty people called to see the doctor, some on canes, others on crutches. One old lady was carried on a cot. Some were cured then and there, others were much benefited. One prominent lady came and asked to see the European doctor and was told she must wait her turn. She replied, “I must see him at once, as I have something here in this glass jar for him.” When admitted to the doctor’s office she explained that she had been suffering stomach trouble for a long time; appetite was irregular, stomach would bloat and swell after eating, was very dizzy at times, also hot and cold flashes would come over her. She tried different medicines, but none seemed to do her any good. “My husband attended the show one night last week and brought home a bottle of Fer-Don’s Medical Compound. I have taken only four doses of the medicine and to my surprise I was delivered of a monster parasite which measured 30 feet in length.” The lady is well known here and left the worm with the doctor here for exhibition.

The great Fer-Don will deliver another lecture tonight and every night this week at the Pavillion Rink.

Ladies’ Woodsawing Contest Tonight

Fer-Don will give the best lady woodsawer a prize of five dollars in gold tonight at the show. A number of prominent ladies have entered the contest.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 11, 1909
FER-DON IS LIBERAL
MIRACULOUS SIGHTS
Crowds of People Saw Fer-Don Each Evening in Spite of the Rain
THOUSANDS MADE HAPPY BY FER-DON’S LIBERALITY — CHILDREN’S DAY AND THEATER PARTY BIG SUCCESS — MANY PROMINENT CITIZENS TELL PUBLIC OF MIRACULOUS CURES

Local people claimed Fer-Don was a passing fad, and would soon wear out. The facts are that Fer-Don and the European Medical Experts are growing more and more interesting each day; many cures are added to the list  and it is almost impossible to find a man or woman or child in Santa Rosa who is not a staunch and true friend of the Great Fer-Don. Fer-Don, by his charitable deeds and liberal way to the public, has gained for him a warm spot in the heart of the many citizens.

Takes Children to Theater

Today Fer-Don entertained over 500 children, taking them to the Richter theater and picture shows. Fer-Don’s love and fondness for children has been the talk of all the large cities he has visited.

A thousand people saw Fer-Don last night. The music and entertainment was highly appreciated.

Fer-Don Headquarters Crowded Daily

At the office in the Rex Hotel Fer-Don’s European Medical Expert is kept busy. It is estimated that three hundred persons called at his office Saturday to take treatment with the expert.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 16, 1909
BEWARE OF FRAUDS AND IMITATORS
THE GREAT FER-DON’S PHENOMENAL SUCCESS BRING TO LIGHT RANK IMITATORS WHO CLAIM TO BE BLOODLESS SURGEONS
ONLY GENUINE BLOODLESS SURGEONS ON THE COAST–NOW AT 533 1-2 FOURTH STREET, SANTA ROSA CAL.

The successful man is always the mark for imitators and impostors, who hope to build up a business through the great popularity and success of the one imitated. That is one of the penalties of greatness, and the public is warned against those who have recently established themselves in the vicinity of Oakland and San Francisco, claiming to be practitioners of bloodless surgery. The Great Fer-Don, at the cost of thousands of dollars, has alone bought these secrets and has engaged the only bloodless surgeons now practicing in America.

No one in need of the services of Fer-Don’s European Experts or Bloodless Surgeons can afford to trifle with imposters. Health is too valuable an asset to lose by dealing with imitators who have no knowledge of what they claim and hope to succeed only by false allegations in diverting the people away from the real and only specialists of this character, who are now located at 533½ Fourth street.

For two years or more the Great Fer-Don and his large staff of eminent experts have engaged in the practice of bloodless surgery through California. In Los Angeles, where they were most successful for one year, rank imitators sprang up in various parts of the city. Like the mushroom, they came and died in a day.

No real merit to their claims, no basis for their existence, they faded away like the mist before the noonday sun. Imitations may be the sincerest flattery, but not at all times, and the Great Fer-Don is doing a real service to mankind when he sends out warnings to beware of the “imitators.”

