Adam Worth
Encyclopedia
Adam Worth was an American
criminal. Scotland Yard
detective Robert Anderson nicknamed him "the Napoleon of the criminal world", and he is commonly referred to as "the Napoleon of Crime".
. His original surname might have been "Werth". When he was five years old, his family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts
in the United States
and his father became a tailor
. In 1854, he ran away from home and moved first to Boston
and then in 1860 to New York City
. He worked as a clerk in a department store
for one month.
When the American Civil War
broke out, Worth was 17. He lied about his age and enlisted in the Union
army. Worth served in the 2nd New York heavy Artillery
, Battery L (later designated 34th New York Battery) and was promoted to sergeant
in a couple of months. He was wounded in the Second Battle of Bull Run
on August 30, 1862 and was shipped to a Georgetown Hospital in Washington DC. In the hospital, he learned he had been listed as "killed in action
" and left.
; he began to enlist into various regiments with assumed names, received his pay, engaged in action and then deserted
. When the Pinkerton Detective Agency began to track him, like many others using similar methods, he fled to New York City and came to Portsmouth.
After the war, Worth became a pickpocket in New York. In time, he founded his own gang of pickpockets, and then began to organize robberies and heists. When he was caught stealing the cash box of an Adams Express
wagon, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment in Sing Sing
; he escaped a couple of weeks later and resumed his criminal career.
Worth began to work for the prominent fence
and criminal organizer Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum. With her help he expanded into bank and store robberies around 1866 and eventually began to plan his own heists. In 1869 he helped Mandelbaum to break out safecracker Charley Bullard from the White Plains Jail through a tunnel.
With Bullard, Worth robbed the vault of the Boylston National Bank in Boston on November 20, 1869, again through a tunnel, this time from a neighboring shop. The bank alerted the Pinkertons who tracked the shipment of trunks Worth and Bullard had used to ship the loot to New York. Worth decided to move to Europe with Bullard.
. Bullard had taken the identity of "Charles H. Wells", a Texas oilman. Worth was financier "Henry Judson Raymond", the name he would use for years afterwards. They began to compete for the favors of a barmaid named Kitty Flynn who eventually learned their true identities. She became Bullard's wife but did not disfavor Worth, either. In October 1870, Kitty gave birth to a daughter, Lucy Adeleine, and seven years later had another daughter named Katherine Louise. The paternity of these two girls is left up to debate. It is possible that Kitty herself did not know, but Bullard and Worth claimed each child all the same. William Pinkerton believed that Kitty's daughters both belonged to Adam Worth.
When the Bullards went on their honeymoon, Worth began to rob local pawnshops. He shared the loot with Bullard and Flynn when they came back and, together, the three moved to Paris
in 1871.
In Paris, the police force was still in disarray after the events of the Paris Commune
. Worth and his associates founded an "American Bar", a restaurant and bar on the ground floor and a gambling
den on the upper floor. Because gambling was illegal, the gambling tables were built so that they could be folded inside the walls and the floor. A buzzer would be sounded from downstairs to alert the customers before any police raid. Worth formed a new gang of associates, including some of his old comrades from New York.
When Allan Pinkerton
, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, visited the place in 1873, Worth recognized him. Later the Paris police raided the place numerous times and Worth and the Bullards decided to abandon the restaurant. Worth used his place for the last time to defraud a diamond
dealer and the three moved to London.
. He also leased an apartment in Mayfair
and joined high society
. He formed his own criminal network
and organized major robberies and burglaries through several intermediaries. Those who worked in his schemes never knew his name. He insisted that his subordinates should not use violence
.
Eventually Scotland Yard
learned of his network though they were initially unable to prove anything. Inspector John Shore made Worth's capture his personal mission
.
Things began to go wrong when Worth's brother John was sent to cash a forged cheque
in Paris, he was arrested and extradited
to England; Worth managed to exonerate him and get him sent back to the USA. Four of his associates were arrested in Istanbul
for spreading more forged letters of credit and he had to use a considerable amount of money to buy off the judges and the police. Bullard became increasingly violent as his alcoholism
worsened, and he eventually left for New York, followed soon after by Kitty.
