A. B. WORTHINGTON.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17664, 17 December 1917, Page 6

A. B. WORTHINGTON.

DIES IN PRISON,

By .Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright

Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.

NEW YORK, December 14. Samuel Crawford, known as the Rev Arthur B. Worthington, a religious impostor, who attained so much notoriety in New Zealand, and was later imprisoned at Melbourne for forgery, died suddenly in gaol. ,

With twelve aliases, which ai e. I Eiigeno Samuel Bouvier Walton, Major Eugene Boimer, Eugeno Bouvier, .&. JR. Banhorten, Mons. Bennateau, Major Horaco Oakley Wood, Arthur Wood, W. D. Wood, Arlington Buckingham Wadsworth, A. B. Ward Dr A. B. Worthington, and the Rev A. a. Worthington, the subject of tho above cable message travelled and swindled in America and Australia, and m £ow Zealand. He was known on New Zealand as the Rev Arthur B. Worthington. His real name was Samuel Oakley Crawford. He was born in Saugerties, Now York, in 1847, and consequently was seventy years of age. Ho had previously served two terms of imprisonment, one of three years, at Albany, New York, in 1870, for robbing a man, and .one of seven years imposed upon him in Melbourne in 1902 for swindling a young and pretty widow, of Camberwell, of close on £llOO. Ho was at the time of his death serving a term of imprisonment on a charge or false pretences concerning the Presbyterian Church at Poughkeopsie, Aew York.. .:',''•' ,-'••. v According to tjie American police records ibe enlisted in the Northern Army in 1864, and fought m the Oivill War. After peace he studied law, and was admitted to the Bar in New York. He practised his profession for a 'short period. Becoming connected with a banking institution he learnt m a, year what be could of finance, and then commenced to move about the different States. Always on the look/out for propositions likely to bring grist to his mill, W.ortbington played the part of a tawyer or banker, political orator, real estate operator, spiritualist, litterateur, mCning speculator and organiser, and confidence man generally. He swindled hundreds of people, "but managed to evade arrest m all but one case in the United States. In 1868 Worthington contracted his first marriage in New York. Subsequently he marr:ed many times, finally from a bigamy charge in San Francisco escaping to Salt Lake City, where he joined the Mormons. He preached in the famous temple, and so galled many of Brigham Young's followers that he was able to depart with £IOOO belonging to them. Ho contracted more marriages, and after fleecing his victims Worthington was next heard of in New York, where he changed his methods of trickery. He founded a sect, which he cabled the Students of Truth. Later he sailed for New Zealand and came to Christchurch. This was in 1890. After a spectacular career in Christchurch, during which the Choral Hall was built as his Temple of Truth, he fled to Melbourne when matters became too warm here. In 1902 he was convicted in Melbourne, and on being released from the Melbourne gaoll in 1907 he went to America.