COMPARE AND CONSULT TESTIMONIALS OFFERED

Get at the bottom. See and judge for yourself. Call on Mr. W. H. Harvey of 264 Eureka street, San Francisco, whom Fer-Don relieved of over 200 gall stones after one treatment.

[..]

These are facts–these testimonials can be verified–these are no mythical persons. They are stories of the phenomenal success of the Great Fer-Don, a marvelous record of a marvelous man, and in the face of these statements you cannot afford to take chances on the wile and unfounded claims of others who fraudulently claim to be what they are not.

PIG GIVEN AWAY TONIGHT

The show at the rink had a good crowd, in spite of the bad weather. Tonight the pig will be given away. The person winning it will be obliged to carry it out in their arms.

– Santa Rosa Republican, January 22, 1909

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A BIG WELCOME FOR THE FLIMFLAM MAN

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

The old Santa Rosa newspapers loved writing about con artists – except, of course, when the crook was an advertiser. Compare and contrast the treatments given these two stories from 1909.

There was much excitement in town when it was announced a large ranch in Glen Ellen was to be purchased and turned into the world’s only Emmanuel Sanitarium.  At the time the Emmanuel Movement was much in the news because it had developed an alcoholism treatment program (the forerunner of Alcoholics Anonymous) and it appeared the organization planned to spend lavishly here to create a luxe facility. The agent, Dr. F. Harry Williams of Chicago, made deals with contractors in Santa Rosa and Berkeley to build the place, including stables for Kentucky thoroughbreds. Williams said that a $1 million bond was in the works to pay for it all.

Come three months later, the contractors had plans ready and the purchase option was about to expire – but Williams was nowhere to be found. Both the Press Democrat and Santa Rosa Republican printed “Where is Williams?” articles, revealing that the man had been fêted by locals and the property owner even advanced him some money. It turned out to be exactly the same con game that was played in Santa Rosa just a year before, when “Baron Von Senden” fooled local real estate agents into believing he planned to buy a huge spread, generously allowing them to pamper him with fine living and the loan of a little cash. (In a wonderful believe-it-or-not twist, the Baron turned out to be an impoverished immigrant whose last job was as a San Francisco rat catcher.)

The Santa Rosa papers denounced Williams as a swindler, even though there were no legal actions taken against him. And for all the fuss, there really wasn’t all that much harm done, except for the waste of several contractor’s time and the loss of (apparently) a small sum loaned by the property owner. This is in sharp contrast to how both newspapers treated James M. Ferdon, a huckster who called himself “The Great Fer-Don.” He conned people out of fairly large amounts of money, probably shortened the lives of a few, and was pursued by the law in at least three states. Yet readers of the Santa Rosa papers knew none of this, perhaps because this con man spent lots of money on ads.

The tale of Jim Ferdon is introduced here and continues in the following essay; it’s an amazing story that has never been completely told anywhere. He started out as a medicine show man, much like The Great McGonigle character played by W. C. Fields in his 1934 comedy “The Old Fashioned Way.” In the years around the turn of the century, local newspapers would first announce a famed expert was coming to town. There would be a free show of some kind and afterwards the audience would have the opportunity to purchase a miraculous nostrum that promised to cure what-ails-you. “Blood purifiers” were popular, and Ferdon’s specialty was the elimination of tapeworms; he would flourish a glass jar with a leviathan floating inside and say it was a gift thrust into his hands by a grateful customer from the next town over.

Selling colored water (or in Ferdon’s case, probably a laxative) as “medicine” is dishonest, but it isn’t what made Ferdon a monster. He crossed that line when he stopped peddling one-dollar bottles of ineffective-but-harmless remedies and began claiming he knew how to painlessly cure cancer and other serious diseases, at fees that probably cost some people everything they had – and not least of it, left victims believing they were cured and didn’t need to seek actual medical help.

Part of the story is also about the role newspapers played in Ferdon’s potentially deadly con game. In some papers, his advertisements didn’t look like ads; they appeared to be regular news articles, although the text was boilerplate provided by Ferdon with a few local details sprinkled in. Other publishers read his outrageous claims and refused to participate in a scam intended to defraud – and maybe, kill – the paper’s readers; most happily took his blood money, and he apparently paid quite, quite well.

