Adolph - The Count Of Scotchland

Count Adolph Humpfner is not a name you can easily forget if you have heard it ....

Bootleggers Have A Romantic Connotation In The US

... he was allegedly a bootlegger in the prohibition era.

The Mohawk Mystery Man Fascinated Local Newspapers .....

Local Newspapers from the period, apparently described him as being the mystery man of the Mohawk Valley, a suave if large 200lb man, who sported a van dyke beard, and who was involved in a scandal (his wife had disappeared), who wore a buffalo hide robe, and who died a sudden, and mysterious death in his 60's, on October the 12th 1932, while negotiating a new lease deal for the school gymnasium with Harry V Berry (the former mayor of Fort Plain). He was living in Sharon Springs, but also still owned a house in the tiny village of Ames, Montgomery County, New York State.

Other than that, little is known for sure of his background. He is said to have run away from his family in Frankfurt on the Main, Germany, and that his wife had gone missing in 1912, but after she was eventually declared legally dead in 1935, she was then discovered to be alive and well at a beach in Brooklyn in 1936. He gained the moniker 'Mystery man' because it was a 'mystery' to locals at the time, as to how he amassed his fortune. He was said to own a local bank, the school gymnasium in Fort Plain, and 23 other properties in New York City and New Jersey. 

 

Although it seems very unlikely that he was a real German Count, who had moved to the USA, it seems clear that he was a German immigrant, who was first occupant of the property, in the village of Ames, known locally as the 'Bootlegger Bungalow'. This was so named, as he was alleged by locals to have also been a bootlegger, who had smuggled/imported scotch liquor across the US/Canada border, which is how they believed he had got his fortune.

 

After his death, multiple secret compartments were found in his properties, several trucks and businesses, but nothing was ever proved about his activities. There were also papers strewn around his home with deeds to various properties, 20 US and foreign bank accounts totaling $44,500, and listing his aliases: He was said to have used several of these aliases (including 'Count', Herman Haas,James Klein, and several women's names) for banks in the US. The properties were valued with the cash at $140,000, and thus comprised a large amount in the 1930's.

 

Needless to say there was a battle over who got his fortune after his death, including the appearance out of the woodwork of a Miss Helen Pesecki, who ordered a funeral. Mr Berry in the meantime had already been made legal administrator of the estate, as the court could find no relatives .... Miss Pesecki lost a court case to make herself administrator and disappeared back in to the woodwork ... Mr Berry tracked down Mr Humpfner's two living sisters in Germany, who were declared heirs (after the courts declared his wife dead at Mr Berry's request) ... they were in poverty and each later got $25,000. 

 

The dead wife, Helen Haas Humpfner, who had turned out to be alive, got $35,000, and the rest was swallowed in legal administration and Mr Berry's fees and costs during his seven year ordeal, as the unexpected administrator of 'the Counts' estate. He said that he believed he had done a good job for a lumber dealer caught in legal minefield of a strangers estate. He had increased the value of the estate while administering it, and helped several deserving people at the end, while settling all sworn claims against the estate out of court (except one for $34,000, which was settled for just $4,000), and gaining tax waivers on the properties .... but he added that he was mightily relieved that it had finally all been settled "I have spent seven years of my life administering the estate of Adolph Humpfner. Now I want to get it over with. Then I want to forget it!"  

 

The Counts name had long since passed into local legend, with his memory only kept alive by the local property still being referred to as the 'Bootlegger Bungalow'. And there it would have remained but for a chance discovery in late 2020.

A Chance Discovery Revives The Bootleggers Legend

 

The latest owners of the property had to do some renovation work on the 100 year old building, and this involved removing a rotted wood skirting board that went around a little shack tacked onto the side of the house, originally used as a mudroom, to store coats and shoes. When suddenly on one of the sides, straw hay started falling out of the wall cavity, with the glint of glass wrapped around in tissue paper inside the straw.

Old Smuggler Gaelic Whisky Still Made Today .....

This proved to be an old scotch liquor bottle, and investigation uncovered sixty six such bottles. The bottles were labelled 'Old Smuggler Gaelic Whisky' bottled by the Stirling Bonding Company, a brand of Scotch still in production today. The contents were still preserved in fifteen of them, as it appears that the storage method either kept the corks wet or allowed natural evaporation.

The owners have said that they planned to keeping only a couple of the empty bottles, and one to drink. They planned to sell the rest to collectors, with each full one said to be worth something between $600 and $1,200.