NEW ENGLAND "DONE" BY AN INSANE MAN
Sometimes there are victims in enterprises of this sort where there
probably was no deliberate intent to deceive or to defraud. Not long
ago, in Boston, one Henry D. Reynolds, formerly president of the
Reynolds Alaska Development Company, was brought before the United
States Circuit Court on the charge of using the United States mails with
intent to defraud. Three alienists are said to have declared him insane.
In 1907 ex-Governor John G. Brady, of Alaska, endorsed Reynolds and his
schemes, and is reported to have collected in New England about $450,000
for these Reynolds projects. Brady gave "lectures" and stereopticon
exhibitions in New England churches. Reynolds took out an excursion of
Boston and New England investors to Prince William Sound, at one time,
and showed them the seacoast of Alaska, practically all of which he
claimed to own. At Boulder Bay he took his party into a long tunnel, the
face of which they were told was composed of solid copper ore. When they
emerged into the garish light of day, each was given a bright copper
nugget, said to have come from the mine.
