John H. Hickcox’s confession: An addendum

Abstract

Letter to the Editor John H. Hickcox’s Confession: An Addendum In 2004, we wrote an article for the Journal of Government Information reporting the arrest of John Howard Hickcox, creator of United States Government Publications: A Monthly Catalogue (also called Hickcox’s Monthly Catalogue) and Assistant Librarian at the Library of Congress, for stealing letters and money sent to the Librarian of Congress, Ainsworth R. Spofford. Since the charges against Hickcox were later dropped, and Spofford, his employer, was quoted in a newspaper account as saying that he believed that Hickcox was innocent, we speculated that he was not guilty (Stimson & Nobunaga, 2004). However, the recent discovery of a letter written in 1882, just over a month after Hickcox’s arrest, has led us to believe otherwise (Bramhall, 1882). Hickcox was probably better known as a prominent numismatist than he was as a government publications specialist. Hickcox was made an honorary member of the American Numismatic and Archaeological Society (ANAS) in 1859 (Hickcox, 1859). When Hickcox was arrested on January 19, 1882, it was front page news in newspapers across the United States. It appears that the ANAS learned of the arrest and asked their Corresponding Member in Washington, William L. Bramhall, to investigate and report back to the society. Bramhall’s letter to William Poillon, Secretary of the ANAS, dated February 24, 1882, (with the notation “JR [sic] Hickcox’s scrape” later written on the outside), says: