Henry Woodhouse

Henry Woodhouse (1884-1970) was an Italian-born US aviation enthusiast, magazine publisher, speculator and forger of historical documents.

Earlier life

Henry Woodhouse was born Mario Terenzio Enrico Casalengo on June 24 1884, in Turin, Italy. According to his later account, his father died before he finished school and had to settle his father's debts in a way he did not specify. He later moved to study in France, Britain, Switzerland and Belgium and studied languages, economics, sociology and aeronautics. He never mentioned what schools he attended to.

In 1904 Casalengo moved to USA and got a job in a restaurant kitchen. In one stage he got into a fight with a co-worker and apparently killed him with a kitchen knife. Casalengo persisted that the other man had accidentally impaled himself on the knife. He was arrested and sentenced to 4 years in prison and sent to Clinton Prison in Dannemora, New York. He was released 1909.

uccess begins

Soon after 1909 he supposedly received US citizenship (although his naturalization papers are dated May 28 1917) and began to use a name Henry Woodhouse. In 1910 he begun to write magazine articles about aviation and gained the fame of an expert. With support of Robert J. Collier, he founded a successful magazine "Flying" and became its managing editor. He later expanded to other magazines like "Naval Aeronautics", "Air Power" and "Scientific Age". In 1915 he helped to found the American Society of Aeronautic Engineering. At the outbreak of the World War I, he began to support the national defence movement.

When his wealth and connections increased, he began to speculate in real estate and with middle-eastern oil. He claimed that had advised various explorers and aviation pioneers, thought his exact contributions are unclear. In 1920's Woodhouse begin to collect various things like antiques, celebrity signatures and historical documents. He also supported art galleries.

Woodhouse also copyrighted titles like "Wings" and when the book and a movie of the same name were published, he claimed copyright infringement. He settled for $25.000.

Aero Club

In 1911 Woodhouse joined the Aero Club of America. When the members of the club begun to split over disagreements about the funds of the Manufacturer's Aircraft Association in 1917-1918, one member J. C. Mars accused Woodhouse of being a murderer and a draft dodger. In 1920. Woodhouse sued the club to stop its merge with the American Flying Club. When other members tried the same in 1922, he sued again, claiming that he held the proxy votes of 404 members, but could not present their signatures in court. "New York Times" wrote an article about the man he had killed. Woodhouse lost and the Aero Club became the National Aeronautic Association. Woodhouse begun to support the Aerial League of America.

Oil speculation

In 1920-1922, Woodhouse had a hand in forming of an oil syndicate the Ottoman American Development Company, that - through his connection to admiral Colby M. Chester - gained rights to construct and operate a railroad from Anatolia and Black Sea and the exploitation of the oil fields of Mosul. Woodhouse owned 1/6 of the capital stock. He was also a director of Turco-American Corporation that had options to build the city of Ankara. Woodhouse supported French, who wanted to return the defeated sultan to his throne to keep the Ottoman Empire together. His plans fell apart when Kemal Atatürk ousted the sultan. Ottoman Empire was fragmented and the Mosul oil fields became part of Iraq.

George Washington Air Junction

In 1928-1930. Woodhouse bought more than 1500 acres (6 km²) of lands near Washington D.C., many of it old lands of George Washington and George Mason. He planned to build a large airport, the George Washington Air Junction. By 1935 he had had to sell the land to pay for unpaid taxes and foreclosures of mortgages. One plot of that area was later turned into a Huntley Meadows Park.

False documents and signatures

Woodhouse had begun to collect and deal with artefacts and antiques that were connected to the history of USA. In 1930 he acquired a famous oil portrait of Ulysses Grant. In 1936 he donated many documents of George Washington to the Library of Congress.

However, some of the signatures and documents he sold were Woodhouse's own forgeries. He forged documents that were supposedly from historical Americans and forged even signatures of famous people he personally knew. The historical people included many of the presidents and the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Woodhouse joined forces with W. Lanier Washington, one of the descendants of George Washington, and begun to sell items with the family crest. His other associate was a painter named Hart, who painted fake portraits.

Even if the quality of the forgeries was not perfect, many collectors bought them. Afterwards experts noticed that they were modern forgeries. Signatures of Abraham Lincoln, for example, were hesitant, revealing the writer was copying or tracing the original, not writing it naturally.

Last years

In 1953-1958 Woodhouse was involved in a lawsuit with a former employee Tamara Bourkoun, who claimed that she had worked in Woodhouse's galleries for 46 weeks had not been paid. Woodhouse claimed that her compensation was a tuition to the gallery's education courses and that she intended to become a fortune teller, which, at the time, was illegal in New York. The suit was decided on favor of Bourkoun and Woodhouse had to sell the last of the Washington Junctionlad to pay for her compensarion.

Henry Woodhouse died in January 6 1970 in his home in New York City.

External links

* [http://www.rcls.org/jkuntz/woodhouse.html Jerry Kuntz - "I’m Working on a Million Dollar Deal": A Biographical Essay on Henry Woodhouse]