Allan Pinkerton
Know as America’s first Private Investigator, Allan Pinkerton was born on the 25th of August in 1819 and lived until he was 64. Within his time, he was able to do great things for the Criminal Justice field and has even pursued many infamous outlaws within his time. He started his career as a law official and later, he created a private agency know as the Pinkerton Agency in which helped solve many train robberies, which got the attention of Abraham Lincoln. It is because of his great works that affected many of law enforcements that we see today as well as the private security industry as well.
In the beginning, Allan Pinkerton wasn’t a detective but established a cooperage business, in which he made barrels. The way that his detective career got start is by chance when he overheard a counterfeit operation that was occurring, in which he helped apprehend. Upon doing so he was appointed Sheriff’s Deputy of Illinois and later became the first detective of Chicago. It was during this time he began to gain notoriety for his work in the capturing of offenders. Around 1850 he then formed the Pinkerton’s National Detective agency, in which was the start of the first private detective agency.
During his years as a detective he has the cause for the capture of many criminal and outlaws of the time. Among just some of the cases that Pinkerton solved where the robbery of the Carbondale Pennsylvania bank in which $40,000 was stolen. Another was the case in which $700,000 was stole from Adams Express Company. During this time he obtained many great skills that he used to further his detective agency. With his detective agency, he was able to help apprehend many those that stole from express companies. One of Pinkerton’s greatest feats was when he was investigating a railway case when he uncovered an assassination plot to kill Abraham Lincoln, in which the conspirators meant to kill Lincoln in Baltimore during one of his stops. Upon telling Lincoln of this they traveled thought the town at night, later hiring Pinkerton as secret service to help obtain information about the military in the southern state. In order to do so he went undercover to help obtain as much information as he could. After the war he went back to his agency and continued to works many high end cases, as he was even ask to bring down the infamous Jessie James but at no avail.
It is because of the late Allan Pinkerton that we have several of the type of agencies that we have today. It is due to him that the secret service even exists because of his work in protecting the president. His detective agency had the same ability
