There's been some confusion whether there were two Samuel Tragheims born in the 1830's, one the son of Mendel Tragheim, and the other the son of Menere. Both Samuels (if there were indeed two) seem to have been disreputable characters, prone to name changes and duplicity. But never have both of them been seen in the records at the same time, and so I’m going to assume that they are the same person, and that “Menere” was an invention or a recording error.

This makes Samuel a very interesting person. He was a bigamist, an inventor, businessman, and a Russian spy!

He would have been born in Hassenpoth, Courland, Russia, which was the family's home. Courland was a German speaking enclave in Russia. It’s now part of Latvia. So far no record of his birth has been found. He was part of virtuallly an entire generation of the family that left Russia for England, Scotland, the US, and possibly Canada as well.

Samuel first appears officially in Edinburgh at the age of 22, when he marries Catherine Winton. Characteristically, Samuel’s first known mention in official documentation is under a pseudonym; he married under the name “John.” His wedding was in a church, and it’s not known if he officially converted to Christianity. John/Samuel gives his parents names as -- well, the document is hard to read, and it’s not entirely clear what it says. The father’s first name could be “Menere” or it could be “Mendel.” The mother’s first name looks like Tauline (or possibly Pauline), but her last name is very unclear. It could be Renyvistch, which is the best reading that the workers at the Scottish records office could come up with. Possibly Renyvistch is a mishearing of the name Aronowitz, which was definitely current in Hassenpoth at or around the time of Samuel’s birth.

Later, assuming this is all one Samuel we’re talking about, he gives his parents as Mendel Tragheim and Taube Perau. Why we would have given another name for his mother at the time of this wedding is anyone’s guess.

At the time of his marriage at Catherine he was living at 92 High St, Edinburgh. His date of birth, according to his marriage certificate, would have been about 1835. Catherine would have been 20. John/Samuel’s trade was given as “shoemaker.”

The first child, Daniel, was born 16 months later, on 12 August, 1858. Sadly, he died the same day.

Diana Lyle, who lived to adulthood, was born the following year in Leith. 

By 1861, the time of the census, the family had moved to Newcastle, where Edward was born. The family -- there were now four of them -- lived at 5 Gloucester Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Westgate, along with an unmarried relative called Elizabeth Winter (that would have been Catherine’s younger sister, Elizabeth Winton). Samuel is now no longer a “shoemaker,” but a “draper and interpreter.” It’s likely that, as a fluent German speaker, with a smattering of Russian, he had found work that used his linguistic skills. 

The following year, 1862, the family were back up in Leith, living at 83 Kirkgate, where, on 15 September, Mary Jane was born. She was only to live until 1869. On her birth certificate, Samuel is back to being a clothier. Presumably he was no longer finding work as an interpreter. On Guy Fawkes’ night, 5th November, Samuel was awarded provisional protection (no. 2999) for a patent for a method of treating hemp. As far as I know, this was Samuel’s first patent application.

Perhaps the success of his patent application went to his head, because sometime between 1862 and 1865 Samuel abandoned his family in favor of Anne Benford, of London.

In late 1865, Catherine Winton gave birth to Alfred, in Norwich. This is at more or less the same time that Samuel and Anne are proclaiming their banns in London. Presumably Samuel had abandoned Catherine and the children sometime between Catherine getting pregnant in early 1865, and the calling of the first bann on October 29.

According to family member Janet Billings, “Alfred was born in Norwich, where Sam disappeared and Catherine and the children were rescued by her brothers.” Catherine’s brothers were Alexander and James.

Samuel moved to London, where he married Anne Benford. This was the first of his bigamous marriages. (Actually, we have a record of the banns being called on October 29 and November 5th and 12th, 1865, but not of the wedding itself. If they weren’t actually legally married, then that makes some sense of later developments in Missouri.)

A daughter was born to Anne Benford on June 17, 1866, less than nine months after the first calling of the banns. This wasn’t at all uncommon, although Eleanor Anne Louisa Benford’s birth doesn’t seem to be registered in England, and her birth date is only known through her baptismal ceremony from 1871 (in St James, Clerkenwell, London). Perhaps this is an indication that Samuel and Anne were not actually married? Perhaps Samuel’s past (or rather his existing marriage) had caught up with him between the reading of the banns and the actual wedding. It's also possible that Eleanor Anne Louisa Benford was born abroad. Samuel was prone to travel.

Is it possible that Samuel went to London to find work, got into an affair without revealing he was married, and then was forced to wed because of a pregnancy? That would certainly explain him abandoning his family in Norwich. Anne’s family certainly woudn’t have been rich, so Samuel did not marry her for her money. Her father was a jobber for a watch maker. Her mother had been born in Calcutta, but was ethnically English.

In 1867 another child was born: Samuel Banford Tragheim. His birth was, unlike Eleanor’s, officially recorded.

In 1868 Samuel applied for two further patents. On 10th September, provisional protection was not allowed for “An improved mode of and apparatus for cleansing fibrous materials” (number 2791). The description is of a kind of washing machine: “An apparatus consisting of an inverted pan or flanged disc pierced with holes and fitted at its center with a verticle tube having hollow taper arms is placed in the boiler intended to receive the clothes, and the detergent solution being sufficiently heated the liquor discharges in continuous streams through the tube and taper arms on the clothes placed in the copper.” Every 1860’s home should have one! there’s no indication of why the application was rejected. 

