Alan Pinkerton
1819-1884

Alan Pinkerton was the son of a Glasgow policeman who had been crippled in a riot. Pinkerton trained as a cooper in Scotland making barrels but emigrated to the USA in 1842. It appears that he fled for fear of imminent arrest! Became deputy sheriff of first Dundee, Illinois and then Chicago. In 1852 he formed an elite group of detectives. Was responsible for solving railway robberies.
Chief of US Secret Service in the Civil War there. After the war his agency grew and opened other office throughout the US.

In the 1870s his agency played a critical role in destroying the 'Molly Maguires'. This group had begun as a secret organisation to help poor Irish immigrants but had become little more than a criminal gang.