1880 SILE DOTY. Life of the Most Notorious Horse Thief and Burglar of the 19th Century.

A very nicely preserved first edition of the autobiography of Sile Doty [1800-1876], famed robber, burglar, horse thief, highwayman, counterfeiter, and criminal gang leader.

Doty’s near nationwide crime spree took place sometime before that the infamous James Gang. In many ways, his boastful, unapologetic autobiography shows him to have perhaps been the original of the self-identified, swaggering outlaw character made famous by James, Younger, and others just a decade or two later.

Sile [Silas] was the descendent of Edward Doty [1599-1655], a Mayflower passenger who also had a penchant for thievery and brawling. Perhaps I should note here that Edward Doty is also my wife’s mayflower progenitor. With all that criminal blood in her, I am still waiting on her to break into her gangster era.

Anyway, Sile seems to have been a criminal from his youth, and his autobiography details the whole sordid affair; counterfeiting, horse-thieving, fleeing to Liverpool and London, moving to Michigan and the mid-West, murder, his jail escapes, etc.,

After his escape from jail on murder charges, he fled Mexico. Congress had passed a law forgiving all past offenses of those who enlisted for the duration of the Mexican-American War. Sensing an opportunity, Doty sent letters to everyone he knew he had enlisted until the end of the war, although he had done no such thing. They did not know and considered him a free man on his return. Ah, the 19^th century!

After Monterrey fell to the Americans Doty joined other scoundrels in a binge of looting and murder. About December 1846, Doty stole the best horse he could find in General Taylor's camp at Monterrey and rode it to General Winfield Scott's camp at Camargo, where he won General Scott's good will by presenting him with the stolen horse. Scott even employed Doty to take care of the horse and used him as a messenger during the Battle of Veracruz. During the entirety of his service to Scott, Doty would disguise himself as a Mexican at night and rob Mexican citizens, selling the plundered goods to soldiers in the American army.

There is simply no way to verify half the stories Doty tells, but it’s a grand read and a very desirable piece of 19^th century Americana.

Colburn, J. G. W. The Life of Sile Doty. The Most Noted Thief and Daring Burglar of His Time. The Leader of a Gang of Counterfeiters, Horse Thieves and Burglars of the New England, Middle and Western States. The Terror of Mexico during 1849. Illustrated. Toledo, Ohio. Blade Printing & Paper Company. 1880. First Edition. 269pp.

A good copy in original cloth, rubbed through at all extremities and cloth dulled. Textually good + to very good, generally sound, very light foxing, small stain to foredge of last three leaves. All original illustrations present and in a good, clean state.