Where Money Is Hidden
A suicide's wooden leg and a St. Paul miser's wig both proved to be secret banks
Two odd tales of hidden fortunes: a man found hanged near Dover, N.J. kept cash in a hollow compartment of his wooden leg, while a St. Paul miser reportedly hid $100,000 in bills folded flat between his wig and his bald scalp for twenty years.
NewsPipe summary
The Sun · November 16, 1913 · Page 39
1 min readWhen a man believed to be John G. Stengel was found hanging to a tree recently at Dover, N.J., it was noted that the suicide had a wooden leg. Searching for something by which to identify him, the police discovered a drawer in the wooden leg that opened and closed with a spring. In it were found $1.07 and some private papers. The dead man's leg had been his bank.
Strange as this is it is not more so than the case of the well known old miser of St. Paul, Minn., who for many years made his head his bank. He wore a wig, and between it and his bare poll were over a dozen $10,000 bills laid flat in a piece of silk. Several times his house was entered by thieves and they went away balked. It was only at his death that the odd hiding place was found. A note explained that he had found the head bank the safest place of all and that he had carried $100,000 in it for a score of years.
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