In 1876, Worth personally stole Thomas Gainsborough
's recently rediscovered painting of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
, from a London gallery of Agnew & Sons with the help of two associates. He was taken with the painting and did not try to sell it. The two men who assisted in the robbery, Junka Phillips and Little Joe, grew impatient. Phillips tried to make him talk about the theft in the presence of a police informer and Worth effectively fired him. Worth gave Little Joe money to return to the USA where he tried to rob the Union Trust Company, was arrested and talked to the Pinkertons. They alerted Scotland Yard but they still could not prove anything.
Worth kept the painting with him even when he was traveling and organizing new schemes and robberies. Eventually he decided to travel to South Africa
where he stole $500,000 worth of uncut diamonds. Back in London, he founded Wynert & Company which sold diamonds at a cheaper price than the competitors.
In the 1880s Worth married a Louise Margaret Boljahn still using the name Henry Raymond and they had a son Henry and a daughter Beatrice. Possibly his wife did not know his real identity. He smuggled the painting to the USA and left it there.
where Bullard was in jail. He had been working with Max Shinburn, Worth's rival, when Belgian police had captured them both. In Belgium he heard that Bullard had recently died.
On October 5 Worth improvised a robbery of a money delivery cart in Liège with two untried associates, one of them the American Johnny Curtin. The robbery went badly wrong and the police captured him on the spot. Two others got away.
In jail Worth refused to identify himself and the Belgian police made inquiries abroad. Both the New York Police Department and Scotland Yard
identified him as Worth, although the Pinkertons did not say anything. Max Shinburn, now in Belgian jail, told the police everything he knew. In jail, Worth heard nothing about his family in London but received a letter from Kitty Flynn, who offered to finance his defense.
Worth's trial took place March 20, 1893. The prosecutor used everything he knew about Worth. Worth flatly denied that he had anything to do with various crimes, saying that the last robbery had been a stupid act he had committed out of need for money. All the other accusations, including those by British and American police, were mere hearsay. He claimed that his wealth came out of legal gambling. In the end Worth was sentenced to seven years for robbery and was sent to Leuven
prison.
During his first year in jail, Shinburn hired other inmates to beat Worth up. Later Worth heard that Johnny Curtin, who was supposed to have taken care of his wife, had seduced and abandoned her. She had gone insane and been committed to an asylum
. The children were in the care of his brother John in the United States.
shop to get funds. When he visited his wife, she barely recognized him. He traveled to New York and visited his children. Then he proceeded to meet with William Pinkerton, to whom he described the events of his life in great detail. The manuscript which Pinkerton wrote after Worth left is still preserved in the archives of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Van Nuys, California.
Through Pinkerton, Worth arranged the return of the painting Duchess of Devonshire to Agnew & Sons in return for $25,000. The portrait and payment were exchanged in Chicago on March 28, 1901. Worth returned to London with his children and spent the rest of his life with them. His son took advantage of an agreement between his father and Alan Pinkerton and became a career Pinkerton detective.
Adam Worth died on January 8, 1902. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery
in a mass pauper's grave under the name of "Henry J. Raymond". A small tombstone was erected to mark his resting place in 1997 by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.
used Worth as the prototype for Sherlock Holmes
' nemesis, Professor Moriarty
. In his "Books Alive" column in The Chicago Sunday Tribune (December 26, 1943), Vincent Starrett wrote, "Worth was the original of Prof. Moriarty. This information, which isn't generally known, was revealed by Conan Doyle in conversation with Dr. Gray C. Briggs of St. Louis, Dr. Briggs once told me." Starrett was a good friend of Dr. Gray Chandler Briggs (1882—1942), a St. Louis doctor and X-ray specialist.
Adam Worth biographer Ben Macintyre also traces the inspiration for Macavity, the Mystery Cat
, in T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
to Doyle's rendition of Moriarty. Andrew Lloyd Weber, in turn, based his hit musical, Cats
, on T.S. Elliot's work, including the character Macavity, who Kitty declares, is "the Napolean of Crime!"
Michael Caine
plays Adam Worth in the film Harry and Walter Go to New York
. Though Worth is correctly portrayed as a criminal mastermind, the events of the story are not based on true events.
In the Sci-fi channel series "Sanctuary", one of the villains is named Adam Worth.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
criminal. Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
detective Robert Anderson nicknamed him "the Napoleon of the criminal world", and he is commonly referred to as "the Napoleon of Crime".