Samuel was more successful on 9th October with patent applciation 3104, for “An improved mode of and apparatus for washing, dyeing, cooking, and wholly or partly dissolving substances of vegetable, animal, or mineral origin, and for evaporating and concentrating solutions of the same substances,” which was awarded provisional protection. From this description patent 3104 sounds like it might be for making marmite, but a fuller description outlines something like the washing machine described in the earlier patent:

Liquids, circulating and spraying.—Related to apparatus primarily described for circulating water through clothes or for spraying them while being boiled in an open copper or other vessel, but stated to be applicable for evaporating liquids. In one form, the clothes rest on a perforated disc, beneath which are placed fans for circulating the liquid. Some of the perforations may be protectef by pegs or guards so that the clothes do not cover the perforations. Or a pipe or cone may be used, which stands on a serrated rim and carries at the top a sort of cowl with downwardly-projecting nozzles or with a rotary series of nozzles acting on the principle of a Barker’s mill. A perforated or plain bottomg disc may be combined with the tube or cone. Or, finally, the clothes may be “placed between the upper and lower ends of” a serpentine pipe contained in the vessel.

It it a washing machine? is it for evaporating fluids? It can’t seem to make its mind up. Samuel was living at Swinton St., Grey’s Inn Road, Middlesex when he made these patent application. Again his trade is recorded as “interpreter.”

Three years later, in the 1871 census, Catherine, Diane, and Edward are living without Samuel in 37 William Street, edinbugh. She’s now describing herself as a widow. Whether she was merely ashamed at being abandoned, or whehter she thought Samuel was dead, we don’t know. but where is Samuel? He doesn’t appear on the English or Scottish census of that year. The two children, Samuel Jr. and Eleanor Anne Louisa, were baprized at Clerkenwell St James on Nov 2, 1871, but it’s not known if Samuel was in attendance. Samuel’s trade is given as “fat melter,” while sounds like a singularly unpleasant business. It’s possible that Samuel was actually a business owner, rather than someone who stirred vats of melting fat for a living. He may even have been using his own patented washing-machine-cum-evaporator.

His address at the time of his children’s baprisms is given as Sydney House, Abbey Road, West Ham. West Ham at that time seems to have been a booming industrial town:

During 1860–1919 at least 290 permanent manufacturing firms were formed, of which the main groups were chemicals (100 firms), engineering and metals (60), food, drink and tobacco (33), textiles, leather and clothing (23), timber, furniture, etc. (21), and bricks, pottery, cement, glass, etc. (20). [source]

We next hear of Samuel arriving in New York City -- or at least we think we do -- under the name John Benford on 7 Apr 1875, accompanied by Anne Benford (his wife, travelling under her maiden name). Anne’s age is given as 28, which would make her date of birth about 1848, fitting the record for her in the 1851 census. John/Samuel’s trade as a merchant (”rice miller”), his nationailty (”Russian”), and his date of birth (40 years old, hence date of birth of about 1835) all fit. As does the use of the first name John, which he’d used before. Why would he have been traveling under a pseudonym? This was only five years before he was outed as a Russian spy, and if he was already spying at this time it may have been convenient for him to have had an alias. There’s no sign of the children. Were they living with Anne’s family? Samuel Benford Tragheim certainly survived, because he married in 1898 and lived until 1915, when he was 47. I have no record of Eleanor Ann Louisa Benford.

Oddly, there is a marriage recorded between a Samuel Tragheim and an Ann Smith in St. Louis, Missouri, on 2 Nov 1875. The scant detail on this marriage certificate is the kind of thing that drives family historians mad. Certainly Samuel was in the country. He was even with an Ann, or an Anne at least. Could he have ended up going through another wedding cerenomy with his legal wife? Or were they perhaps not legally married in England and they decided to legitimate their union? But why would she marry under an assumed name? A marriage under a false name is scarely more legitimate than no marriage at all.

But certainly Samuel was in the US around this time, since there is a naturalization of a Samuel Tragheim Benford (with the names in that order) on 16 July, 1877. His address is given as 415 Grand St, New York City. He is described as a merchant, and as “Russian.” His witness is a Philip Pasaroff -- another Russian, we might assume.

On June 17, 1877 there is another marriage! This time it’s between Samuel Tragheim and -- well, the name on the certificate is so illegible that it’s been read both as Eva Rossair and as Johanna Lesser. But what happened to Anne Benford, or Ann Smith? Had Ann(e) died? Been dumped? Or were John and Anne Benford a different couple? Was the Missouri marriage a different couple as well?

A patent application is filed September 20. 

In that same year, on April 10, there’s a patent granted (189,325) this time for an “ice machine.” The name is given as “Simon Tragheim” and the address as “New York, NY.” Since no other Simon Tragheim has ever appeared in the record, I think we can assume this is Samuel.

