LEWIS, Aaron Rittenhouse – (1857-?) was the son of Samuel and Eliza, who had a farm near Baptistown. Eliza was a sister of Frenchtown's first mayor, Samuel Hudnit.
Aaron showed early talent in pen-and-ink drawing, which he developed while still farming. He and his wife, Catherine, started their family in Frenchtown before moving to Manhattan circa 1884, where he worked as an illustrator. Building up his expertise in penmanship, he helped develop scientific methods to detect forgery and became the dean of this new form of criminology.
In 1928 in establishing his bona fides as an expert witness, he testified in court, “I am a handwriting expert; examiner of questionable and forged handwriting, ink and typewritten matter,” and he said that had been his occupation for about 30 years. He said he had applied his expertise to documents in a million-dollar matter involving the signature of steel magnate Charles M. Schwab; and in these three notorious New York City murder cases:
KENNEDY-REYNOLDS – In 1898 dentist Samuel J. Kennedy was charged with bludgeoning an attractive young patient named Emeline “Dolly” Reynolds with a lead pipe in a room in Manhattan's Grand Hotel. The case produced two items calling for Lewis' expertise. A torn-up scrap of paper was found in the hotel room. Kennedy had allegedly written on it: “E. Maxwell and wife, Grand Hotel” – the name he wanted her to use in registering. A $13,000 check that Kennedy had allegedly forged as part of a horse-race gambling scheme had been found in her corset. Police theorized that Kennedy had killed her in an unsuccessful effort to recover the incriminating check.
The dentist was convicted and installed on Sing Sing's death row, but procedural errors in the investigation resulted in a second trial. The jury voted 11-1 for acquittal, so it was declared a mistrial. A third trial produced an 8-4 vote for acquittal. At that point, the justice system gave up and let him go.
MOLINEAUX-REYNOLDS – Also in 1898, a feud at New York City's Knickerbocker Athletic Club turned deadly. It started when member Roland Molineaux, who had great skill on the horizontal bar, was injured after the club's athletic director, Harry Cornish, had purchased inferior equipment. After several altercations, Molineaux allegedly anonymously sent him a package containing cyanide disguised as Bromo-Seltzer. Cornish let his landlady, Katherine Adams, use some and it killed her.
Lewis was one of several handwriting experts who were called in see if Molineaux had addressed the package. Molineax was convicted, then retried and acquitted.
PATRICK-RICE – In 1900 attorney Albert Patrick conspired with Charles T. Jones, the secretary of 81-year-old millionaire William Rice to rewrite Rice's typewritten will. Rice had made his fortune in Houston, Texas, but had relocated to Manhattan in his old age.
The new will left the bulk of Rice's $7 million fortune to Patrick. Jones was left out of the new will to avoid suspicion, but Patrick promised him a stipend of $10,000 a year.
In order to make the new will seem less fishy, letters were also forged, faking evidence of a close friendship between millionaire and Patrick. Patrick also forged Rice's name on checks and other documents so those signatures could later be compared to the forged signatures on the will and the letters. With Rice planning to spend $2.5 million to reconstruct a mill in Texas, Patrick decided to kill him to protect his legacy. He got Jones to feed Rice mercury pills to weaken him, and then Patrick finished him off with chloroform. Patrick was found guilty and did time on Sing Sing's death row, but was pardoned by the governor in 1912.
Lewis was called back to Hunterdon County during the 1935 trial of Bruno Hauptmann for kidnapping the Lindbergh baby. After comparing the ransom notes with samples of Hauptmann's handwriting, he sided with other experts who believed the ransom notes had been tampered with.
From "Rick's Frenchtown Encyclopedia"