J. Frank Norfleet
Our stage is set for Cowtown and the surrounding region, 1919 et seq Fort Worth, that is, in the midst of a rambunctious industrial surge that would give rise as readily to criminal mischief as to honest enterprise.
Our protagonist is an honest and handshake-trusting livestock entrepreneur of the Texas Plains, as naive as he is ambitious. Too smart to dismiss as some honyock from the boondocks, the fellow is nonetheless seen in such a light by the greedy, grinning speculators who would sucker him into an investment scam. His ability to play the rube, the clodhopper hick-from-the-sticks, will serve him well, but only after he realizes he has been bilked, big-time — and sets out on a vigilante quest of five relentless years.
But we are getting ahead of the game, and no fair spilling the outcome before J. Franklin Norfleet has had his say in the matter. Norfleet (1865-1967) is one of the great legends, strange but truer than strange, a figure of mythological caliber who had sensed something that smelled a whole lot like easy money and followed the scent straightaway into a trap. He crawled, indignant and angry, out of that sucker-money pitfall — and then set out to sucker-bait his very tormentors into a vengeful snare. Cost him even more than his initial loss, yes, it did, but Norfleet and his wife adjusted from prosperity to humble circumstances for the long balance of his mortal span. His bizarre adventure seems to have been its own reward.
I was working in 1970 as an intern with the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society at Canyon, Texas, when Dr. H.D. Bugbee, curator of that outfit’s Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, suggested that story of Norfleet, by then recently deceased, could use some empirical research — elaborating upon, or tempering, Franklin Norfleet’s patently self-interested memoir of the 1920s.
With two credentialed historians, George E. Turner and Jerry Sinise of Southwest Heritage Magazine, I found abundant primary-source materials. The three of us set out to tell the fuller story, as gleaned from a basis in police and prison records, newspaper accounts, Norfleet’s vivid recollections, and the scenario of a never-completed motion picture called “Norfleet,” from 1929. Beyond its addition to the archives of the Panhandle-Plains Museum, our research found its way as a collaborative manuscript into Sinise’s anthology of Texana, Pink Higgins, the Reluctant Gunfighter, and Other Tales of the Panhandle (Nortex Press; 1973).
Becoming Norfleet
The Norfleet identity dates from two ancestral brothers who had sailed with Scotland’s North Fleet to America during the 17th century. Sailed, that is, until a shipwreck left only the brothers surviving, washed ashore on the coast of Virginia. The English colonists called them the Nor’fleet Boys, streamlined to Norfleet.
We can skip over a great deal of the rest, for the clan remained in Virginia until midway through the 19th century. First descendant to settle in Texas was Jasper Norfleet, who landed in Lampasas County in 1864 after a hitch in uniformed combat with the Confederate Army. J. Franklin Norfleet was born the following year to Jasper and Mary Ann Norfleet. Jasper, a rehabilitated Confederate who became a Texas Ranger, sought to develop a ranch near Fort Concho, a site plagued with chronic-to-acute wars between settlers and the indigenous Apaches, who of course had prior claim. The Norfleets found a more stable start at San Saba.
As a youngster, Franklin, or Frank, worked the dwindling buffalo ranges of the North Plains, collecting and preserving hides from an already endangered species. He exterminated coyotes for various ranches, becoming a cowhand in the process and working along trail drives across Texas. By 1886, Norfleet was working for the Snyder Bros. Cattle Co., which held lands from Austin to the Panhandle region, and helped to bring herds totaling 5,000 head from San Saba to open range between New Mexico and Littlefield, Texas. That June, Norfleet was left in charge of the cattle, a remuda of saddle horses, and uncounted, unfenced acres. His home base became Epworth, Texas — first post office settlement in Hale County — now known as Hale Center, near Plainview.
When the Snyder Bros.’ land changed hands in 1888 to the ownership of barbed-wire manufacturer Isaac Elwood, Norfleet became foreman of the resulting Spade Ranch. He built an adobe headquarters and fenced the property, adding windmills for irrigation and livestock — meanwhile buying adjacent land that eventually totaled 20,000 acres. Norfleet cultivated a forbidding, bewhiskered appearance, the better to discourage outlaws and interlopers, until 1894 when he married Mattie Eliza Hudgins, daughter of Hale County settlers. The Norfleets took up residence at the Spade Ranch headquarters. Two of their four offspring died in childhood; the others lived well into the 20th century.
