Allan Pinkerton

The expressman and the detective. By Allan Pinkerton

Allan J. Pinkerton (25 August 1819 - 1 July 1884) was a Scottish American detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Allan Pinkerton was born in Gorbals, Glasgow, Scotland, to William Pinkerton and his wife, Isobel McQueen, on August 25, 1819. He left school at the age of 10 after his father's death. Pinkerton read voraciously and was largely self-educated. A cooper by trade, Pinkerton was active in the Scottish Chartist movement as a young man. He secretly married Joan Carfrae (1822-1887) from Duddinston, then a singer, in Glasgow on 13 March 1842. Pinkerton emigrated to the United States in 1842. In 1843 Pinkerton heard of Dundee Township, Illinois, fifty miles northwest of Chicago on the Fox River. He built a cabin and started a cooperage, sending for his wife in Chicago when their cabin was complete. As early as 1844, Pinkerton worked for the Chicago abolitionist leaders, and his Dundee home was a stop on the Underground Railroad.