INCREDIBLE ISMA,
THE CAMERA-SHY CON ARTIST
(1897)
A compulsive liar of the highest order and a brilliant con artist, Detroit native Isma Martin ran a sequence of scams that terrorized the Midwest in the 1890s. With a natural talent for role-playing, she became a major force in the traditionally male-dominated world of the confidence game and ran rings around her pursuers. Even after she was finally caught, she managed to evade the police photographer with a quick-change trick.
For some reason—either a strong sense of pride or embarrassment—Isma hated peering into the camera’s eye and once even threw a fit when a newspaper sketch artist tried to preserve her profile in ink.
Isma Martin’s date with the Cincinnati police photographer took place on a steamy June morning in 1897. Her arrest came after a frustrating, serpentine chase during which she stayed one step, and only one step, ahead of the heat.
She rolled her eyes as Sergeant Kiffmeyer, superintendent of the Bertillon branch of the Cincinnati Police Department, adjusted his camera. Martin didn’t want her photograph taken, and she made that clear. Her face turned beet red as she balled up her fists and stomped her foot. Her lawyer, she said, told her not to pose for a mug shot, and that was that. At one point, Kiffmeyer thought she might begin ravaging his equipment.
She simply refused to sit in front of the camera. In an era when a photographer’s subject needed to hold a pose, the “notorious adventuress” from Michigan was the worst customer Kiffmeyer ever faced, and given the nature of his job, that was really saying something. He had propped up drunks too inebriated to sit upright, and he had wrestled down suspects too angry to pose, but getting Martin into the chair was like forcing a cat into a tub of water.
Kiffmeyer’s job involved taking two mug shots—a frontal and a profile view—that along with a battery of measurements represented the nineteenth century’s state-of-the-art identification system for criminals. Upon the arrest of a suspect, a police officer would take the necessary measurements while a police clerk inked the numbers into a ledger. The Bertillon Department would then make an index-sized card that contained these measurements along with a suspect’s mug shots. One copy of the card would go into the department’s Rogues Gallery, with duplicates sometimes going to other police departments. In an era before fingerprinting, these Bertillon cards helped collar numerous criminals.
Staff in the Bertillon room of Detroit Central Police Headquarters pose for a photograph. Note the fingerprint cards and mug shot cards on the table to the left. Seated is Clara Langnickel, the clerk who ran the sting on fortune-tellers in 1914. Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.
It took quite a bit of needling and cajoling before Kiffmeyer finally managed to convince Martin to sit for the mug shot, but as soon as he stepped behind the camera, she made a clownish face that rendered the image all but useless. For Martin, it was one final con in a long career of confidence games. Kiffmeyer acquiesced and didn’t attempt to snap a profile picture; the wily woman had beaten him.
A Cincinnati Enquirer reporter who came to sketch the curious twenty-six-year-old vixen summarized the incident. “At last his [Kiffmeyer’s] resources were exhausted, and only one picture, and that with a distorted face, had been secured of the smooth Isma to adorn the local rogues’ gallery.” His use of the word adorn was facetious.
In her 1897 mug shot, Isma Martin clowned for a frustrated police photographer. George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
A Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper artist sketched Isma Martin as she sat in court in June 1897. When she noticed the journalist drawing her likeness, she quickly covered her face.
Ismenia T. Martin, the daughter of Joseph and Frances (Brennan) Martin, was born in 1871. Her father worked as a builder, and her mother kept house and looked after Isma and her six siblings.
Isma’s sticky fingers developed early when she began shoplifting from Detroit stores. By her late teens, the elaborate scheming that would lead to nicknames such as “The Notorious Adventuress” began to develop. In 1890, she tried to hoodwink a ticketing agent with the Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee Railway.
She showed up at the ticketing office along with a child she borrowed for the occasion and a sob story. She presented herself as Fanny Brennan—having appropriated her mother’s maiden name—a destitute single mother in desperate need of a ticket to Chicago that she could not afford. The “daughter” lent an air of legitimacy—and a powerful emotional appeal—to the scam. Fanny told Chief Clerk Bierce that, in exchange for a ticket, she would send the company some furniture she had.
