LUTHER C. BRYANT (1801-1886)

Luther C. Bryant (1801-1886), was a New York coin and stamp dealer and is also known as the wayward cousin of the famous American poet William Cullen Bryant. His consanguinity to William Cullen Bryant, however, is not certain and doubtful. It is strange and a rather odd coincidence that many details given by Luther Bryant about his life seem to fit that of William Cullen Bryant, but for himself none of them are corroborated except for his life in New York working as a coin and stamp dealer and the valuable furnishings and possessions he amassed. The remaining details are claims made by Luther Bryant about himself and his life prior to New York made to various journalists who were eager to write about him following the sensational report of his being robbed of $120,000.

According to his own account he was born in Cummington, Hampton County, Massachusetts, son of a physician. He studied at Williams College and became a physician with a practice in Burlington, Vermont. He left as an act of protest during the Mexican War in 1848 to go south. He settled at Charleston, South Carolina and worked as a physician there but fled north at the outbreak of the Civil War arriving in New York in 1861. However, according to the New York City Directory, 1886, a Luther C. Bryant, physician is listed and reported living at 742 Greenwich Street. One wonders if anything about this man is true except for his coin and stamp dealership which was well known and attested to, as well as his ring of artful dodgers he formed in a postage stamp pilfering scheme.

He lived in a two room rear apartment on the third floor of a tenement house in the poor district at 1 Forsyth Street and traded as a Coin Dealer at Fulton Street, New York, and Nassau Street, New York. His stand on Nassau Street was very well-known to New Yorkers where he sold old stamps, coins and medals, a dealer contemporary with John K, Curtis. Bryant traded in old coins and medals from 1861 until 1874. If it was not for his ill fate this obscure dealer would have been lost to posterity.

When he arrived at New York in 1861 he behaved somewhat like a carpetbagger. He purportedly brought with him more than $60,000 of which $45,000 was in gold coins. Since the Civil War brought on a scarcity of gold its valued rose dramatically and we find Bryant began to sell his gold coins at a profit. He began buying and selling gold coins, old coins, medals, postage and revenue stamps, broken bank bills, and so on in City Hall Park. But when construction for the Post Office Building began in August 1869 he was forced to move in front of the Old Dutch Church, corner of Fulton and William Streets.

What made Bryant famous was his robbery. He was robbed of $120,000 in gold, cash, coins, and other valuables during the night on October 11, 1874 by a well contrived scheme. He had $20 gold pieces saved since 1862 in thirty-five rolls of 100 pieces each rolled up in silk paper, $70,000 in face value. His aunt left him a 200-acre farm and $7,000. He also collected valuable china, hand woven carpets imported from Brussels, chromo paintings, bronze sculptures, antique carved furniture, jewelry, and bank notes. Yet despite his great wealth he chose to live as a Fagin-like miser in the slums of New York.

Following Parson's noteworthy essay "William Cullen Bryant's Wayward Cousin" (1950), Luther Bryant appears as a true to life antagonist character out of Dickens' Oliver Twist. Apparently, Bryant enticed young errand boys to steal postage stamps from business offices by trading disreputable racy dime novels for them. His scheme was discovered by a New York Detective, George Roscoe of Davies Detective Agency, who was hired by Eberhard Faber, the lead pencil manufacturer, to discover who was stealing his postage stamps. Once his errand boy Charley Krepps was discovered giving Bryant sheets of stamps Bryant was arrested on Wednesday, October 7, 1874, and sent to "The Tombs" the nickname given to the prison attached to the Police Court.

While in prison he sent a note to his neighbor, Mary Reynold to keep watch on his apartment's locked door. The Sunday following Bryant's arrest another neighbor coming home late at night observed a carriage rush away from the building and found Bryant's apartment had been broken into, ransacked and robbed. The burglars seized $20,000 in postage stamps that were locked in a trunk, $70,000 in gold coins rolled up in paper, pearl handled revolvers, pearl handled umbrellas, jewelry, antiques and art works, and other valuables totaling $120,000.

Weeks of investigation by New York Police discovered Robert Murray, alias "Bobby the Welshman" and George "the Rat" Reilly were responsible for the break-in and robbery. They were tried and sentenced but the money and other valuable, except for the umbrellas and a revolver were recovered.

Since Bryant was left destitute and the various New York firms robbed of their postage stamps saw no means of recovery Bryant was set free and the charges dropped.

While in prison he was visited by Lizzie Neubauer, a young woman of 18 years whom he proposed marriage to at the age of 73. She refused to marry him but took his furniture and other valuables. The Neubauer loot was recovered and she and her mother Sophia were sentenced to prison as well.

So who was Luther Bryant? We only know for certain that he was a New York coin and stamp dealer who amassed a fortune, some it acquired through corruption, and all lost in an night. He died a pauper and blind. And so it seems he was always blind.

To read the complete article, see:
BRYANT, LUTHER C (https://sites.google.com/a/numismaticmall.com/www/numismaticmall-com/bryant-luther-c)

John writes:

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
JACOB POSTLEY (1861-1937) (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n35a17.html)

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