The following year, 1878, there’s another “Simon Tragheim” patent awarded. This one’s for a “screw propellor” and Tragheim is the “assignor” for “David S. Ritterband, New York, NY.” ( Official Gazette, Vol 13, page 435). This invention merited a brief mention in Scientific American (April 13, 1878):

Mr. Simon Tragheim, of New York City, has patented a Screw Propeller, which is claimed to admit of almost instant reversing, and at the same time pass through the water with facility. The blades are strengthened by an outer frame extending at both side obliquely from the hub and across the center point of the blade. The front and rear edges of these frames are beveled, so as to cut through the water easily.

 

Ritterband was a lawyer with an address at 61 Wall St. (By 1909, Ritterband would be the director of a land company -- the South Elberon Land Co. -- with capital of $200,000, which was a huge sum for the time.) In “assigning” the patent to Ritterband, Samuel was effectively selling his ownership rights to this intellectual property.

The year before this, in 1877, there’s a newspaper report regarding this new propellor:

The Daily Freeman, Kingston, NY, Thursday Evening, Nov. 22, 1877
LOCAL INTELLIGENCE
—
CITY NOTES
—
Steam was got on the tug General Sheridan on Cornell & Company's fleet to-day, and her time in making a mile was taken while she has her old screw in. In a few days, or as soon as the new Tragheim wheel can be put in, that invention will be given a thorough trial to see how the thing works.


In 1880, Tragheim is in London, to meet the Nihilist, Leo Hartmann, upon whom he is to spy. hartmann had been directly involved in a plot to assassinate Czar Alexander II. 

Hartmann describes him as follows:

In June, 1880, there came to London a stout man of about forty-five, whose hair and beard were partly gray. He gave his name as Mr. Tragheim [Hartmann refers to “Traghaim” throughout his letter, although I’ve rendered it as “Tragheim”], formerly a Russian subject from the German provinces and now a citizen of the United States of America. He knew a few Russian words and spoke German and English perfectly. He was undoubtedly a Jew. It was quite apparent that he had been in America for years and knew New York very well. He said he was a wholesale butcher and that he dealt with England. He assured me that he owned several houses in the city of New York on streets where the elevated railroads are. Before coming to London he had lived for some time at Geneva, Switzerland.

According to Hartmann, Tragheim is “trusted agent” of the Czar, and has been given vast amount of money (£50,000). He made numerous attempts to have Hartmann kindnapped and transported back to Russia about a steamer. He also tried to set Hartmann up by giving him forged notes. (See Tragheim and the Anarchists Part I and Part II for a fuller account of these events). 

We only have Hartmann’s side of the story of course, but it’s not flattering. He describes Tragheim as being his “Judas.” The New York Evening Post, basing its opinion on Hartmann’s account of his dealings with Tragheim, describes the latter as “a foolish sort of person for the Czar to select for any serious work.”

Hartmann exposed Tragheim to the British police as a Russian spy, and revealed that he may have been involved in the placing of a dynamite bomb on the Northwestern Railway, in an attempt to blame the Nihilists and to have them driven out of England. The police were already aware of Tragheim’s activities, but he fled London and was not found, despite intensive searches on the continent. Probably the reason he wasn’t found was because he had not in fact fled to the continent, but to the US.

On 27 October, 1880, a “Saml Traghum” arrives in New York City aboard the Scythia, from Liverpool. He’s “Russian” and aged 46. His plan is “unknown.” So are his movements after that date. If he fled with the £50,000 the Czar gave him, he could have afforded to keep a low profile.

On April 10, 1894, in “Ice and refrigeration, Volume 7” the patent for the Ice Machine is recorded as having expired. 

Connections with Joseph Tragheim

There are some circumstantial connections with Joseph Tragheim, who would have been Samuel’s younger brother (born about 1860, making him 25 years younger). This is assuming that Sam is the man Hartmann met.

Joseph Tragheim mentions in his Old Bailey appearance (that's 1890, ten years after Hartmann's account) that he does business in Belgium ("I traded at Rotterdam as Benford and Co."). Belgium is mentioned in the Hartmann letter as the place where a friend of Tragheim's was going.

Benford is of course the name of Samuel’s second wife, and a name he appears to have adopted for travelling under, and for his US naturalization (as Samuel Tragheim Benford).

It's interesting that Geneva is mentioned as one of Samuel Tragheim's former hangouts, since Joseph later ended up going to prison in Swizterland for forgery, just a few years after the Old Bailey case.

Also, I found a 1922 record in the Index to the Correspondence of the Foreign Office entitled "Tragheim, J. Alleged sale in Belgium of butter falsely described as Australian." In the Hartmann letter Tragheim mentions the money (£100,000 -- a vast sum) he's made through trading butter. 

Based on these overlaps,  I think Joseph Tragheim and Samuel Tragheim were in business together, in Belgium and elsewhere, and that the business ran for some time. If Joseph was still actively trading in 1922 he must have picked up again after he'd finished his seven year sentence in Switzerland. So was Samuel running the business?

Presumably there will be documentation in Belgium concerning Benford & Co. The British police archives should also contain a wealth of information on Samuel Tragheim, if Hartmann’s account is to be believed.