In 2017 a woman was arrested in Los Angeles. Claiming to be a German heiress,
she had managed to defraud and deceive various institutions, hotels, and people of some $275,000.
She called herself Anna Delvey, but her real name was Anna Sorokin.
The Evening Standard wrote of her, “If Anna Delvey didn't exist then playwright
Aaron Sorkin would have to have invented her or perhaps Roald Dahl, or F Scott Fitzgerald
or James Elroy, although these literary titans might have struggled to create a fiction as
outrageous as the one that Anna Sorekin created for herself.” But she was by no means the first
or most outrageous imposter to sell a story that would, well, put daytime television to shame.
In the 1770s a woman arrived in America claiming to be the sister of Queen Charlotte,
Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. It is history that deserves to be remembered.
On an evening in the fall of 1764, a young woman appeared at the door of Thomas Boxall. Boxal lived
near the border of the counties of Surrey and Hampshire South of London in a fairly isolated and
dangerous area near what they called the Devil's Punch Bowl. Politician William Koblick called the
area, “Certainly the most villainous spot that god has ever made.” It wasn't the sort of area where
a young woman, Boxall thought that she was about 20 years old, would be expected to travel alone.
She was slender, had black hair, a pale complexion and identifying speck or blemish in her right eye.
She said she was lost, and Boxall, concerned for her, offered her lodging until she could get back
on her feet. The woman introduced herself as Sarah Wilson and claimed that she had been thrown out of
her home by her father, a nobleman. In addition to his wife, Thomas had a son, also named Thomas,
of about 17. Thomas the younger and Sarah seemed to be growing close and Sarah mentioned that she
had a large fortune, some 90,000 pounds waiting for her in London. Soon Sarah suggested that she
and the younger Thomas should marry and the offer was very happily accepted. They were
married on December 17th 1764. Thomas Boxall and Sarah Charlotte Lucerne Wilson, as she signed
her name. To get her fortune, and her husband a commission, she told her father-in-law she needed
to be equipped in a genteel manor. Thomas Boxall mortgaged his property for 100 pounds and Sarah,
the younger Thomas and several of his friends went to London where they lived in an expensive
manor for 10 days. Sarah was off every day but every night she had some excuse as to
why she could not access her funds, until the money ran out and Sarah disappeared.
Thomas and his friends were forced to sell their horses in order to settle the bill. On January
5th they managed to wander home penniless and abandoned. They were some of Sarah Wilson's
many victims. The whole adventure was reported in the newspaper along with the note that Sarah had
for nearly two years obtained money by imposing on the compassion and
credulity of different persons in town and country. Later investigation found
that she had by that time already been through most of the northern counties.
Unwinding the story of Sarah Wilson, who the three-time mayor of Coventry John Hewitt described
as the greatest imposter of the present age is understandably difficult. Her earliest years
are a mystery and indeed it's not certain that she was born Wilson although that is the name
she was most often referred to, and the one that she gave to authorities on her arrest in England.
According to her own testimony, her family lived in London and she was about 20 years of age
in 1765. She seems to begin her career as a fraud around 1763 at 17 or 18 years old. In 1780,
Justice of the Peace John Hewitt published Memoirs of the Celebrated Lady V Countess Wilbrihammon,
alias Mollineux, alias Irving Countess of Normandy and Baroness Wilmington. In it he claimed to have
found that Sarah had been the menial servant in the kitchen of George Louis Scott, a
neighbor to the Duke of York in London. London would have been the best opportunity for her
to learn, to read and write. And in London around 60 percent of women could by 1720.
There was however little legitimate opportunity for her to rise out of poverty. While she may
have been born in London, other versions of the story claim that she was born in Staffordshire,
the daughter of a bailiff. By 1765 she perfected her strategy for living on the kindness of others.
After defrauding the Boxalls she stopped at a lawyer's home in Westmoreland
where she introduced herself as V Countess Lady Wilbrihammon.
She was entertained for several days and promised again to get a commission for their son. It was
simple enough for the wealthy to procure grants and even sell commissions in government posts.
In December of 1765 she was in London and she stopped by a shop in Haymarket. She arrived when
the owner was away but told Mrs Davenport's niece that despite her shabby attire she was a Lady and
had been forced to marry a foreign count who had abandoned her. All she had was a note payable to a
prominent banker but that she couldn't go to the banker in shabby clothes. The niece bought the
story and gave Sarah room and board, and equipped her very prettily. Sarah was a careful planner;
she took the niece to a bank on the day that she knew that the banker would be gone and then
had the coachman bring her to the banker's house. Asking the niece to remain in the coach, Sarah
went to speak to the banker, but when she got to the door she asked for Molly. When a servant
with that name appeared she said “Lord ma'am, I beg pardon if your name is Molly but you're not
the person I wanted.” And then she convinced the servants to let her out the back door.
