Arthur Bentley Worthington (born Samuel Oakley Crawford, March 1, 1847 – December 13, 1917) was an American fraudster, alternative religious leader and bigamist. Active in the United States, New Zealand and Australia just before the turn of the 20th century, he variously claimed to be a Methodist minister, a lawyer, a banker, a faith healer, a spiritualist, a real estate agent, a mining consultant, a temperance preacher, or a military veteran, and used at least eight known aliases. In 1890 he briefly founded a new religious movement in New Zealand.
Early life
Samuel Oakley Crawford was born on 1 March 1847, in Saugerties, New York, the son of a storekeeper and Deputy Sheriff. He was the third child in a family of four. He enrolled as a private during the American Civil War in the 5th New York Heavy Artillery Regiment between 1864 and 1865 and was wounded in the left leg. He studied law at Columbia College and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1867. In 1868 he married Josephine Erricson Moore and moved to Philadelphia. Their first child Susan was born in 1869. He soon left Josephine, and they never divorced, so all of his subsequent marriages were bigamous. It is said that he bankrupted his parents by not repaying loans.
Career in America (1870-1889) In 1870 he was convicted of swindling money from a Dutchman and spent three years in the Albany Penitentiary. After his release in 1873 he married Gabrielle "Gay" Finefield (1859-1946). In 1875 he married again in Ohio and swindled $3000 from his new father-in-law. In 1876 as Eugene Bouvier he married again, and practiced law in Kansas City until a sheriff's reward of $50 was posted for his arrest. He then returned to Peoria, Illinois in May 1876 as Eugene Samuel Bouvier Walton and posed as a temperance preacher. In 1877 he was in San Francisco as Major Eugene Bonner, and defrauded a Miss Langley of $2000 before fleeing to Salt Lake City, Utah where he posed as a Mormon preacher. After "borrowing" $2000 from a Mormon elder for a fictitious library he fled to Sherman, Texas, posing as a lawyer. In September 1878 as Eugene Benneteau he married Eliza Hunton. At the end of that year he left her to join the Helen Blythe Dramatic Company in Toronto, Canada, where he married an actress later known as Mrs Hudson.
He next settled as a lawyer in New Lisbon, Wisconsin from 1879 to 1882. He married again and had three children, only one of whom survived: Katherine Benneteau (1881-1977), later Mrs Patrick. He was in court in December 1881 for forging a note worth $400: his law partner H. E. Macomber and one James F. Ramsay posted bail of $500, but he fled in January 1882, leaving them to pay the bail.
During 188283 he posed as an English tourist, defrauding hoteliers and shopkeepers along the Northern Pacific Railway. He was in Boston 1883-5 as E. R. Bannerton, defrauding wealthy widows: one Mrs Sargent lost $3000. In 188586 he was in Charleston, West Virginia, where he defrauded a coal magnate J. E. Dana of $3000. In April 1886, posing as 'Major' Horace Oakley Wood, he married Lizzie Hill, daughter of a wealthy citizen, and converted her father's wedding present into cash to set up a bank: having raised $4600 in stock for the bank, he disappeared. In July 1887 he was in Spokane, Washington, as Arlington Buckingham Wadsworth, floating another bank scheme. On 18 October he contracted his seventh bigamous marriage to a Miss Cannon, then fled with her money to New York. In November 1887 he married a Miss Emma Terry, heiress to $150,000. In 1888 he was in Grand Forks, North Dakota, practicing law as 'General' Ward. Forced to flee, he went to Minneapolis, then to Montreal, Canada, where he was recognized by a private investigator, causing him to flee to Winnipeg, then Chicago.
In March 1889 he appeared in New York as Arthur Bently Worthington and posed as a Christian Science faith healer. Mrs Mary Plunkett, editor of the International Magazine of Christian Science, fell in love with Worthington and claimed to have converted him to "righteousness". Her husband, John T. Plunkett, a prominent Christian Scientist, agreed to an amicable separation, giving her custody of their two children. He then investigated Worthington's past career, and exposed him as a bigamist and fraudster. However, Mary remained devoted to Worthington, and they fled to London, England, before taking ship for New Zealand.