PoliticalGraveyard.com
The Political Graveyard: A Database of American History
Politicians in Trouble or Disgrace

Politicians in Trouble or Disgrace: Arson
Setting Fires

See the trouble and disgrace main page, as well as the FAQ and the Political Graveyard privacy policy, for important explanations and disclaimers.

in chronological order

Oliver Wolcott, Jr. Oliver Wolcott Jr. (1760-1833) — of Litchfield, Litchfield County, Conn.; New York, New York County, N.Y. Born in Litchfield, Litchfield County, Conn., January 11, 1760. Connecticut state comptroller, 1788-90; U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1795-1800; banker; Governor of Connecticut, 1817-27; delegate to Connecticut state constitutional convention, 1818. Congregationalist. Accused, by political adversaries in 1800, of setting fire to the State Department, and resigned from the Cabinet in protest against the investigation. Died in New York, New York County, N.Y., June 1, 1833 (age 73 years, 141 days). Interment at East Cemetery, Litchfield, Conn.
  Relatives: Son of Oliver Wolcott Sr. and Laura (Collins) Wolcott; brother of Mary Ann Wolcott (who married Chauncey Goodrich) and Frederick Wolcott; nephew of Erastus Wolcott and Ursula Wolcott (who married Matthew Griswold (1714-1799)); grandson of Roger Wolcott (1679-1767); granduncle of Roger Wolcott (1847-1900); third great-grandson of William Leete; first cousin of Roger Griswold; first cousin twice removed of John William Allen, James Samuel Wadsworth, Henry Titus Backus, Christopher Parsons Wolcott and Matthew Griswold (1833-1919); first cousin thrice removed of Charles Frederick Wadsworth, James Wolcott Wadsworth, Edward Oliver Wolcott and Alfred Wolcott; first cousin four times removed of James Wolcott Wadsworth Jr. and Selden Chapin; first cousin five times removed of James Jermiah Wadsworth and Frederic Lincoln Chapin; first cousin six times removed of James Wadsworth Symington; second cousin once removed of William Pitkin, Gaylord Griswold, Samuel Clesson Allen, William Wolcott Ellsworth and Henry Leavitt Ellsworth; second cousin twice removed of Joseph Lyman Huntington, Elisha Hunt Allen and George Washington Wolcott; second cousin thrice removed of Edmund Holcomb, Albert Asahel Bliss, Philemon Bliss, Collins Dwight Huntington, William Fessenden Allen, George Milo Huntington and Frederick Hobbes Allen; second cousin four times removed of Judson H. Warner, Nelson Platt Wheeler, William Egbert Wheeler and Henry Augustus Wolcott; second cousin five times removed of Alexander Royal Wheeler; third cousin of Daniel Pitkin; third cousin once removed of Thomas Chittenden, Enoch Woodbridge, James Hillhouse, Joseph Silliman (1756-1829) and Timothy Pitkin; third cousin twice removed of Phineas Lyman Tracy, Albert Haller Tracy, Henry Ward Beecher, Leveret Brainard, Edwin Carpenter Pinney, Roger Calvin Leete and John Robert Graham Pitkin; third cousin thrice removed of Joseph Pomeroy Root, George Griswold Sill, Frederick Walker Pitkin, George Buckingham Beecher, Luther S. Pitkin and Claude Carpenter Pinney; fourth cousin of Benjamin Tallmadge, Elizur Goodrich, Martin Chittenden, William Woodbridge and Joseph Silliman (c.1786-1850); fourth cousin once removed of Chittenden Lyon, Frederick Augustus Tallmadge, Josiah C. Chittenden, Clark S. Chittenden, Abel Madison Scranton, Frederick Enoch Woodbridge and Joseph Fitch Silliman.
  Political family: Kellogg-Adams-Seymour-Chapin family of Connecticut and New York (subset of the Four Thousand Related Politicians).
  The town of Wolcott, Vermont, is named for him.
  See also National Governors Association biography — Wikipedia article — NNDB dossier — Find-A-Grave memorial
  Image source: One Hundredth Anniversary (1919)
  Henry Clay Cole (1838-1881) — also known as Henry C. Cole — of Kokomo, Howard County, Ind. Born in Ripley County, Ind., 1838. Physician; mayor of Kokomo, Ind., 1881; died in office 1881. Shot and killed by a sheriff's posse, allegedly while he was attempting to rob and burn a grist mill, in Kokomo, Howard County, Ind., September 19, 1881 (age about 43 years). The shooters were personal enemies of his, so some suspected a conspiracy. Four members of the posse were indicted for manslaughter by a grand jury, but the charges were later dismissed. Interment at Crown Point Cemetery, Kokomo, Ind.
  Presumably named for: Henry Clay
  Relatives: Son of Jesse Cole and Elizabeth (Roberts) Cole.
  See also Find-A-Grave memorial
  Edward Richard Folsom (1874-1923) — also known as Edward R. Folsom — of Irvington, Essex County, N.J. Born in North Urbana, Steuben County, N.Y., September 18, 1874. Charged, in 1894, of forging checks, bank robbery, and arson; pleaded guilty to two charges; sentenced to ten years in prison; pardoned and released in September 1897; coal dealer; mayor of Irvington, N.J., 1923; died in office 1923. Blackmailers threatening to expose his criminal past extorted money from him until he was nearly penniless; killed himself by an overdose of sedative, in Irvington, Essex County, N.J., September 26, 1923 (age 49 years, 8 days). Interment at Clinton Cemetery, Irvington, N.J.