Bierce fell for it, but when Fanny Brennan signed the ticket as Fanny Martin, he became suspicious and called the police, who already knew the teen as a well-known con artist in the area. The incident led to a mug shot photograph, subsequently placed in Detroit’s venerable Rogues Gallery, but no time behind bars. She avoided a stint in jail when the prosecutor took pity on her and declared he didn’t have enough of a case against her for obtaining money on false pretenses; no money or goods had exchanged hands, and Ismenia did promise to pay for the ticket with a likely fictitious stash of furniture.
Even by that early time in her career, Ismenia T. Martin had established a reputation: the Free Press article detailing her attempt to obtain a free ticket came under the telling headline “Isma Martin Again.”
Isma was a lightning rod for trouble, but she had a knack for avoiding any serious shocks. She stole $8,000 worth of diamonds from the wife of Detroit business scion Frank Leslie, but she sidestepped an arrest by returning them. Caught for forging checks in Denver, Colorado, she managed to fast-talk her way out of jail time with a little help, and money, from her Detroit relatives.
As she grew older, however, Isma’s scheming—and stories—became bolder. Learning her lesson from the ticket debacle, Isma hit on an effective way of choosing false identities: by finding a “Martin” and claiming to be a relative. If the police came looking for her, they would inevitably go to door of the wrong Martin. She thumbed through the Detroit city directory and studied the names of area Martins she could adopt as it suited her purpose.
Her piece de resistance occurred in Grand Rapids, where she swindled several high-society ladies to the tune of over $1,950.
The Grand Rapids gambit occurred in late January 1897. Representing herself as daughter of Detroit Police chief John Martin, Isma ingratiated herself to Gertrude Anderson, a society lady she met at a boardinghouse. Martin told the gullible woman that her brother manufactured bicycles in Cleveland and she could obtain a set of wheels at a cut-rate of thirty-eight dollars. Anderson told her friends, each of whom wanted her own set of wheels and thought nothing about handing over the token payment. With a razor-sharp keenness about human nature, Martin recognized the basic human inability to let a bargain slip away.
As the wheel money rolled in, Martin worked a secondary scam as a life insurance agent, once again enlisting the help of the gullible Gertrude Anderson. She told Anderson that her company—Home Life Insurance Company of New York—offered a $200 prize for the top-grossing sales agent. Martin promised Anderson $25 for helping her, deviously hooking her victim to help her victimize others, and the pair hit the bricks. Martin subsequently sold several policies to Grand Rapids residents.
When Detroit Police superintendent John Martin (no relation), who knew all too well Isma’s dangerous and expensive fictions, caught wind of the scam, he immediately sent a telegram to Grand Rapids authorities. Martin, however, smelled something fishy. Beating a criminal rap by hours, she hopped aboard an outbound train, her purse stuffed with greenbacks.
Ismenia the “Notorious Adventuress” pulled her next big scam in Covington, Kentucky. In April 1897, “Helen Martin” showed up on the doorstep of the Shea residence, where the widow Shea lived with her daughters Ella and Anna. An affluent family, the Sheas had friends and relatives in Detroit, including Captain Stephen Martin.
To wheedle her way into the confidence of the widow, Isma claimed to be Captain Martin’s niece. She boosted her credibility when she said she knew the Boultons and Walkers—prominent Detroit families and longstanding friends of the Sheas.
The widow wined and dined Isma for two weeks. The Shea daughters were especially enamored with their gregarious guest. Ella wrote to her cousins in Detroit and said she would bring “Helen” along on their next visit.
On May 5, Helen Martin left on the pretense of collecting life insurance payments in St. Louis for her employer, the Mutual Life Insurance Company. Instead, she traveled to Columbus, Ohio, to visit Peter Shea—the widow’s brother and a prominent businessman.
Shea never questioned Helen Martin, who cleverly used her newfound acquaintances in Covington and Detroit to establish her credentials as a friend of the family. During her two-week stay, Martin had little trouble talking Peter Shea into purchasing a life insurance policy. He paid her a premium, and she headed back to Covington.
Then Isma Martin’s lies began to catch up to her. She told Ella and Anna she had stayed just two days with Uncle Peter and spent the rest of the time traveling on business, but Peter Shea sent his sister a letter detailing Martin’s two-week visit.