Frank Norfleet became an independent rancher. He bought a footsore, underfed mare for five bucks from itinerant cowhands and nourished the creature to a ranch-worthy state. From this horse sprang Norfleet’s fabled Five-Dollar Strain, which became famous in the Panhandle-Plains area as the fastest cattle-working ponies in the industry. Norfleet cultivated a new image as a hospitable sort, as generous as he was prosperous. It was during this period that Norfleet encountered the Joe Furey mob, whose stocks-and-bonds scammers would engineer his financial wreckage.
Mule-Headed
A sideline in mule breeding kept Norfleet traveling at intervals. “It was with a carload of mules,” he wrote in a memoir, “that I had taken to Dublin, Texas, that my story begins.” Once the beasts had been delivered to an oil-boom site at Dublin, Norfleet traveled to Dallas. There, he intended to purchase a 10,000-acre tract from Capt. Dick Slaughter. Capt. Slaughter failed to keep the appointment at the St. George Hotel; had he been there as planned, Norfleet’s story might have turned out differently.
Norfleet was a gregarious fellow: “My particular knack for starting conversations with strangers is the despair of relatives and friends who would have me more conventional,” he said. While waiting for Slaughter to return to Dallas, Norfleet struck up a conversation with a man who professed to be a mule buyer from Hill County. The guy called himself R. Miller. Said Norfleet: “He could talk mules so well that never once did I suspect him of being a pretender.”
Norfleet declared his intention to sell his ranch in Hale County and buy a larger piece of land. Miller happened to have a friend who was looking for land in Texas. Said Miller, “Maybe he would be interested in your place.” As if on cue, the purported friend walked past them in the hotel lobby, and Miller (an assumed name, alias Hamlin) introduced him to Norfleet.
“They talked for a moment, and then Hamlin motioned me over, where I was introduced to W.B. Spencer.” Spencer, a dapper but seemingly aloof chap, gradually developed an interest in Norfleet’s land and said he would wire his employer in Minneapolis to ask about an acquisition. Norfleet became convinced — that is, hooked, with scarcely a doubt.
Spencer’s boss was due in Dallas. Norfleet and Spencer were waiting in chairs in the lobby of the Adolphus Hotel. Norfleet felt a lump in his chair, reached behind himself, and found a wallet. Therein, Norfleet found a Masonic Lodge card bearing the name of J.B. Stetson; $240 in greenbacks; a $100,000 bond, payable to McLean & Co.; a letter in some cryptic code; and a card listing Stetson as a member of United Brokers. The name was another ruse: The alleged J.B. Stetson (no kin to the prominent manufacturer of manly headwear) was an alias for one Joe Furey, and Spencer was an accomplice.
Norfleet determined that Stetson was a guest at the Adolphus. Norfleet and Spencer approached Stetson’s suite to ask if he had mislaid anything. Stetson, or Furey, a gruff and stocky sort, barely cracked the door — replied, “No!” — and slammed the door. As Norfleet and Spencer started toward the elevator, Stetson came running after them, shouting that he had lost a valuable pocketbook. Norfleet asked for a description, then handed the billfold to Stetson. Stetson, profuse in a show of gratitude, offered Norfleet a $100 reward, which Norfleet rejected. Spencer took a $100 offer, feigning no prior acquaintanceship with Stetson.
Stetson regarded the coded letter. “I’m mighty glad to get this back,” he said, and went through the motions of deciphering the paper. Stetson told Norfleet and Spencer to stay parked in the suite while he visited the Stock Exchange Building. Stetson returned presently and announced that he had withdrawn $20,000, then asked Norfleet: “My brother, you refused to accept the hundred dollars I offered you for finding my pocketbook. Would you mind my placing that amount on the market, and would you accept whatever it might earn?”
Baiting the Hook
Norfleet had no objection. Spencer asked Stetson to invest his $100, likewise. Stetson left again, returned again, and gave Norfleet and Spencer $800 each. They agreed to meet again the next day. The cash was the come-on. Then, Norfleet said, “Stetson took me to the Dallas Cotton Exchange Building... I later learned that it was a custom of the swindlers to [impress their prospect] with the name of a legitimate exchange... They staged their play carefully... Stetson’s credentials gave him the appearance of a gilt-edged standing.”