Jim Ferdon was probably crooked from the first moment after his birth in 1870. His earliest career is documented in “Snake Oil, Hustlers And Hambones” by Ann Anderson, which is the definitive reference work on the medicine shows. Ferdon was apparently still in his teens when he began working for one of the most well-known medicine showmen, Nevada Ned, who made a popular cold remedy using sweetened milk and cocaine. He also worked in another troupe as the “Boy Wonder,” then struck out on his own and came up with the idea of pretending to be a trustworthy Quaker by the name of “Brother Paul.” Ferdon probably lifted the idea from another medicine show fake Quaker called “Brother John,” who toured under the professional name “The Great Kamama” and always made his entrance in a chariot pulled by four horses. (I am gobsmacked that anyone once walked on this earth who actually had the thought, “I will fool more people into believing I am a Quaker by calling myself ‘The Great Kamama’ and driving a horse-drawn chariot.”)

Ferdon created the Quaker Medicine Company with a failed doctor named J. I. Berry, the two of them wearing wide-brimmed hats and clothes that looked Quaker-ish. Writes Anderson:


Soon they were “theeing and thou-ing” all over the continental United States. Ferdon usually botched the Quaker language, saying things like, “Where’s thou’s baggage?” When questioned. he’d say. “I have lived so long among the world’s people that I have had much of my orthodoxy wore off of me.” Ferdon’s pious act kept the city leaders at bay. He often got away without having to pay a license fee. Timing his appearance just after the harvest, Ferdon caught farmers in a relatively unhurried and introspective mood. They were in a frame of mind to consider their aches and pains, real or imaginary, and spring for a liniment or tonic.

Ferdon and Berry claimed that their special mineral water was discovered by prospectors in the Panamint mountains in Death Valley. One swig was the recommended dose for indigestion caused by a diet of sourdough and pork. A spoonful of the desert salts mixed with a gallon of spring water would replicate the water from their secret spring. Their so-called Quaker remedies were supposedly produced by a genius botanist in either Bucks County, Pennsylvania, or Cincinnati. depending on what came into Ferdon’s head while he was lecturing. Quaker Botanical Herbs were to be mixed with eight ounces of whiskey or gin and a quart of water. The resulting mixture tasted awful, but never failed to clean out the user’s intestinal tract in a frightening hurry.

The Quaker ruse may have lent some credibility to sell snake oil to rubes but Ferdon was often in trouble with the law, with a 1906 medical journal noting he had been arrested some fifty times for failing to obtain a license or illegally practicing medicine. That year was also the beginning of the end for all medicine shows, as passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act required ingredients be shown on the label; no more selling ethanol dressed up with a few flavorings as “medicine.” Ferdon’s Quaker show also had numerous imitators – including one with an actual Quaker. It was time to invent a new scam. Inspiration apparently tumbled from the pages of a newspaper.

That summer, newspapers across America carried news that Lolita Armour had been miraculously cured by a European specialist. The young daughter of meatpacking tycoon Philip Armour was born with a dislocated hip and Dr. Adolf Lorenz, known as “the bloodless surgeon of Vienna,” was called upon to treat her. Lorenz was a pioneer in non-surgical orthopedics, where congenital bone deformities and other problems are fixed by using plaster casts or traction. The idea fired the popular imagination; a story soon followed claiming Lorenz was also treating the little daughter of Andrew Carnegie for the exact same condition, which wasn’t at all true – the child was observed limping from a sprained ankle – but shows the public wanted to hear more about the miracle cure (and just maybe, some gratification that ultra-rich families had private sufferings). Inspired, Ferdon grasped that all the public seemed to remember was that there were European experts who could perform surgery without cutting, somehow. And thus a new field of quackery was invented.

