Oscar Hartzell

Who was Oscar Hartzell?

Oscar Hartzell was an American con man who convinced many people in North America to join him in a fraudulent lawsuit against the British government. The original idea was not his, but rather was a continuation of a previous scam.

Hartzell was a farmer's son from Madison County, Iowa who worked as a farmer and a deputy sheriff. According to Hartzell, in 1915 he met a couple of con artists who promised to turn his mother's $6000 into $6 million by giving him a share of the held fortune of Sir Francis Drake. When Hartzell realized the deal was a confidence game, he decided to use it to his own advantage.

In 1919, Hartzell contacted many Iowans who had the surname Drake. He claimed that he was a distant relative and had discovered that the estate of Sir Francis Drake had never been paid to his heirs, that it had gathered interest for the last 300 years, and that it was now worth $100 billion. Hartzell invited all these families to invest in his campaign to sue the British government for the money and assured them that everyone would make $500 for every dollar they invested. The inheritance would include the whole city of Plymouth in England.

Tens of thousands of Americans sponsored him—sometimes with all the money they had. Hartzell later expanded his con to people without the surname Drake and outside of Iowa.