Norfleet was unwelcome on the exchange floor, not being a member, and Stetson suggested he wait at the hotel with Spencer. Norfleet became leery, but Spencer reassured him until Stetson rejoined them, persuading Norfleet to drop his newfound $800 on a bid. Spencer ran that errand, returning with cash earnings of $68,000 and forking over a $28,000 share to Norfleet. A new arrival, E.J. Ward, introduced himself as an Exchange honcho and demanded that Norfleet and Spencer establish their credit to the coincidental tune of $68,000.
Norfleet prepared to head homeward to Hale Center to fetch $20,000 in cash to confirm his Exchange membership. No sooner had he packed to leave Dallas, than Capt. Dick Slaughter arrived, offering a 45-day option for $5,000 on 10,000 acres. Norfleet was to pay a balance of $90,000 at the end of the option period. (Slaughter was not associated with any stock-exchange scams.)
Spencer accompanied Norfleet back to Hale Center. In a seeming coincidence, Ward — the fake Exchange official — was taking the same train to Plainview. Spencer waxed ecstatic upon viewing Norfleet’s ranch, surveying it as a legitimate land buyer would. Norfleet was asking $102,600 for his ranch, and Spencer said his employer would pay. “This greatly pleased me and my wife,” wrote Norfleet, “for we felt that I had undertaken a great deal in promising to pay $90,000 in 45 days.” The hook sunk deeper.
Norfleet borrowed $20,000 from Farmers & Mercantile Bank in Plainview, and he and Spencer headed back to Dallas. They met Ward on the train. While awaiting a conference with Stetson at Dallas’ Cadillac Hotel, Norfleet received a call from Fort Worth: Stetson had relocated to the Fort Worth Cotton Exchange. Norfleet and Spencer met Stetson at Fort Worth’s Westbrook Hotel. The three gathered the next day at the Cotton Exchange.
Stetson was busy as usual at deciphering coded messages, which he said contained orders to sell Mexican Petroleum on a two-point margin: “He suggested that we climb aboard and make something for ourselves,” said Norfleet. “Accordingly, he wrote out a bidding slip and handed it to Spencer.”
Spencer took the money thus raised, the due bill for $68,000, and the bid, and left for the Exchange. Stetson left presently. Spencer returned, looking pleased with himself. Norfleet noticed on a receipt that Spencer had bought Mexican Petroleum instead of selling. Stetson barged into the room, demanding to know what had gone awry: “Someone bought exactly the amount I had instructed to sell!” Spencer showed him the receipt.
“Why, you’ve ruined us!” Stetson raged. Spencer collapsed in a seizure of weeping hysterics — convincingly staged. Stetson rushed out, saying he would try to hedge the deal with a selling gambit. He returned with an official-looking order to sell $80,000 worth of Mexican Petroleum at a two-point margin. The men settled in to await results.
As if on cue, a fourth member of the Furey-as-Stetson gang arrived: Charles Gerber claimed to be the secretary of the Fort Worth Exchange. He said that Norfleet, Spencer, and Stetson had earned $160,000. He demanded that they must sock $80,000 into a downtown bank to prove their solvency.
Back to Hale Center
Norfleet headed back home to secure an additional $25,000, his part of the $80,000. His wife balked, but he proceeded to the bank in Plainview, where his reapplication was refused. Norfleet borrowed the sum from a brother-in-law. Back in Fort Worth, Norfleet found that Stetson had retrenched at the Dallas Exchange. Of the $80,000, only $70,000 had been raised (so Stetson allowed).
“It was agreed that Spencer should leave for Austin to raise the $10,000 and wire the amount to me... Stetson and I were to affirm our bids and collect the $160,000 from the Exchange...”
Stetson pocketed the $70,000 and agreed to meet Norfleet at the Cadillac Hotel in Dallas the next day. Stetson never showed, nor did Spencer return. Norfleet’s $45,000 had been plucked like feathers from a scalded chicken.
Norfleet’s indignation became obsessive: “Forty-five thousand dollars gone!” he repeated his wavering thoughts, from fear to near-madness. “Ninety-thousand dollars in debt! Fifty-four years old!” Regaining his composure, he ditched the remorse and self-pity and swore to track down the culprits. He told his family: “This is a big old world, but it is entirely too small for me and those crooks to live together on it in peace.” Mrs. Norfleet bade him to hup to it — she would attend to the ranching business. She cautioned him to “bring them back alive,” adding, “Any fool can kill.”