A year later in the summer of 1907, we pick up his trail through the Salt Lake City newspapers. Ferdon had met a Dr. Seth M. Wells and enlisted him into the scheme, dubbing him “Boy Phenomenal.” (His “Boy Phenomenal” was not to be confused with better-known “Boy Phenomenon,” who ran a magnetic healing con in the Midwest at the same time.) His new show included the “Diamond Cluster” band which would toodle lively tunes before Ferdon promised miracle cures to be had from the “Fer-Don Medical Experts” now seeing patients at rooms in a nearby hotel. “Bloodless surgery” was prominently mentioned in the advertisements, as was the claim that Boy Phenomenal could even cure cancer.

Business must have been great. Another member of the troupe was “The Marvelous Lopez,” a 26 year-old osteopath named Earl S. Beers. After only a month Ferdon sent him to Ogden, Utah, to open a Boy Phenomenal franchise there. Alas, this satellite office did not long endure; Dr. Beers was beaten to death that September by a husband who discovered the good doctor having an affair with his wife.

Faced with headlines describing Boy Phenomenal being both a cad and dead, a lesser man might have tossed in the towel and sought an honest line of work. Not Jim Ferdon. In a large photo ad in the Salt Lake City Tribune shown at right, it was confusingly (un)clarified that “Dr. Wells was until recently the Boy Phenomenal. He dropped that name because of the disgrace which was brought upon it by the Dr. Beers murder in Ogden.”

It was likely the big advertisement that caused more trouble; Wells was recognized as a fugitive. In 1902, he was arrested for performing an illegal operation (read: abortion) on a woman in Logan, Utah and skipped bail. Now arrested again, he appealed for a new trial and freed on a $1,000 bond as Wells and Ferdon headed to California. Farewell, Boy Phenomenal; Wells was henceforth “the European Medical Expert.”

It’s pretty easy to track The Great Fer-Don over the year that followed. In even the fragmented digital newspapers archives currently available he can be found all over the state, although he mainly stuck around Los Angeles. There’s even a photo of the band from this period taken in Eureka. It was inevitable that eventually his troupe would descend on Santa Rosa, and in the early weeks of 1909, so they did.

WILL BUILD A BIG SANITARIUM
Company Purchases the Dr. C. C. O’Donnell Ranch at Glen Ellen–Extensive Plans

Arrangements were completed yesterday whereby the United States Sanitarium Company purchased Dr. C. C. O’Donnell’s 170-acre ranch at Glen Ellen. Dr. O’Donnell and F. H. Williams, of San Francisco, the latter representing the company were in Santa Rosa yesterday on business connected with the deal, which involves a large sum of money.

The company proposes to erect a large sanitarium on the place in addition to other large buildings. The deal includes the buildings at present on the ranch, with the exception of the O’Donnell residence which the well known physician reserved.

It is announced that the sanitarium will be known as the “Emmanuel Sanitarium,” and it is proposed to follow out the plan of the “Emmanuel Movement,” which is at present attracting so much attention throughout the country and abroad.

On the O’Donnell place are a number of springs famed for their curative agencies, and the number has lately been increased by the discovery of other springs. It is proposed to spend a large sum of money in the ornamentation of the grounds about that sanitarium, which will be located amid the rural scenery that makes the beautiful Sonoma Valley famous. There are many plans that will be developed along this line. The United States Sanitarium Company is now floating bonds in the east for the carrying out of its extensive project on the O’Donnell place. In company with Attorney Alexander Bruce of this city, Dr. O’Donnell and Mr. Williams drove to Glen Ellen yesterday afternoon.

– Press Democrat, March 20, 1909
HOT-AIR FOUNDATION FOR ‘EMMANUEL SANITARIUM’
Now Where is ‘Dr.’ F. Harry Williams Hiding Himself?

Where is F. Harry Williams. doctor of laws and doctor of medicine? He claimed to be both lawyer and doctor when one day five months ago he came to Santa Rosa. Shortly before he departed it was he who gave out the wonderful story that he represented the United States Sanitarium Company, an organization of capitalists, almost as wealthy as old John D. himself, which had purchased Dr. C. C. O’Donnell’s ranch and other property at Glen Ellen for $75,000 for the purpose of erecting an Emmanuel Sanitarium thereon. It was to be a  princely institution and the only one of its kind in the country.

