#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 19 Service: Heroic Detective Arthur Scrivener

Arthur Beverly Scrivener, a distant cousin, was born 9 July 1889 in the small farming town of Gore, Frederick County VA, near Winchester and sometimes referred to as Back Creek.  He was part of a branch of the family that moved from Anne Arundel County MD to Frederick County VA about 1790. He was the second of four children of Turner Ashby Scrivener and Emma Bell Lockhart.

Although he grew up on a farm, Arthur moved to the big city and joined the Metropolitan Police in Washington DC by 1912. Even early in his career, he was known for his daring exploits. The Washington newspapers are full of stories about his rescues of women from burning buildings, saving kidnapped children, tracking down bootleggers, and foiling robberies. By 1918, he was a Detective Sergeant, one of the youngest on the force, and had a solid reputation as a crack detective whom his colleagues nicknamed "Sherlock Scrivener."

But by far his most celebrated take-down was the capture of an escaped prisoner in 1920. When Thurman Brown escaped from an Atlanta prison, the Washington police were alerted that he might return to his former haunts in the District. When Brown was cornered by police near Anacostia, he leaped onto the running board of an automobile, stuck his gun in the face of the driver and ordered him to speed away.

When Detective Scrivener saw this, he in turn commandeered a nearby auto and pursued the escaping prisoner. Brown began firing; a bullet pierced the windshield of Scrivener's car, causing him swerve into a tree.  Brown then leaped from his vehicle and ran back to the wounded detective brandishing his pistol and declaring "I've got you now!" Scrivener leaped on the man, who fired again.  The bullet struck the detective's pocket watch (a gift from
his mother), which probably saved his life. Even with two bullet wounds, he
managed to subdue Brown, commandeer a truck, and take the prisoner to the police station.  The local papers raved about Scrivener's "triple nerves of steel" and labeled him a "superman." 
In 1921 he was awarded the Police Hero's Medal for conspicuous bravery.

Unfortunately, the daring detective came to a very sad end.  On October 13, 1926, at the age of 36, Arthur Scrivener was found shot to death outside his home, the night before his wedding.  Only hours before, he had told colleagues he was "the happiest man alive" because of his impending marriage. The only clues to his death were a tie clutched in his hand and a pistol on the ground near his body.

His funeral in Winchester VA was called "unprecedented," as more than 2500 people attended the three-hour long service.  Delegations from the Masons, the Elks, the American Legion, the police department and the courthouse, as well as family and friends, gathered to pay a final tribute before the detective's burial in Mt. Hebron Cemetery.

The mystery of his death was never solved.  The police had two theories: was it murder or was it suicide?  The gun was at one time thought to belong to Scrivener himself, but that was later shown not to be true.  His fiancée claimed that the wedding had been cancelled. On the other hand, there was speculation that he might have been murdered because he was investigating suspicious activity within the DC police department.

The police announced that the detective had staged his suicide to look like a murder. "The most ingenious suicide ever committed." But there were no powder burns on his clothes or hands, and it was difficult to see how he could have shot himself without leaving those traces. His aged mother declared "my boy loved life too well to think of suicide.  He was betrayed by a friend." The coroner's jury convened at the time called his death murder. And that is the notation that went into his official police department record: "murdered by an unknown person."

However, three years after his death, there was still no resolution to the mystery and the District Attorney declared that he would lay the case before a grand jury to "clear it up for all time." After weeks of testimony, the jury's verdict was suicide, but many in the department did not agree with that verdict. Twenty five years later, in 1950, a newspaper in Binghamton NY ran a full page story speculating about Scrivener's death.  And even today, there is a Facebook page devoted to the murder of Detective Scrivener.  Just another little family mystery.

Funeral of Arthur Scrivener 1926