Norfleet’s first move was to invade his own privacy with statements to the Associated Press and as many newspapers as would publish his warnings. The public appeal prompted responsive letters from across the continent, many containing practical information. Mrs. Norfleet pointed him by chance to E.J. Ward and Charles Gerber. She recalled that Spencer, while visiting the ranch, had mentioned connections in every state but California: “I counted up all the states he had mentioned..., and California was the only one he had neglected. Strike you at all funny?”
It did strike Norfleet as funny, but not ha-ha funny, and he began his search at San Bernardino, reasoning, “Might as well start from the bottom of California and work up.” There, as if by chance, he found Ward and Gerber, and Christmas Eve of 1919 found them locked away in the San Bernardino Jail on accusations from Norfleet and another victimized Texan who had read Norfleet’s newspaper interviews. Ward croaked himself in jail. Gerber received a long prison sentence.
Norfleet trailed Spencer to Florida. Norfleet’s vigilante campaign found him alternating disguises — full-bearded, here, clean-shaven, there, sometimes sporting a jaunty cap in place of his usual cowboy hat, adding a bucktoothed overbite appliance when he wanted to appear as an ignorant rube. The backwoods-hick pose nearly got him killed in Florida.
Traveling now under the assumed name of Parkinson, Norfleet got himself spotted as an easy mark by another stock-syndicate huckster in Tampa. Norfleet bandied it about that he had $50,000 to invest in a celery farm, and the scout (who introduced himself by the name of Johnson) proposed instead a market investment, also suggesting a horse-betting racket. Johnson and an accomplice named Steel escorted Norfleet to a mock-exchange building, which contained a clacking telegraph wire and a blackboard of ever-shifting numerical figures. While there, the pair received a cryptic note and appeared to see through Norfleet’s disguise. They threatened him accordingly, but he got the drop on them and escaped, taking his would-be assailants as temporary hostages until he could board an outbound train. The two never had sensed that their easy mark would be packing twin .45-calibre Colts.
Norfleet had taken the note from his captives. It read: “That is Norfleet. Don’t let him get started... He’ll kill every damned one of you. Don’t let him get away, boys... — [signed] Joe.” Furey-alias-Stetson had spotted him but proved too fearful to make an approach in person.
Ranging the length and breadth of Florida and veering into Cuba, Norfleet lost Furey’s trail but found and then lost traces of Spencer. Norfleet returned to Hale Center to find a telegram from Fort Worth announcing the arrest of Hamlin, the purported mule-flesh customer.
Three Down, Two To Go
Norfleet had purchased 300 head of standard-bred cattle for $50 a head, and he sold these at a chump-change $23.75 a head to finance his remaining pursuit. He justified the loss as a righteous investment — a typical example of his neglectful business losses, from which he never recovered.
Furey’s trail ranged from San Antonio to San Francisco to an established residence in Los Angeles. Here, Norfleet met two compromised deputy sheriffs, Walter Lips and Andy Anderson, who had strongarmed a bribe to watch the Furey household in anticipation of Norfleet’s arrival late in 1920. Norfleet had encountered similar corruption in Florida — but in L.A., Lips and Anderson carried out the deceit to a greater degree. They pretended to be poised to arrest Furey, repeatedly reporting that Furey had not appeared, but spiking Norfleet’s suspicions by insisting that he stay away from the address. Although Norfleet had been granted a Texas Rangers token commission with the power to arrest, he nonetheless lacked such authority as Lips and Anderson displayed.
Other leads sent Norfleet to Tijuana, Mexico, then to San Diego. The hottest tip led Norfleet to Jacksonville, Florida — from which Furey had wired a large sum of money to his wife in Los Angeles. Norfleet arranged with the L.A. telegraph office to call him if any other such wire should come through. Thus alerted, Norfleet caught a train to Florida. He stopped off at Littlefield, Texas, and traveled back to Hale Center before resuming the journey to Florida.
Arriving at home, Norfleet found his wife had sold a favorite horse, called Hornet, for a paltry $75. (Hornet had attracted earlier offers as high as $350.) Disheartened at this development but still welcoming the cash to advance his pursuit, Norfleet heeded his wife’s insistence that he would need a helper in Florida. He took along their son, Pete.
In the lobby of Jacksonville’s Mason Hotel, Pete Norfleet spotted Furey. The Norfleets trailed the racketeer to a café. Furey, sighting his nemesis, set up a holler that Norfleet was trying to rob him. Several panicked patrons closed in on Norfleet while Furey took the nearest exit. Pete, waiting outside, nabbed Furey at gunpoint. The Norfleets hustled Furey to the hoosegow, but a crooked policeman tried to free Furey with a forged bond form. Norfleet countered by displaying a formal warrant for Furey’s arrest.