Earlier life
Adam Worth was born into a poor Jewish family in GermanyGermany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. His original surname might have been "Werth". When he was five years old, his family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and his father became a tailor
Tailor
A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...
. In 1854, he ran away from home and moved first to Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
and then in 1860 to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He worked as a clerk in a department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
for one month.
When the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
broke out, Worth was 17. He lied about his age and enlisted in the Union
Union (American Civil War)
During the American Civil War, the Union was a name used to refer to the federal government of the United States, which was supported by the twenty free states and five border slave states. It was opposed by 11 southern slave states that had declared a secession to join together to form the...
army. Worth served in the 2nd New York heavy Artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
, Battery L (later designated 34th New York Battery) and was promoted to sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
in a couple of months. He was wounded in the Second Battle of Bull Run
Second Battle of Bull Run
The Second Battle of Bull Run or Second Manassas was fought August 28–30, 1862, as part of the American Civil War. It was the culmination of an offensive campaign waged by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia against Union Maj. Gen...
on August 30, 1862 and was shipped to a Georgetown Hospital in Washington DC. In the hospital, he learned he had been listed as "killed in action
Killed in action
Killed in action is a casualty classification generally used by militaries to describe the deaths of their own forces at the hands of hostile forces. The United States Department of Defense, for example, says that those declared KIA need not have fired their weapons but have been killed due to...
" and left.
Criminal career
Worth became a bounty jumperBounty jumper
Bounty jumpers were men who enlisted in the Union or Confederate army during the American Civil War only to collect a bounty and then leave. The draft of 1863 allowed individuals to pay a bounty to someone else to fight in their place rather than be drafted...
; he began to enlist into various regiments with assumed names, received his pay, engaged in action and then deserted
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
. When the Pinkerton Detective Agency began to track him, like many others using similar methods, he fled to New York City and came to Portsmouth.
After the war, Worth became a pickpocket in New York. In time, he founded his own gang of pickpockets, and then began to organize robberies and heists. When he was caught stealing the cash box of an Adams Express
Adams Express Company
The Adams Express Company is a publicly traded diversified equity fund that traces its roots to a 19th century freight and cargo transport company. The Company uses a conservative investment philosophy, and the portfolio is managed with the expectation that it will generate solid returns with...
wagon, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment in Sing Sing
Sing Sing
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...
; he escaped a couple of weeks later and resumed his criminal career.
Worth began to work for the prominent fence
Fence (criminal)
A fence is an individual who knowingly buys stolen property for later resale, sometimes in a legitimate market. The fence thus acts as a middleman between thieves and the eventual buyers of stolen goods who may or may not be aware that the goods are stolen. As a verb, the word describes the...
and criminal organizer Fredericka "Marm" Mandelbaum. With her help he expanded into bank and store robberies around 1866 and eventually began to plan his own heists. In 1869 he helped Mandelbaum to break out safecracker Charley Bullard from the White Plains Jail through a tunnel.
With Bullard, Worth robbed the vault of the Boylston National Bank in Boston on November 20, 1869, again through a tunnel, this time from a neighboring shop. The bank alerted the Pinkertons who tracked the shipment of trunks Worth and Bullard had used to ship the loot to New York. Worth decided to move to Europe with Bullard.
Exploits in Europe
Bullard and Worth went first to LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. Bullard had taken the identity of "Charles H. Wells", a Texas oilman. Worth was financier "Henry Judson Raymond", the name he would use for years afterwards. They began to compete for the favors of a barmaid named Kitty Flynn who eventually learned their true identities. She became Bullard's wife but did not disfavor Worth, either. In October 1870, Kitty gave birth to a daughter, Lucy Adeleine, and seven years later had another daughter named Katherine Louise. The paternity of these two girls is left up to debate. It is possible that Kitty herself did not know, but Bullard and Worth claimed each child all the same. William Pinkerton believed that Kitty's daughters both belonged to Adam Worth.
When the Bullards went on their honeymoon, Worth began to rob local pawnshops. He shared the loot with Bullard and Flynn when they came back and, together, the three moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1871.
