Henry More Smith

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Henry More Smith (fl. 1835.) (also known as Henry Frederick Moon, Henry Frederick More Smith and William Newman) was a confidence man, master puppeteer, hypnotist, seer, liar, and above all else a superlative escape artist who lived for a while in New Brunswick, Canada. Chains, handcuffs, shackles, even made-to-fit iron collars could not hold him.

Although he is believed to have been an Englishman born in Brighton, England, his origins are clouded by what he told people at the time. On one occasion he was asked where he had come from, he laughed and pointed outside to the full Moon.

In 1814 Smith was caught and imprisoned in a Kingston, New Brunswick jail as a horse thief. He faked an illness so well that housewives sent special foods to his bedside, one even sent him a feather bed to die on. While the jailor and a clergymen were heating a brick for his chilled back, Smith vanished into the night.

On more than one occasion when a posse was combing the countryside for him, searchers discovered only too late that he had been a member of the posse the day before. Recaptured again and awaiting trial for horse stealing Smith pretended to be insane. In his cell they found Smith had fashioned an elaborate marionette show out of his bed straw and shreds of his clothing. There were ten characters in all and Smith would whistle a tune while a puppet clanged a tambourine and all the characters danced to the tune.

Henry More Smith's genius so deeply impressed the authorities that he received a pardon on condition he would leave New Brunswick and never return.

The Lunar Rogue Pub, located in the city of Fredericton, New Brunswick has a supposed portrait of him on their signage.

[edit] Further reading

Bates, Walter (1979). Henry More Smith: The mysterious stranger; being an authentic account of the numerous arrests, remarkable doings and wonderful escapes of the most noted road agent who ever pestered the authorities of New Brunswick. New Brunswick: Non-Entity Press. ISBN 0969021518. (reprint from 1817 edition).
Grantmyre, Barbara Lucas (1963). Lunar Rogue. New Brunswick: Brunswick Press.
Wells, John (1994). Princess Caraboo: Her True Story. Sydney: Pan Macmillan. ISBN 0330336304. , p. 251-257.