Regional Industry & News

ADRIAN, Minn. — It seemed like a can't-miss deal. For each dollar you send in, you'll get $7,000 back. What's not to love about that offer?

Oh, um, just a few other aspects of this bargain: You would need to send your money to a man with a claim on the estate of Sir Francis Drake, the English buccaneer who died in 1596, leaving his wealth to build for hundreds of years.

All you needed to do was wait for the money to roll in ... and believe it would. And definitely don't complain to the authorities.

Before there were "Nigerian princes" scams and "to the moon" cryptocurrency promises, many Upper Midwesterners in the 1920s-1930s fell hard for the "Sir Francis Drake" estate hoax, an old get-rich-quick scheme masterfully promoted by a one-time Iowa farmer turned conman named Oscar Hartzell.

"Some of the investors have even failed to pay their pew rent," reported Father Otto Zachman, a Catholic pastor in Adrian, according to a news wire report. "Perhaps it can be true, but it is unbelievable, and the fever of it is breaking down our people. They gather in groups and talk about the time when they will be wealthy."

Amid the Great Depression, thousands of otherwise common-sense farmers and businessmen poured their hard-earned savings into Hartzell's pocket, while ignoring their bills and statements from exasperated state, federal and British authorities, who repeatedly and loudly insisted there was no Drake treasure — only a Drake scam.

By the time Hartzell faced a jury in 1933, He had ripped off today's equivalent of millions of dollars from many in Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa, many of whom believed — even after Hartzell went to prison — they were in line for a windfall.

"But really," bemoaned the Fairmont Sentinel, "shouldn't we pull down the wise old eagle as our national emblem and put up a silly goose instead?"

Rise of the scam

By the time Hartzell picked up the Francis Drake estate scheme and made it his own in the 1920s, it was already an old scam.

A front-page exposé by the Minneapolis Star in 1928 identified it as a swindle first introduced in 1700, first run in Chicago in 1890, and also appearing in 1903, 1912, 1915, 1918 and 1920 before reappearing later in the decade.

"Instead of sharing in a fabulous inheritance, the investors ... have been trapped in a musty confidence game which sleuths have been striving to stamp out [for] decades," reported the Star.

But Hartzell was determined to make the con his own. To do so, he made it even bigger.

The estate was worth $22.5 billion, and it would be paid out soon — always soon, "investors" were told. The future windfall would be worth the entire state of Iowa and then some, Hartzell claimed.

The Drake scam worked as long as it did because, like the best hoaxes, it was both simple and complex.

The complicated: The specter of a giant, unclaimed fortune caught up in complicated estate law in a foreign country, convoluted by centuries of history and a long line of noblemen. All very hard for a layman to understand.

The simple: There was a stack of money on the verge of being available to anyone who made a "donation" to Hartzell, and anyone with a dollar to their name could make a "donation," netting thousands of dollars in future return.

Anyone could understand that.

Hartzell, having removed himself to London, worked through agents in several states, sweeping in "donations" from the Midwest and beyond while defying all naysayers.

"What does newspapers or anybody in States know about what happened 330 years ago," he wrote a lieutenant in mangled English in May 1929. "To think that pin heads of Iowa and Minnesota for a few paltry dollars are losing their heads and getting frantic and panic stricken..."

In London, many found themselves envious of Hartzell's "fine apartment, his car and chauffeur and his ability to dine in London's best restaurants," reported the AP.

The fever dream

Southwest Minnesota, northern Iowa and eastern South Dakota, in particular, became a hotbed for Hartzell's swindle.

In Adrian, Minnesota, more than 1,500 locals were pooling their resources, "lured by mystic tales of fabulous fortunes and whispered promises," the Associated Press reported. Old folks, children and "farmers who faced danger of losing their farms through debt are pouring the money into this proposal as rapidly as they can get it."

But the Austin Herald pointed out that the estate scam was tricking people in many other places, "Gullibility is not a by-product of the Ten Thousand Lakes, nor of all corn," it wrote. "There are victims in other parts of the country, too."

Federal officials later alleged some 10,000 victims across the Midwest, New York and Pennsylvania.

"Many of these same people probably would hesitate about trusting their next door neighbor with a dollar," wrote the Ellendale Eagle.

Officials in Minnesota issued a warning to state residents about the Drake estate scheme, as did the securities commissioner in South Dakota, both citing British authorities who denounced the pitches as fraudulent.

Minnesota officials met with their counterparts in Iowa, but realized there was little they could do to stop people from giving away their money.

The Minneapolis Star interviewed Hartzell's chief collector, a doctor in Cumming, Iowa, who admitted to collecting $350,000 from Iowans and Minnesotans, or about $6.6 million today.

Some who had fallen for Hartzell's hoax even tried to deduct their "donations" from their income taxes — without success, a federal tax official in Minnesota reported.

By January 1933, the British government had officially had enough. They ordered Hartzell be deported back to the U.S. for being a "undesirable alien."

The conman on trial

Hartzell was arrested by federal agents on Feb. 16, 1933, in New York, where he claimed, "The estate is one hundred percent okay and I'll prove it."

True believers wrote to federal authorities, demanding that their payments be sent to Hartzell. Others raised a $68,000 defense fund for him.

Hartzell's trial in an Iowa federal court in October 1933 was a sensation. Both the prosecution and defense teams posed for photos before the trial began in a courtroom jam-packed with onlookers.

"'Just let me have one good look at Hartzell,' pleaded one gray haired woman who had traveled many miles," reported the Sioux City Journal.

Prosecutors accused Hartzell of bilking Midwesterners of nearly $1 million, worth about $25 million today, although that was most certainly an undercount.

On Nov. 15, 1933, Hartzell was convicted on 12 counts of federal mail fraud and sentenced to 10 years in prison. An appeals court upheld his conviction, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

Hartzell entered the Leavenworth, Kansas, federal penitentiary on Jan. 16, 1935, although his acolytes trafficked in rumors about his whereabouts. But, "He's still here, all right," the Leavenworth warden told reporters. "When we take a prisoner we make it a custom to keep him."

Hartzell, his brother Canfield and six lieutenants were found guilty in a follow-on federal case in 1936 on additional charges of mail fraud.

He was committed to a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Missouri, in May 1936, and died there on Aug. 27, 1943.

The unkillable hoax

The hoax that made Hartzell infamous outlived his freedom.

Reported newspapers in 1939: "The two Drake estaters ... pose as Englishmen, speak with a Cockney accent, and tell the people that non-settlement of the Drake estate was the 'real reason why King Edward, now the Duke of Windsor, abdicated the British throne.'"

As late as 1980, the Worthington Globe identified the Drake scam as one that had continued to run for "more than a hundred years," with variations on the theme.

The included Hartzell's estate scheme, another twist involving U.S. lands in major cities purportedly owned by the Drake estate, and another about Drake's treasure-laden ship that supposedl