Williams told how it was the intention of his company to float a million dollars in bonds at once for the purpose of making the O’Donnell ranch like unto a paradise, and while not exactly paving the streets with gold, to have them paved with asphaltum; and all that beauty and that wealth o’er gave would be found, he said, at the Emmanuel Sanitarium and its park grounds. As to the price paid for the ranch–or rather what Williams said he was willing to pay–the bombastic fellow said $75,000 was a mere bagatelle.

The proposition and price looked good to Dr. O’Donnell, and it is said that it did not take much coaxing on the part of Williams to get an option and a contract to purchase for that figure out of the doctor, who knows a good thing when he sees it. Williams and Dr. O’Donnell drew up the agreement in the office of Alexander Bruce the erstwhile Santa Rosa attorney now sought elsewhere. Bruce assisted Williams in describing all the glories of the wonderland that was to be made out of the partially-barren O’Donnell ranch. He claimed to have made a nice pile out of the sale of the premises.

But so much for this immense institution and the immense capital back of it. Where is F. Harry Williams? Dr. O’Donnell would like to know. So would Contractor Frank A. Sullivan of Santa Rosa, who got a thirty thousand dollar contract from Williams to erect the sanitarium building and whose time and brainwork in drawing a splendid set of plans are still unpaid for. An abstract concern in Santa Rosa has a little bill for an abstract amounting to $250 which it would like settled; then there is a man here from whom Williams secured $250, who is just as anxious for its return; and still further there is Contractor Armstrong in Berkeley, to whom Williams awarded a contract to construct a bridge across Sonoma Creek to make the sanitarium easy of access, he wants to see Williams very much.

Contractor Sullivan stated Monday night that he did not hesitate in branding Williams a “fakir,” and said further that he ought to be arrested. Dr. O’Donnell said he has been buncoed and that they all think likewise is common report.

When Williams first called on Dr. O’Donnell  at Glen Ellen he brought letters of recommendation from prominent San Francisco lawyers and doctors. When the bargain was struck Williams made frequent trips to Glen Ellen. Just as frequently Dr. O’Donnell met him at the depot and hurried him to his residence in an automobile, where he was wined and dined, the man with the ranch for sale sparing no expense with a $75,000 largess in sight.

In addition to the sanitarium buildings, Williams wanted first-class stables erected for the thoroughbred stock that was coming from Kentucky. Then, as detailed, the contracts for the sanitarium buildings and the bridge and other improvements were let.

The option on the place expired on June 6. A day or two before its expiration Williams sent Dr. O’Donnell  a polite note telling him to have the deeds and abstract and everything ready by the following Saturday, as he was coming to Glen Ellen with the coin.

“Let me know by return, doctor,” he wrote, “as to whether you would like the %75,000 all in cash or part in cash and certificate of deposit. Possibly you may not like to have all that money about with you in the country.” Since then the doctor has not heard anything from him.

They say, too, that Williams got a little advance in coin from Dr. O’Donnell. The doctor admits that he advanced something, but how much deponent sayeth not. He agrees that he was “held up.” He has also investigated the glowing testimonials that Williams presented to him when he first came to see him regarding the buying of the ranch, and discovered, it is reported, that in each instance the names had been used without consent. He is in a quandry as to what to do. He has posted notices on his place to the effect that no material must be dumped theron, and if it is, he will not be responsible for it. Sullivan says “fakir.” Dr. O’Donnell  says “bunco.” Glen Ellen has its biggest sensation and the Emmanuel Sanitarium is not even founded upon the sand, rather on “hot air.”

– Press Democrat, June 29, 1909

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THE YEAR THE 1906 EARTHQUAKE ENDED

Jeff Elliott Leave a comment

It took about 3½ years, but the dust of the 1906 Santa Rosa earthquake finally settled in late 1909, with symbolic milestones and the ending of legal disputes (mostly).