  Relatives: Son of Frederick Lewis Folsom and Martha (Layton) Folsom; married to Sara Elizabeth Keeler.
  See also Find-A-Grave memorial
  Alfred Moore Waddell (1834-1912) — also known as Alfred M. Waddell — of Wilmington, New Hanover County, N.C. Born in Hillsborough, Orange County, N.C., September 16, 1834. Democrat. Lawyer; newspaper editor and publisher; colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War; U.S. Representative from North Carolina 3rd District, 1871-79; delegate to Democratic National Convention from North Carolina, 1880 (member, Resolutions Committee), 1896; notorious leader of the overthrow of Wilmington's elected city government by white supremacists on November 10, 1898; forced the incumbent mayor to resign at gunpoint, and took his place; the offices of the Wilmington Daily Record newspaper were burned, and as many as 300 Black citizens of Wilmington were murdered; mayor of Wilmington, N.C., 1898-1906. Died in Wilmington, New Hanover County, N.C., March 17, 1912 (age 77 years, 183 days). Interment at Oakdale Cemetery, Wilmington, N.C.
  Presumably named for: Alfred Moore
  Relatives: Son of Hugh Waddell and Susan (Moore) Waddell; married 1857 to Julia Savage; married to Ellen Savage; married 1896 to Gabrielle de Rosset; cousin by marriage of Samuel Ashe; cousin two different ways of John Baptista Ashe (1748-1802), William Henry Hill, John Baptista Ashe (1810-1857) and William Shepperd Ashe; cousin four different ways of Thomas Samuel Ashe; cousin three different ways of George Davis and Horatio Davis.
  Political families: Polk family; Ashe-Polk family of North Carolina (subsets of the Four Thousand Related Politicians).
  See also congressional biography — Govtrack.us page — Wikipedia article — Find-A-Grave memorial
  Robert Charles Lacey (b. 1886) — also known as Robert C. Lacey — of Buffalo, Erie County, N.Y. Born in Buffalo, Erie County, N.Y., October 10, 1886. Democrat. Coal and ice dealer; president, Buffalo Central Labor Council, 1920; member of New York state senate 49th District, 1923-24; defeated, 1924; during a railway strike in 1922, the Niagara Falls High Speed Line train line was dynamited, wrecking a train and injuring its passengers; in 1923, Lacey was charged in federal court with transporting the explosives in his car; he falsely testified to his non-involvement; later confessed to his part in the incident; pleaded guilty to perjury over his earlier testimony; sentenced to one day in jail and fined $500; pardoned in 1924 by President Calvin Coolidge; in 1925, he was again indicted for complicity in the bombing, and pleaded not guilty; after some others were acquitted, the charges were dropped; in December 1937, during an investigation into corruption involving the Buffalo city council, he was charged with perjury. Member, Eagles; Elks. Burial location unknown.
  Relatives: Son of James Lacey and Sarah (Cooper) Lacey; married, September 30, 1908, to Harriet 'Hattie' Noack.
  Vincent Tuero (1881-1953) — also known as Vicente Sifuentes Tuero — of Buffalo, Erie County, N.Y.; North Tonawanda, Niagara County, N.Y.; Southfield, Oakland County, Mich.; San Antonio, Bexar County, Tex. Born in Durango, January 26, 1881. Socialist. Naturalized U.S. citizen; streetcar conductor; financial secretary and Treasurer, Street Carmen's Union; candidate for New York state assembly from Erie County 2nd District, 1918; during a railway strike in 1922, the Niagara Falls High Speed Line train line was dynamited, wrecking a train and injuring its passengers; in 1923, Tuero and others were indicted in federal court for conspiring to steal, transport, and place the dynamite; a trial was held in January 1926, but the charges against Tuero were dismissed by the judge at the end of the prosecution's case. Mexican ancestry. Died, from a cerebral hemorrhage, in Laurelwood Rest Home, San Antonio, Bexar County, Tex., July 9, 1953 (age 72 years, 164 days). Interment somewhere in San Antonio, Tex.
  Relatives: Son of Mariano Tuero and Dolores (Sifuentes) Tuero.
  Tom Metzger — of California; Warsaw, Kosciusko County, Ind. Democratic candidate for U.S. Representative from California 43rd District, 1980; candidate in Democratic primary for U.S. Senator from California, 1982; convicted in 1991 of burning a cross (as a form of hate speech or intimidation) and sentenced to prison; in 1992, he was arrested in Canada for violating immigration laws. Member, John Birch Society; Ku Klux Klan. Still living as of 2012.
  See also Wikipedia article
  Scott Winfield Davis — also known as Scott W. Davis — of Palo Alto, Santa Clara County, Calif. Arrested in 1996, in Atlanta, Georgia, and charged with killing David Coffin and setting fire to his home; the charges were later dropped for lack of evidence; Independent candidate for Governor of California, 2003. Still living as of 2003.
"Enjoy the hospitable entertainment of a political graveyard."
Henry L. Clinton, Apollo Hall, New York City, February 3, 1872
The Political Graveyard

