Faking It

Sketches of the Life of William Stuart, the First and Most Celebrated Counterfeiter of Connecticut. Bridgeport: For the Author, 1854.

As a teenager in 1807, Stuart was approached by a wholesale dealer selling Burroughs’s counterfeit money. One hundred dollars’ worth of bogus bills could be purchased for $10; Stuart exchanged his horse, saddle, and bridle for $300 in counterfeits, thus launching a long career as a “master in the business.”