Martin may have caught wind of the Sheas’ growing suspicions because she promptly left for Cincinnati “on business.” Her timing couldn’t have been better. At about the same time Isma exited stage left, Ella Shea received a reply from her cousins in Detroit. “Helen Martin,” the letter said, was a well-known alias of the notorious con artist Isma Martin. A description of Isma perfectly matched “Helen.”
Meanwhile, Peter Shea decided to do a little digging and discovered that Helen Martin did not work for Mutual Life. Fearful for his sister, he made a beeline to Covington but missed the insurance fraudster by footsteps.
Then Isma Martin made a fatal error in judgment: she returned to Covington. When she stepped off a streetcar in front of the Shea residence, she found Peter Shea waiting for her. She admitted everything, returned his sixteen-dollar premium payment, and asked that the Sheas send her things to the Dennison Hotel in Cincinnati.
Returning the ill-gotten loot had always worked for Isma Martin in the past.
This time would be different.
On Saturday, May 29, 1897, “Helen Martin” registered at Cincinnati’s Dennison Hotel. The next day, she made an unsuccessful attempt to talk the hotel clerk, A.C. Johnstone, out of five dollars before leaving the hotel.
Minutes after Isma left the hotel lobby, Ella Shea—still stinging from her dear friend’s duplicity—approached Johnstone and asked if “Miss Martin” of Detroit had registered at the hotel. She explained that Martin was a notorious criminal wanted in Michigan. Johnstone, she suggested, should notify police immediately.
Acutely aware of hotel thieves who prey on unsuspecting travelers, Johnstone phoned Cincinnati police chief Deitsch, who told him to keep a lookout and let him know when Martin returned.
Martin, however, had an almost sixth sense when it came to detecting trouble. She felt the heat, so instead of returning to the hotel, she hired a messenger boy named Earl Mitchell to pay her bill and retrieve her valise. She also told Mitchell to drop the bag if he sensed footsteps following him.
Johnstone managed to stall Mitchell until Detective Jackson arrived at the hotel. Jackson, careful to keep his distance from the wary messenger, tailed the boy. At some point, Mitchell caught on to the tail, which led to a cat-and-mouse chase through the streets of downtown Cincinnati. The comedic chase went on for over an hour, with Jackson huffing and puffing as he pursued Mitchell, who lugged a large valise containing Isma’s clothes, over the red brick streets.
Jackson finally caught up to Mitchell, who demurred and refused to give up Isma. Threatened with arrest as an accomplice, the kid softened and agreed to point out Isma Martin.
Exhausted, Jackson slapped a pair of bracelets on Martin’s wrists. She admitted to facing trouble in Detroit but downplayed it as nothing but minor civil—not criminal—matters. Besides, she pointed out, her father was Detroit top cop John Martin.
Jackson, who had exchanged telegrams with John Martin about Isma’s criminal history, knew better.
Isma Martin went to the Bertillon Bureau for photographing while a team from Grand Rapids left for Cincinnati immediately.
The arrest made headlines in three cities: Cincinnati, Grand Rapids and Detroit. A reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer described the con woman: “Miss Martin is about 30 years of age, dresses neatly, is far from pretty, but has an intellectual face. She is a very smooth talker, and guards well her secrets.”
During the extradition process, Isma noticed a newspaper artist sketching her likeness. “Instantly she slammed an umbrella which she carried to the floor and covered her face with her hands, while she protested against the manipulator of the pencil being allowed to sketch her face.” Nonetheless, the artist managed to capture Martin’s likeness for posterity. The sketch, which appeared in the next day’s edition, would become the only known representation of the infamous con woman other than her clowned mug shot.
After completing the transfer protocol, Grand Rapids deputy sheriff Woodworth and female detective Clair W. Haines escorted the prisoner to Patrol Wagon No. 1.
Isma blanched at the sight of the paddy wagon. “Do you expect me to ride in that wagon?” she snapped. “Why don’t you get a carriage for me?” A Cincinnati Enquirer reporter who watched the scene said Isma “tossed her head in the air” at this moment.
“You have put us to enough expense already,” Woodworth replied, “and we don’t feel disposed to grant any of your requests.”
“Why can’t we walk to the depot?”
“Well,” Woodworth explained, “we don’t expect to walk a mile to the station with you.” The slippery prisoner would almost certainly try to escape.
Grumbling something about “no way to treat a lady,” Isma Martin climbed into the wagon.