In Paris, the police force was still in disarray after the events of the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
. Worth and his associates founded an "American Bar", a restaurant and bar on the ground floor and a gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
den on the upper floor. Because gambling was illegal, the gambling tables were built so that they could be folded inside the walls and the floor. A buzzer would be sounded from downstairs to alert the customers before any police raid. Worth formed a new gang of associates, including some of his old comrades from New York.
When Allan Pinkerton
Allan Pinkerton
Allan Pinkerton was a Scottish American detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.-Early life, career and immigration:...
, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, visited the place in 1873, Worth recognized him. Later the Paris police raided the place numerous times and Worth and the Bullards decided to abandon the restaurant. Worth used his place for the last time to defraud a diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
dealer and the three moved to London.
London master criminal
In England, Worth and his associates bought West Lodge at Clapham CommonClapham Common
Clapham Common is an 89 hectare triangular area of grassland situated in south London, England. It was historically common land for the parishes of Battersea and Clapham, but was converted to parkland under the terms of the Metropolitan Commons Act 1878.43 hectares of the common are within the...
. He also leased an apartment in Mayfair
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
and joined high society
High society
High society may refer to:* Upper class, group of people at the top of a social hierarchy* Gentry, origin Old French genterie, from gentil ‘high-born, noble* High society , social grouping which socialites may be affiliated with....
. He formed his own criminal network
Organized crime
Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...
and organized major robberies and burglaries through several intermediaries. Those who worked in his schemes never knew his name. He insisted that his subordinates should not use violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
.
Eventually Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
learned of his network though they were initially unable to prove anything. Inspector John Shore made Worth's capture his personal mission
Goal
A goal is an objective, or a projected computation of affairs, that a person or a system plans or intends to achieve.Goal, GOAL or G.O.A.L may also refer to:Sport...
.
Cheque
A cheque is a document/instrument See the negotiable cow—itself a fictional story—for discussions of cheques written on unusual surfaces. that orders a payment of money from a bank account...
in Paris, he was arrested and extradited
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
to England; Worth managed to exonerate him and get him sent back to the USA. Four of his associates were arrested in Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
for spreading more forged letters of credit and he had to use a considerable amount of money to buy off the judges and the police. Bullard became increasingly violent as his alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
worsened, and he eventually left for New York, followed soon after by Kitty.
In 1876, Worth personally stole Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
's recently rediscovered painting of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire
Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire , formerly Lady Georgiana Spencer, was the first wife of the 5th Duke of Devonshire, and mother of the 6th Duke of Devonshire. Her father, the 1st Earl Spencer, was a great-grandson of the 1st Duke of Marlborough. Her niece was Lady Caroline Lamb...
, from a London gallery of Agnew & Sons with the help of two associates. He was taken with the painting and did not try to sell it. The two men who assisted in the robbery, Junka Phillips and Little Joe, grew impatient. Phillips tried to make him talk about the theft in the presence of a police informer and Worth effectively fired him. Worth gave Little Joe money to return to the USA where he tried to rob the Union Trust Company, was arrested and talked to the Pinkertons. They alerted Scotland Yard but they still could not prove anything.
Worth kept the painting with him even when he was traveling and organizing new schemes and robberies. Eventually he decided to travel to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
where he stole $500,000 worth of uncut diamonds. Back in London, he founded Wynert & Company which sold diamonds at a cheaper price than the competitors.
In the 1880s Worth married a Louise Margaret Boljahn still using the name Henry Raymond and they had a son Henry and a daughter Beatrice. Possibly his wife did not know his real identity. He smuggled the painting to the USA and left it there.
Mistake and capture
In 1892 Worth decided to visit BelgiumBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
where Bullard was in jail. He had been working with Max Shinburn, Worth's rival, when Belgian police had captured them both. In Belgium he heard that Bullard had recently died.
On October 5 Worth improvised a robbery of a money delivery cart in Liège with two untried associates, one of them the American Johnny Curtin. The robbery went badly wrong and the police captured him on the spot. Two others got away.
In jail Worth refused to identify himself and the Belgian police made inquiries abroad. Both the New York Police Department and Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard
Scotland Yard is a metonym for the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service of London, UK. It derives from the location of the original Metropolitan Police headquarters at 4 Whitehall Place, which had a rear entrance on a street called Great Scotland Yard. The Scotland Yard entrance became...
identified him as Worth, although the Pinkertons did not say anything. Max Shinburn, now in Belgian jail, told the police everything he knew. In jail, Worth heard nothing about his family in London but received a letter from Kitty Flynn, who offered to finance his defense.