The Political Graveyard is a web site about U.S. political history and cemeteries. Founded in 1996, it is the Internet's most comprehensive free source for American political biography, listing 320,919 politicians, living and dead.
 
  The coverage of this site includes (1) the President, Vice President, members of Congress, elected state and territorial officeholders in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories; and the chief elected official, typically the mayor, of qualifying municipalities; (2) candidates at election, including primaries, for any of the above; (3) all federal judges and all state appellate judges; (4) certain federal officials, including the federal cabinet, diplomatic chiefs of mission, consuls, U.S. district attorneys, collectors of customs and internal revenue, members of major federal commissions; and political appointee (pre-1969) postmasters of qualifying communities; (5) state and national political party officials, including delegates, alternate delegates, and other participants in national party nominating conventions; (6) Americans who served as "honorary" consuls for other nations before 1950. Note: municipalities or communities "qualify", for Political Graveyard purposes, if they have at least half a million person-years of history, inclusive of predecessor, successor, and merged entities.  
  The listings are incomplete; development of the database is a continually ongoing project.  
  Information on this page — and on all other pages of this site — is believed to be accurate, but is not guaranteed. Users are advised to check with other sources before relying on any information here.  
  The official URL for this page is: https://politicalgraveyard.com/trouble/arson.html.  
  Links to this or any other Political Graveyard page are welcome, but specific page addresses may sometimes change as the site develops.  
  If you are searching for a specific named individual, try the alphabetical index of politicians.  
Copyright notices: (1) Facts are not subject to copyright; see Feist v. Rural Telephone. (2) Politician portraits displayed on this site are 70-pixel-wide monochrome thumbnail images, which I believe to constitute fair use under applicable copyright law. Where possible, each image is linked to its online source. However, requests from owners of copyrighted images to delete them from this site are honored. (3) Original material, programming, selection and arrangement are © 1996-2023 Lawrence Kestenbaum. (4) This work is also licensed for free non-commercial re-use, with attribution, under a Creative Commons License.
Site information: The Political Graveyard is created and maintained by Lawrence Kestenbaum, who is solely responsible for its structure and content. — The mailing address is The Political Graveyard, P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106. — This site is hosted by HDL. — The Political Graveyard opened on July 1, 1996; the last full revision was done on March 8, 2023.

Creative 
Commons License Follow polgraveyard on Twitter [Amazon.com]