Isma Martin came face-to-face with one of her victims, Gertrude Anderson, when the bicycle trial convened in Grand Rapids on June 24, 1897.
It was all-out war between Anderson and Martin in the courtroom. A Grand Rapids Herald reporter described Martin’s reaction when Anderson took the stand. “Miss Martin leaned back in her chair and with a quick, nervous action pulled her veil down over her tightly compressed lips. She fixed her eyes on the witness in a steady gaze, which Miss Anderson apparently did not like.”
As Anderson testified about Isma Martin’s web of deception, Martin jotted questions on a notepad for her attorney, William McKnight.
During the cross-examination, McKnight tried to discredit Anderson by accusing her of working as an accomplice, pointing out through Isma Martin’s craftily worded questions that she agreed to participate in the life insurance scheme in exchange for a finder’s fee of twenty-five dollars. She even introduced Martin to clients who purchased insurance policies. The stratagem didn’t work.
After a lengthy deliberation of twenty hours, the jury delivered a verdict of guilty. Martin received the sentence with her signature expression: a cavalier, devil-may-care mien. She shrugged, flashed a thousand-dollar smile to the reporters in the gallery and skipped down the corridor as a deputy sheriff led her to the county jail. The larceny conviction did not take the bounce out of Isma Martin’s step.
Stereograph of the Kent County Jail in Grand Rapids, Michigan, circa 1870, by photographer Schuyler Baldwin. The sheriff occupied the residence attached to the twotier cell blocks, and his wife cooked meals for the inmates. During the “bicycle trial,” Isma Martin occupied the “women’s cell,” located directly above the doorway on the east side of the building. Once convicted, Martin paid her legal penance in the old Detroit House of Correction. Grand Rapids History and Special Collections, Grand Rapids Public Library.
Judge Burlingame delayed sentencing until the supreme court could review the trial transcript and rule on Martin’s appeal.
She spent the next ten months in the Kent County Jail. It was hard time. She complained of sharp pains in her side, she stopped eating and her weight plummeted. Doctors, however, could find nothing physically wrong with her, prompting a scathing commentary from a Grand Rapids Herald reporter. “Some day, perhaps, when this generation shall have passed away,” he wrote, “some learned physician, yet unborn, will startle the suffering world with a new pink pill for pale prisoners or a pleasant porus [sic] plaster or some other sovereign cure that might have chased this pain from Isma’s side had it only been found in time to do so, but it is yet too soon.”
The reporter believed that Martin faked the illness so she could swap a prison cot for a hospital bed. He also characterized her refusal to eat as a pseudo hunger strike motivated by a palate conditioned in Detroit’s cafés and unaccustomed to jailhouse gruel. He described the once vibrant Isma Martin: “She says if she doesn’t look out she will waste away, and Isma really wouldn’t have very far to waste before she would vanish into thin air.”
It took a year, but in April 1898, the supreme court rejected her appeal.
The remaining color drained from Martin’s cheeks when she heard the sentence: eighteen months in the Detroit House of Correction. It was a gentle penalty, but as a native of Detroit, she knew the prison’s rough-and-tumble reputation and had read stories about murderess Nellie Pope’s sometimes violent confrontations with other prisoners.
Martin did not fare well behind bars in Detroit. The prison experience seemed to sap her vitality, she suffered from chronic illness and as the new millennium approached, she was emaciated. House of Correction superintendent Nicholson worried that she might die behind bars, a fear that led to Martin’s parole in February 1899.
Once outside the House, Isma Martin made a speedy recovery. She traveled north to Mackinac Island, but her reputation had preceded her. Police confirmed her identity as a notorious con artist and, fearing she might con unsuspecting high-society tourists who flocked to the island during the spring and summer months, decided to run her off the island.
She landed back in Detroit, in her father’s household. When the census takers came knocking in 1900, she gave her profession as “newspaper reporter.” She apparently decided to go straight and report on the news instead of making it.
Martin remained a confirmed bachelorette and was dedicated to her job as a correspondent for the Detroit Free Press—the same rag that detailed her earlier exploits. She died in October 1931 at the age of fifty-eight.
Her obituary said nothing about her history as a camera-shy con artist who financed her twenties by “writing” short stories and peopling them with the gullible.