Resisting Furey’s attempts to escape while en route to Fort Worth, Norfleet listened to the charlatan’s story of his own shakedown by deputies Lips and Anderson: “They demanded $20,000 [for protection],” as Norfleet quoted Furey. “We couldn’t dig up that much.” Furey’s wife had given them $12,000. They had held Furey’s son as a hostage until Furey’s bank account yielded an additional $8,000.
Lips and Anderson, arrested in Los Angeles, landed 14 years’ residence, each, in San Quentin. Furey was sentenced to 20 years in the penitentiary at Huntsville, Texas. (As late as 1924, Norfleet found himself arguing against a parole for Lips.)
Spencer-at-Large and Growing Larger
While narrowing his focus to instigator W.B. Spencer, Norfleet learned that Hamlin had jumped bail. Hamlin was recaptured in Oklahoma City and returned to Fort Worth for trial and eventual conviction. A tip steered Norfleet onto Spencer’s flight to Canada. In Montreal, Norfleet and his son nabbed Spencer — who escaped anew and led his pursuers a quicksilver chase through New York, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, and finally Colorado.
Posing as a small-town Texan named Mulligan, Norfleet let it be known in Denver that he was expecting an oil strike on his acreage — a case of the sucker suckering the confidence racketeers. A nine-week sting operation with the Denver District Attorney’s office would cast a broader net than Norfleet had intended — but it cracked a phony stock-exchange racket — and pointed to the whereabouts of W.B. Spencer.
Spencer lit a shuck out of Denver, leaving a suitcase at the Empire Hotel. Clues from the baggage launched a new cross-country chase. Spencer, now traveling under the alias of William Percy Hurd, eluded the police in Montreal and headed back to Texas, or so it seemed. In Mineral Wells, a quarry approximating Spencer’s description was dismissed by Norfleet as a mere look-alike. A wire awaiting Norfleet in Fort Worth claimed Spencer had been nabbed in Utah.
Confronted by Norfleet in Salt Lake City, the jailed man gave his name as A.B. Hunt. Norfleet said, “Well, you’ll do me for Spencer.” A purported wife of the captive gave another name, Mildred and Charlie Harris. Norfleet said, “Well, Mildred, he’ll do me for Spencer.”
Spencer finally fessed up to his right name. He turned to his Salt Lake jailer, pointed to Norfleet, and said: “That man can be in the way more than any other damned man in the world. He always comes along at the right minute for himself and the wrong minute for me.” Then, to Norfleet: “We beat you the first time, but you have beaten us all the other times. Well, what’s the use?”
Spencer landed in prison at Leavenworth, then at Huntsville. Furey died in the Huntsville lockup.
Winnings amidst the Losses
Norfleet called the score accomplished, even though he had spent $75,000 out-of-pocket in chasing down the antagonists who had bamboozled him out of $45,000. Not to mention that he had exposed at least 75 others in various confidence rings.
Norfleet was asked many times to hunt down other bunco racketeers, but he had enjoyed as much as he could tolerate of that taxing sideline. He had neglected his personal affairs, and he was obliged to dispose of practically all his holdings to pay off the creditors. He had enough remaining for himself and his wife to live on the bare essentials. He wrote the memoir, published as Norfleet — but found himself tempted by vanity to become a motion-picture actor.
A film producer known as Otto Backer launched Norfleet Productions and cast Norfleet as himself in an empty-promise “Norfleet” movie. The director was a fellow who represented himself as a relative of the established silent-screen filmmaker D.W. Griffith. Location-shooting in New York City and a New Jersey nightclub, July through October of 1929, yielded seven reels (an hour-and-change) — considered to be lost footage, although still photographs survive — before the money ran out. Norfleet had invested in the pie-in-the-sky venture. Ripped off again, though with stories enough to fill a lifetime of adventurous reminiscences.
Franklin Norfleet had narrowed his circle of enemies to his quarry, all duly dispensed with. He had made many friends during the chase. He had found corruption and honesty, bigotry, and understanding, and although his trusting nature had been jarred by the fleecing, he seems never to have lost confidence in humanity at large. He died at 102 on Oct. 15, 1967.
This story originally appeared in the December issue of Fort Worth Magazine.