We may be a few days late for April Fools’ Day, but this week’s #FridayFind is no joke!

Written By Dmitri Schmidt

In late 1885, Enoch Beakley, the “chief of a band of spurious money manufacturers,” was arrested and brought to trial. After searching his house, the officers found molds and other supplies for forging various gold and silver pieces. The New York Times estimated that hundreds of dollars (thousands in today’s money) had been circulated throughout the region.

Have you come across any interesting crimes committed by your ancestors? Email us at emma@backlog-archivists.com

Dmitri Schmidt

Dmitri plays a pivotal role in coordinating Backlog’s outreach efforts. They curate our weekly #FridayFinds and #ArchivalTips social media posts, shedding light on items discovered in our genealogy work and providing tips and tricks to approaching problems in the archives.

Dmitri holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and German Studies from Saint Louis University. During their university years, they dedicated over 1000 hours to interning and volunteering at local St. Louis institutions, including the St. Louis Science Center and the St. Louis University Museum of Art. As the Collections Intern at the Science Center, Dmitri assisted in developing and installing the "Into the Vault" exhibit.

Before joining Backlog, Dmitri served as a Fulbright Grantee, teaching English as a second language in former East Germany. From guiding 11th graders in analyzing pop albums as poetry to discussing the significance of the civil rights movement with 8th graders, they covered a broad spectrum of subjects. While reveling in connecting with students and injecting fun into grammar lessons, Dmitri's deep passion for all things archival eventually drew them back home.

Today, Dmitri works as a Herbarium Assistant at the Missouri Botanical Garden, helping digitize the millions of preserved plant specimens. After being scanned and transcribed, these images aid scholars around the globe in furthering botanical research. Dmitri also serves as the archivist for the Kirkwood Historical Society. They are currently overseeing the “Journeys into Kirkwood’s History” project, which aims to digitize documents related to Kirkwood’s early Black settlements.

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Since 1790, the U.S. census has been a once-in-a-decade tradition of data collection. But this week’s #FridayFind highlights a rare exception to this long-standing statistics-gathering routine!
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This week’s #FridayFind is a full house, even by 20th-century standards.