Worth's trial took place March 20, 1893. The prosecutor used everything he knew about Worth. Worth flatly denied that he had anything to do with various crimes, saying that the last robbery had been a stupid act he had committed out of need for money. All the other accusations, including those by British and American police, were mere hearsay. He claimed that his wealth came out of legal gambling. In the end Worth was sentenced to seven years for robbery and was sent to Leuven
Leuven
Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...
prison.
During his first year in jail, Shinburn hired other inmates to beat Worth up. Later Worth heard that Johnny Curtin, who was supposed to have taken care of his wife, had seduced and abandoned her. She had gone insane and been committed to an asylum
Psychiatric hospital
Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental hospitals, are hospitals specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders. Psychiatric hospitals vary widely in their size and grading. Some hospitals may specialise only in short-term or outpatient therapy for low-risk patients...
. The children were in the care of his brother John in the United States.
Release and last years
Worth was released early for good behaviour in 1897. He returned to London and stole £4,000 from a diamondDiamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
shop to get funds. When he visited his wife, she barely recognized him. He traveled to New York and visited his children. Then he proceeded to meet with William Pinkerton, to whom he described the events of his life in great detail. The manuscript which Pinkerton wrote after Worth left is still preserved in the archives of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Van Nuys, California.
Through Pinkerton, Worth arranged the return of the painting Duchess of Devonshire to Agnew & Sons in return for $25,000. The portrait and payment were exchanged in Chicago on March 28, 1901. Worth returned to London with his children and spent the rest of his life with them. His son took advantage of an agreement between his father and Alan Pinkerton and became a career Pinkerton detective.
Adam Worth died on January 8, 1902. He was buried in Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery is a cemetery located in north London, England. It is designated Grade I on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England. It is divided into two parts, named the East and West cemetery....
in a mass pauper's grave under the name of "Henry J. Raymond". A small tombstone was erected to mark his resting place in 1997 by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation.
In popular culture
It has been widely speculated that Arthur Conan DoyleArthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
used Worth as the prototype for Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
' nemesis, Professor Moriarty
Professor Moriarty
Professor James Moriarty is a fictional character and the archenemy of the detective Sherlock Holmes in the fiction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Moriarty is a criminal mastermind, described by Holmes as the "Napoleon of Crime". Doyle lifted the phrase from a real Scotland Yard inspector who was...
. In his "Books Alive" column in The Chicago Sunday Tribune (December 26, 1943), Vincent Starrett wrote, "Worth was the original of Prof. Moriarty. This information, which isn't generally known, was revealed by Conan Doyle in conversation with Dr. Gray C. Briggs of St. Louis, Dr. Briggs once told me." Starrett was a good friend of Dr. Gray Chandler Briggs (1882—1942), a St. Louis doctor and X-ray specialist.
Adam Worth biographer Ben Macintyre also traces the inspiration for Macavity, the Mystery Cat
Macavity
Macavity is a fictional character who is described in a poem in Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, by T. S. Eliot. He also appears in Cats, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.-In the poem:...
, in T. S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is a collection of whimsical poems by T. S. Eliot about feline psychology and sociology, published by Faber and Faber. It is the basis for the record-setting musical Cats....
to Doyle's rendition of Moriarty. Andrew Lloyd Weber, in turn, based his hit musical, Cats
Cats (musical)
Cats is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot...
, on T.S. Elliot's work, including the character Macavity, who Kitty declares, is "the Napolean of Crime!"
Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
plays Adam Worth in the film Harry and Walter Go to New York
Harry and Walter Go to New York
Harry and Walter Go to New York is a 1976 American period comedy film written by John Byrum, directed by Mark Rydell, and starring James Caan, Elliot Gould, Michael Caine, Diane Keaton, Charles Durning and Lesley Ann Warren. In the film, two down-on-their-luck con men try to pull off the biggest...
. Though Worth is correctly portrayed as a criminal mastermind, the events of the story are not based on true events.
In the Sci-fi channel series "Sanctuary", one of the villains is named Adam Worth.