* There was finally victory in the earthquake insurance wars, after Superior Court Judge Seawell denied the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company a new trial. Poor Frank Loomis only wanted a thousand bucks for his losses in the disaster but he was among a handful of Santa Rosa businessmen who had the misfortune to be insured by Connecticut Fire, which refused every claim because of a policy loophole. The Loomis case was the last to be heard by Sonoma County Superior Court, and his was also apparently the very last of the earthquake suits to be settled. The insurance company appealed the judge’s denial of a new trial, and the matter wasn’t finally, finally resolved until June, 1911, five years and two months after the quake. That’s too bad for Mr. Loomis, but the appeal preserved valuable transcripts of the court testimony with first-hand accounts of the immediate aftermath of the quake. For completeness’ sake and to aid future researchers, here are links to decisions and testimony in the Davis case (settled by the State Supreme Court in 1910, with background discussed here); the Fountain case (settled by the Appeals Court in 1910); and the Moodey case (settled by the State Supreme Court in 1911, with background discussed here and the full Appellate Court decision found in the April 21, 1910 Press Democrat).

* Santa Rosa was getting an attaboy from the Southern Pacific railway, publisher of the nationally-read travel magazine “The Sunset.” Within weeks of the disaster, the popular journal had published a special San Francisco issue spinning a revisionist version of events and claiming the scary earthquake did little damage compared to the fires, a PR campaign that successfully kept the trains filled with tourists. Here the local Chamber of Commerce issued a press release a few months after the quake claiming that Santa Rosa was back to normal, which was a pack of lies. Now that the place was truly pretty much put back to right, the magazine wanted a statistic on building permits. And the numbers were indeed impressive: Over 1,000 permits since the quake.

* A beautiful new county courthouse again dominated Santa Rosa and was nearly finished, but not without controversy. The grand jury complained that the final price was about 45 percent over the contract bid, forcing District Attorney Lea to investigate and report that no, there was no graft or fraud behind the cost overruns, and yes, all that marble and scagliola was more expensive than expected. Hey, once they changed the design from ceramic floor tiles to marble mosaic flooring, naturally they just had to change the plain ol’ flat ceiling into a vaulted ceiling that cost about three thousand dollars more – right?

If the new courthouse was a potent symbol of the future, the temporary courthouse was an unpleasant reminder of the post-quake disarray, and the city was eager to have it torn down as soon as everyone was moved out. There are no photographs of the place (that I know of) but it certainly wasn’t much to look at; from the outside it must have resembled a large farm implement shed with its corrugated iron roof. Together, the temporary courthouse and recorder’s office matched the footprint of today’s U.S. Bank building on the 3rd street side of Old Courthouse Square. It was sold for $576 to a man who wanted to build a large barn in Rincon Valley.

* The strange matter of the Peacock inheritance at last was resolved in 1909 (legal discussion here). Briefly, Mr. and Mrs. William Peacock died together in the collapse of a Santa Rosa hotel during the earthquake but they left separate wills, where each made their spouse first heir. Thus even if they died together, it had to be determined which Peacock died last, as that was the will that would prevail. There was not a great fortune involved but the money was split up differently among their children. The state inheritance tax appraiser declared Mr. Peacock died last, but goddess knows how he made that determination.

Without swimming deep into genealogical waters, it’s impossible to determine who got what. In the 1907 reporting there are two children; in the 1909 story below there are three. The earlier Press Democrat article names Mrs. Ada Baptiste as the wife’s daughter by a previous marriage, and here the PD states she is the husband’s prior daughter. That both Peacocks had children from a previous marriage is just part of the confusion; Mrs. Peacock was the sister of the first Mrs. Peacock, which meant that the two (three?) girls were simultaneously cousins, aunts or nieces.

(RIGHT: Postcard of the entrance hall of the palatial Sonoma County Court House. Note the elaborate compass rose inlayed in the marble floor. TAP or CLICK to enlarge)

ONE THOUSAND BUILDING PERMITS SINCE QUAKE

At the request of the Southern Pacific Company Building Inspector F. E. Cherry has furnished it with figures showing the number of building permits issued since the earthquake of April 18th, 1906. The railroad company intends to use this data for advertising purposes. In Mr. Cherry’s report it shows that during the year 1906 after the April disaster, there were 322 permits issued and aggregated $759,745. In 1907 there were 300 permits and the value of the buildings was $300,000. In the two following years 891 and 200 permits were granted, making in all 1011 permits issued since the earthquake.

