User:LadyPirate82/William Pinkerton

William Pinkerton (7 April 1846 - 11 December 1923) was the head of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency from the 1870s until his death. He began working for his father, Allan Pinkerton, during the Civil War. He tracked, chased, and captured many "badmen" of the American Old West, including the Reno Gang, Jesse James, and the Wild Bunch.

Youth
William Pinkerton was born in Dundee, IL, on April 7, 1846 to Allan Pinkerton and Joan (Carfrae) Pinkerton. They named him after his grandfathers according to Scots tradition. In Scotland, Allan Pinkerton had been involved with the Chartist movement; in America, he was active in the Underground Railroad. In early 1859, thirteen-year-old William and his father assisted John Brown and a number of other fugitive slaves escape into Canada. By the time he was a teenage, William was enrolled in boarding school, along with brother Robert, in Indiana. His real education came in the field working for the family business. Allan pulled both his sons from school to work by his side to keep them, he argued, from running away to enlist as many young boys did during the Civil War. William was well-suited to detective work.

Civil War
When the Civil War erupted, Allan Pinkerton was called to head the Union Intelligence Service by his long-time associate, Union General George McClellan. William left school to join his father on the battlefields when only fifteen, arguing that working in the Secret Service was the best preparation for joining the family business, Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. William was a dispatch-rider during the Battle of Malvern Hill. Because of his slight size, he rode in one of Thaddeus S.C. Lowe's hot air balloon over the battlefield, the first use of aerial reconnaissance in the history of warfare. Allan resigned from his military appointment in 1862, but William and younger brother Robert, who also had left school for the excitement of war, remained in the Secret Service until the end of the conflict. William worked closely with his father throughout the war. In 1864, Union Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton sent the Pinkertons to New Orleans. There they uncovered evidence of massive cotton frauds.

After the war, William Pinkerton studied at the University of Notre Dame and a business college in Chicago before joining his father's detective agency as a clerk. Before long, Pinkerton abandoned his desk job and began frequenting saloons where he befriended professional criminals and learned first-hand about criminal techniques.

Personal Life
Pinkerton married Margaret Ashland, a wealthy heiress, in 1866. They had two daughters, Isabell Joan in 1867 and Margaret in 1870. He developed a heavy drinking habit while networking at saloons. He was encouraged in these pursuits by his father, despite the Agency's "no excessive drinking" policy, but his excesses concerned his family and a water cure was often considered though never attempted.

Agency
By 1867, William Pinkerton and his brother Robert were both working for the family business often working in tandem to solve cases. Robert oversaw the Northeast and South from the New York office, and William in Chicago lead the Midwest and West. The brothers were running the business as early as 1869, although their father retained official directorship. Even though Allan never actually stepped down, the brothers were officially in charge by 1877 or 1879.

Allan Pinkerton died in 1884 leaving the administration of his National Detective Agency to his two son, William in Chicago and Robert in New York. While Robert focused on the administration side of the business, William followed Allan's footsteps chasing outlaws across the American frontier and learning as much as he could about the underworld. William is generally considered the best detective of the first three Pinkerton men. The brothers expanded the business, opening offices across the United States and increasing Pinkerton involvement in the mounting labor conflict. By 1893, there were eight Pinkerton Agency offices.