Brooks: A con man tries to drag Minnesota into a war with Canada. Again.

The last time the richest men in America teamed up with a con man, Minnesota almost invaded Canada. So as president and convicted felon Donald Trump launches his promised trade war with Minnesota’s biggest trading partner, let’s revisit the tale of felon and forger Lord Gordon Gordon, the second-most-infamous con man ever to set foot in this state.

(snip)

Our story begins in 1871, when a vision in tartan strolled into Minneapolis. Lord Gordon Gordon, as he introduced himself, had come from bonny Scotland to buy land in Minnesota so he could resettle tenants from his crowded Highland estate. The only truth in his claim was the date and the fact that Scotland exists. He wasn’t a lord, he wasn’t a Gordon, he was no true Scotsman and he’d swindled the money he was throwing around from jewelers in London.

Lord Gordon Gordon’s next scam involved fleecing Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould and the assorted robber barons who were battling for control of the Erie Railroad. Then, as now, many Americans placed their trust in men with silly hats. Gordon fled the pack of angry investors across the border to Canada, where he tried to buy up a chunk of Manitoba.

Gould — who seems to have a lake in Itasca County named after him for some reason — sent a posse to abduct the con man and haul him back to the states. That posse, which included two future governors of Minnesota and three of the state’s future congressmen, nabbed Gordon but were nabbed in turn and tossed in jail by the North West Mounted Police. The Mounties always get their Minnesota statesmen.

When Canada refused the prisoners bail, an indignant Minnesota Gov. Horace Austin mobilized the state militia and U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant authorized the invasion of Manitoba. Canada grudgingly released the posse, but kept Lord Gordon Gordon. The con man’s celebration was cut short when news of the incident reached the London jewelers he scammed. On Aug. 1, 1874, as Canadian authorities mulled England’s request to extradite the con man for trial, Lord Gordon Gordon threw an epic party for his friends, then shot himself in the head.

https://www.startribune.com/brooks-a-con-man-tries-to-drag-minnesota-into-a-war-with-canada-again/601219980