– Santa Rosa Republican, November 9, 1909
DO YOU WANT TO BUY A COURT HOUSE

Do you want to buy a Courthouse? If you do, send in your bid right away to the Board of Supervisors. Tomorrow they are to open bids for the old building, with the natural redwood finish, which has done duty as an administration building sine the disaster of 1906.  There is all kinds of wood in the building. Of course, it will not be vacated right away for in the new building there is quite a little fixing to be done yet.

– Press Democrat, November 3, 1909

OLD COURTHOUSE IS SOLD HERE FOR $576
Several Bids Received by the Board of Supervisors Wednesday and G. H. Wymore is the Purchaser

The old courthouse, the temporary structure at present occupied by the county officers, was sold by the Board of Supervisors on Wednesday to Geo. H. Wymore for $576. He was the highest bidder.

Bids were opened Wednesday morning and were as follows…

When the old courthouse is vacated for the new Sonoma County Courthouse, Wymore will tear it down. He will have a big pile of lumber. He will use it to build a large barn on the Wymore place in Rincon Valley.

– Press Democrat, November 4, 1909
DECIDES WIFE WAS THE FIRST TO DIE
Ruling In the Case of Contractor and Mrs. William Peacock Who Were Killed Here in April, 1906

Judicially it has been determined that Mrs. Matilda F. Peacock died prior to her husband, William Peacock, a building contractor, both of whom lost their lives in the destruction of the old Occidental hotel in Santa Rosa on April 18, 1906. This determination is reached by the State’s inheritance tax appraiser, who Wednesday filed his report with the county clerk in San Francisco.

On this conclusion of the law Ada Baptist, a daughter of the husband, will receive $4,224.93; Ida Miller, another daughter, $2,793.64, and Margarite Miller, a third daughter, $2,791.64. The relatives of the wife will receive nothing.

Peacock at the time of the disaster was engaged in the construction of a building in Santa Rosa. A few days before the date of their deaths Mrs. Peacock went to Santa Rosa to visit her husband. She was with him in their rooms when the hotel was destroyed.

It has heretofore been a question as to which of the couple died first. Both left wills leaving their estates to one another. The husband left property valued at $21,436 and the wife $8,004.50. If the husband died first then the wife would have inherited his estate and her heirs would come in for their share of the total estate. If the wife died first, then the husband would receive her estate and only his heirs would get the benefits of the joint estates.

The investigation of the appraiser shows that Mrs. Peacock was the first to pass away, and therefore her husband received her estate and his daughters participate in the benefits.

–  Press Democrat, November 19, 1909

NEW SUIT IS DENIED
Connecticut Fire Insurance Co.’s Motion Denied

Judge Emmet Seawell filed his decision in the case of F. C. Loomis vs. the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company of Hartford, Thursday afternoon in which he denied the defendant’s motion for a new trial.

The case in question is one arising over the payment of a fire insurance policy covering the goods of Frank C. Loomis, and destroyed at the time of the earthquake and fire on April 18, 1906. The policy in question contained a nullifying clase whereby the policy was to become void if the building should fall before the goods caught fire. Under this clause the insurance company refused to pay the fire loss of one thousand dollars, the amount of the policy, claiming the goods were damaged before the fire reached them.

The case was tried in the superior court before a jury which found for the plaintiff. Several other cases have been tried in the courts of this county founded on the same insurance clause and have been appealed to the higher courts of the state which have upheld the decisions of the local Judges.

Following the decisions of the local court in the other cases tried and the decisions of the Appellate courts, which maintain that the burden of proof lies with the defendant to prove that the fire didn’t start simultaneous with the falling of the building or even before. The motion for a new trial was denied.

– Santa Rosa Republican, August 19, 1909

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