Boston Corbett

[maharba]

A few years after Boston Corbett began drawing an 'invalid pension', attorney Daniel L. Brown went on trial in federal court for receiving fraudulent pensions. Old newspaper clippings drop off, after showing that Brown was set for trial. Within a couple more years, Daniel Brown was elected Probate
Judge in Cloud County KS. It would be interesting if there had been a trial, and depositions taken and did the government consider Corbett's and several other submitted pensions to be fraudulent. Could it be that Corbett had first corresponded and learned there was plenty of homestead acreage there, and
easy access to secure an invalid pension? Later, after Judge Brown became fed up with Corbett's antics, and as a Probate Judge, Daniel Brown was apparently the man who could and likely might certify Boston Corbett as insane, if Corbett remained in Cloud county. In the days before stealing the Superintendent's son's pony and running off from the Insane Asylum, Boston Corbett had tried to escape apparently assaulting a guard with a knife. He also had been making loud threats to kill: the Governor of Kansas, the warden, various officials and including Probate Judges. The man who had put Boston Corbett away had been Charles Curtis, a future US Vice President, and himself a very historic, colorful character.
I wonder if, too, Corbett did not conclude that he had painted himself into a corner with a series of actions? By filing for that absurdly small pension and overinflating his supposed disability,
Corbett opened the door and brought the government into a close scrutiny of his physical and mental condition. And which finally landed Corbett, a captive, into an insane asylum.