who admitted to just allowing him to escape, literally opening his cell door and the outside door of the prison and telling him "We're going to look the other way." He was arrested again for fraud in New York City in 1881, and in Chicago in 1884. Moses settled in Winthrop, Massachusetts, where he became the editor of the local newspaper and served as moderator of the town meetings. In October 1884, he was convicted of swindling $15 from a Rev. E. L. Rexford and sentenced to jail. During his imprisonment, he tried to hang himself in his cell. In 1885 he was sentenced to three years in the Massachusetts State Prison after being convicted several times for committing petty theft and fraud. Believing Moses did not have long to live, as his drug addictions had ruined his health, Governor Oliver Ames pardoned the attorney in 1887. In 1902, Moses was arrested again, convicted for larceny of an overcoat worth $50, and sentenced by the Boston Municipal Court to four months imprisonment. He appealed to the court for mercy while acknowledging he was responsible, saying that he had become addicted to morphine and opium while serving in the Reconstruction South and was struggling to correct his life. Estranged from his family, Moses died by asphyxiation from a gas stove on December 11, 1906. The police initially did not determine if it was suicide or an accident. He was buried in Winthrop. Personal life Like his father, Moses married a Gentile (non-Jewish) woman, Emma Buford Richardson (1841–1920), on December 20, 1869. They had four children together, Franklin J. III (b. 1860); Mary Richardson (b. September 12, 1862); Jeannie McLellan, named for his mother (b. Jan 20, 1867-d. February 7, 1938), Sumter, South Carolina; and Emma Buford Moses (b. November 21, 1872). From June 1, 1866 to September 26, 1867, Moses was editor of the Sumter News, a Conservative paper. References Bibliography Byrnes, Thomas (1969). 1886 Professional Criminals of America. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. Ginsberg, Benjamin. Moses of South Carolina: A Jewish Scalawag During Radical Reconstruction (Johns Hopkins University Press; 2010) External links SCIway Biography of Franklin J. Moses Jr. NGA Biography of Franklin J. Moses Jr. "South Carolina’s Franklin J. Moses: Scalawag, but No Paskudnyak?" in The Jewish Daily Forward, May 25, 2010. |- 1838 births 1906 deaths American people of German-Jewish descent American people of Portuguese-Jewish descent Confederate States