Date (happened)
- 4 August 1890 (probable)printed dateline 'BANGOR, Me, Aug 4' in the article body
- 4 August 1899 (possible)'Bangor people will remember the story of Samuel Waltzkowitz, colored, who was on August 4, 1899, sentenced to 90 days in the county jail for obtaining money by false pretenses.'
- 8 August 1899 (doubtful)'Waltzkowitz came to Bangor on Aug. 8, 1899, and immediately hunted up some of the leading Hebrews of the city...'
- 4 August 1899 (possible)dateline 'BANGOR, Me, Aug 4' plus filename '1899nn.jpeg'
- 4 August 1899 (probable)dateline 'BANGOR, Me., Aug 4'; the year reasoned from 'delivering an oration on William Jennings Bryan' and from 'came to Bangor on Thursday' against an Aug 4 sentencing
Persons
A Bangor, Maine newspaper (clipping reproduced from The Boston Globe) reports 'Samuel Waltzkowitz', who represented himself to be an Egyptian Jew, sentenced to three months in jail for false pretenses after soliciting charity from Bangor's Jewish community, then reportedly drinking and boasting in a saloon. The report adds he had used the same routine (deaf mute in Indianapolis, Egyptian Jew in New York and Boston) elsewhere. Collected by CWB among reports of black Egyptian/Ethiopian/Falasha Jewish travellers in the same period they connect to Neville's account of Abdullah as an Ethiopian Jew.
Follow-up report ('Negro Hebrew Again'): young Bangor Hebrew Simon Hilson, back from Boston, says he met Waltzkowitz there; Waltzkowitz claimed the Bangor Hebrews had secured his release, apologised, and that he had sued Hilson for defamation. Hilson made inquiries among Boston Hebrew friends and learned, before leaving Massachusetts, that Waltzkowitz had since been arrested in Brockton for working the same scheme he tried in Bangor (see the new Brockton event this article also supports).
A further independently scraped copy (node 4109) confirms the wording; no additional dating information.
A further independently scraped copy (node 4111) confirms the wording; no additional dating information.
A further independently scraped copy (node 4112) confirms the wording; no additional dating information.
A further copy of this report (node:4301, media:1774) supplies the detail that bears on its disputed year. It records that Waltzkowitz 'came to Bangor on Thursday and told a story of hard luck to the first Jews he met', professing to be very pious and refusing to stop at a hotel or anywhere but in the house of a devout Jew; he said he was on his way from New York to friends in Canada and had no means, and 'the charitable Jews of Bangor made up a purse for [him]'. Then: 'Yesterday afternoon, however, after having received the purse collected for him, Waltzkowitz was seen in an Exchange street saloon drinking large quantities of beer and delivering an oration on William Jennings Bryan, winding up with a challenge to fight any 140-pound [man].'
That detail dates the episode. Bryan was an unelected Nebraska lawyer in August 1890 and the 1896 Democratic presidential nominee by August 1899, so the saloon oration is only intelligible as reported in the later year. The weekday agrees: 4 August 1899 was a Friday, fitting a Thursday arrival and a sentencing 'today', where 4 August 1890 was a Monday. This event's existing 1890 claim has been left untouched, and the two now stand side by side.