Back to previous page 'Dynamite fiend' had deep roots in famous family The Dynamite Fiend: The Chilling Story of Alexander Keith Jr., Nova Scotia Spy, Con-Artist & International Terrorist By Ann Larabee Nimbus Press, $234 pages, $30 Books, Sunday, March 5, 2006, p. b8 Reviewed by Ian Stewart LUCK and good instincts led American historian Ann Larabee to uncover the story of one of the 19th-century's notorious mass murderers. The feared "dynamite fiend" just happens to have deep roots in a famous Canadian family. Rooting deep in the archives of Bremen, Germany, Larabee discovered the forgotten 130-year-old story of Alexander Keith Jr., a heartless man who could have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's classic horror story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Most knew him as a jovial, prosperous businessman, friend of the town's well-heeled burghers and a good family man who loved buying presents for his children. In reality, he was a swindler, a spy linked to international terrorism in the American Civil War and a pitiless murderer. Larabee's narrative begins as a simple story of a well-to-do Keith family in 19th-century Halifax. The owners of Alexander Keith and Son Brewery were leading citizens and powerful political voices in colonial Halifax. Unfortunately, a nephew, Alexander (Sandy) Keith, was the black sheep of the family. Sandy began passing himself off as Alexander Keith Jr. and associating with unscrupulous characters, including Confederate blockade runners who did their business in Halifax's posh hotels. Young Keith had one goal -- to be as rich as Midas. He connived with the desperate Southern patriots and swindled millions from them. When they demanded their money back, he escaped to New York and lost much of his money on the stock market. He abandoned his pregnant wife when the city became too dangerous for him but found a new one and more dupes to con in St. Louis. When his enemies closed in on him, Keith fled to Germany and raised a family under the alias of William Thomas. In the early 1870s, the money began to run out, and Keith needed a new swindle to maintain his bourgeois faade. Up to this point, Larabee's story is a commonplace sleazy tale. Yes, Keith was a bad man, but now he steps into the shoes of infamy. He was, argues Larabee, the first mass murderer to simultaneously exploit the weakness of one technology and the strength of another to serve his deadly purpose. In the 1870s, steamship technology was new and dangerous. A ship's boilers sometimes blew up during the ocean crossing and the vessel was never seen again. Keith surmised he could over-insure some goods being shipped to the U.S. and collect when the ship sank. All he had to do was make sure the ship went under. To do this Keith took advantage of another new technology: dynamite. Dynamite was invented in the 1860s, and Keith believed he could construct a time-bomb in a wooden barrel, place it on a ship and have it explode when the ship was at sea. In 1875, Keith arranged to have his barrel-bomb stowed on a ship set to sail from Bremerhaven, Germany, to New York. He had been only able to insure it for a few thousand dollars. Sinking this ship wouldn't make him rich; it was only a test of his evil plan. Catastrophe stuck when dockworkers dropped the barrel and the ensuing massive explosion left, "135 orphans, 45 widows and 20 hopelessly maimed victims." Keith was on the ship and in apparent despair tried to commit suicide but lingered on for five days. He refused to give police a reason for his actions and fears of a terrorist conspiracy gripped Europe. Psychologists and writers speculated on the motives and character of the "Dynamite Fiend." After his death, Keith's head was cut off in the hope that phrenologists could analyse the bumps on his head. He never expressed any remorse or made a confession to his wife. His last words to his doctors were simply, writes Larabee, "I have had ill luck; that's all." The Keith family of Halifax was able to disassociate itself from William Thomas/Alexander Keith Jr. It squashed the story, and he was never heard from again. That is until now. Thanks, Ann Larabee. Better late than never, Winnipeg writer and teacher Ian Stewart has decided to boycott Alexander Keith's beer. Copyright © 2006 Winnipeg Free Press. All rights reserved. Back to previous page

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