Sturdivant Gang facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Sturdivant Gang
A blockhouse similar to the ones that were attached to the four corners of the log house within "Sturdivant's Fort" by the third generation of the Sturdivant Gang in their late 1810s-early 1820s counterfeiting operation overlooking the bluff of the Ohio River at Rosiclare, Illinois
In	Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, Tennessee, Illinois?
Founded by	Sturdivant Family
Years active	1780s-1820s (three generations of family counterfeiters)
Territory	Connecticut, Massachusetts, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Manville Ferry, New Athens, St. Clair County, Illinois and Sturdivant's Fort, Pope County, Illinois, present-day Rosiclare, Hardin County, Illinois
Ethnicity	European-American
Membership	13 or as high as 50-100
Criminal activities	counterfeiting

Part of a counterfeit coin mold similar to the type used by the Sturdivant Gang. The coin mold would come with two halves that would be lined with clay to make an impression of a genuine coin, would be poured into the funnel feeder cut into the side of the mold, and the fake coin later plated with a thin layer of silver. Legitimate coins were made by government mints and stamped from silver or gold coin discs as most counterfeit coins were molded.

The Spanish silver peso was the most common currency found on the American frontier. The Sturdivant Gang "coinied" this type of counterfeit money, which was minted in México and considered legal tender, in the United States, until the Coinage Act of 1857.

The Sturdivant Gang was a multi-generational, family gang of counterfeiters, whose criminal activities took place over a fifty-year period, from the 1780s, in Connecticut and Massachusetts, with one branch of the family going to Tennessee via Virginia and a second family branch going to Ohio and finally settled on the Illinois frontier, between the 1810s to 1830s.

James Sturdivant was the father of Azor Sturdivant and the grandfather of Roswell S. and Merrick Sturdivant and the gang leader of the first generation of the Sturdivant Gang of counterfeiters.

Azor Sturdivant was the father of Roswell S. and Merrick Sturdivant and the gang leader of the second generation of the Sturdivant Gang of counterfeiters.

In popular culture

"Bloody Jack" Sturdivant portrayed by American actor, Tony Caruso (on the right) in a knife dueling scene with Jim Bowie played by Alan Ladd in the 1952 film, The Iron Mistress.

The 1952 film, The Iron Mistress, based on Paul Wellman's 1951 novel, starring Alan Ladd as Jim Bowie and Tony Caruso as "Bloody Jack" Sturdevant, also known as Roswell S. Sturdivant, depicts a Hollywood version of the infamous Bowie duel at Natchez Under The Hill. In 1964, Wellman also published the book, Spawn of Evil, which went into more depth about Roswell Sturdivant and his gang and the crime network on the early American frontier.