Davenport's niece found out an hour later when she went to the door herself looking for the Countess.
She continued to travel after that, visiting several people in Cheshire.
She produced several letters supporting her story of fleeing a home when her protestant
mother died and her father tried to force her to become catholic. She claimed that she had a large
inheritance coming when she turned 21 including several estates, if she could stay through the
winter she would reward her hosts graciously. The victim who finally bit was Richard Frith.
Though suspicious, he sent the Countess Wilbrihammon into his son's home. His son,
also Richard and Richard the younger's wife bit hard. The young couple treated her like royalty,
washing and dressing her, and bringing her food on their knees.
Sarah promised the younger Richard that he could be her steward and they even asked her to be the
godmother of their newborn child. In May she took her steward to London and promptly disappeared.
From there she traveled to Coventry visiting several families claiming to be Miss Wilbrihammon.
Earl Denby sent a letter to John Hewitt Alderman relating the very improbable story Sarah was
peddling. They thought Sarah was either mad or an imposter. Hewitt was a zealous thief taker
and magistrate and sought Sarah out. To Hewitt she spun a similar story. She said that her
father lived at Corby Castle, that her mother was recently deceased and that she had fled because
she refused to become catholic. Hewitt was able to easily identify holes in her story and declared
her an errant imposterous and arrested her. She had a stolen letter case with two marriage
certificates as well as evidence of several of the aliases she had chosen. She provided Hewitt with
several names that she said could testify to her character including George Lewis Scott who she had
once worked for, and he left her in the care of the innkeeper as he went to London to check those
references. The innkeeper however believed Hewitt had made a mistake and helped Sarah to make her
escape. Hewett wrote in the newspaper that the notorious vagrant and imposters made her escape,
and gave a description including the telltale speck, or kell, over one eye.
She was identified as Sarah Wilson. She remained free into 1767 when she convinced the household
of an absent lord that she was the Countess of Normandy; she was briefly committed to a house
of correction in Saint Albans but somehow made another escape until she was caught at Devizes.
They declared her a notorious cheat who had played so many pranks at Litchfield Coventry and places
adjacent she was convicted as a vagabond. She could have been jailed for six months
for the conviction but her description came to the attention of investigators in London thanks to her
theft of good clothes from Mrs Davenport's niece two years prior. Sarah was accused of knowingly
and designingly by false pretenses obtaining one pair of stays, one shift, one petticoat,
and other apparel. Tothill Fields Bridewell where Sarah was kept was a filthy place like most
English jails of the time. Women at Tothill were made to beat hemp for use as rope, a difficult and
back-breaking job that no one else wanted to do. She was found guilty at the quarter sessions in
January 1767 of stealing 3 pounds and 18 shillings worth of clothing; adjusted for inflation,
that was over 700 pounds in 2022 values. That amount could have been a death sentence,
but instead she was sentenced to transport to the American colonies for seven years. It isn't known
what ship she traveled on but the first available ship left in April and likely Sarah was aboard.
Though Australia is better known for taking in convicts from another country,
plenty were also sent to America where they were not well welcomed. Benjamin Franklin
disliked accepting the felons and suggested sending England rattlesnakes in exchange.
Once in America the felons were sold as seven year servants and were completely at
the mercy of their owners. Women convicts sold for between five and nine pounds.
Sarah seems to have been sold to a William Duvall who in 1771 reported that she had run
away from Bush Creek Maryland. Despite being sent halfway around the world Sarah apparently
remained a servant for at most a few years before she turned back to her itinerant ways.
Again reports suggested that she visited and stayed at the mansions of wealthy planters such as
Suzanne Lanbourne, Reverend James Horrocks the president of the college of William and Mary,
and even John Page with whom Thomas Jefferson was a close friend. Jefferson is said to have
written a draft of the Declaration of Independence at Page's home. She seems even to have been
received by Josiah Martin, the last British governor of North Carolina, as a princess.
She was so convincing that many had the honor to kiss her hand. She continued adding aliases to
her travels, in Wilmington she introduced herself as Sophia Carolina Augusta Princess of Brunswick
and Martianus of Waldegrave she was buoyed by her own mystique, with the Cape Fear Mercury wondering
why she was traveling incognito, and reported the rumor that she was the sister of the queen.
When she arrived at Charleston South Carolina the paper reported that “She was kindly and
respectfully treated by many discerning people to whom she made large and golden promises.”
It is also reported the rumor that she was the daughter of the pretender the Jacobite Bonnie
Prince Charlie. In 1773, Rivington's New York Gazetteer presented a report of one Sarah Wilson
who was described as a former servant of a maid of honor to Queen Charlotte herself. According to the
report, Sarah had been transported for stealing jewels from a cabinet in the queen's apartments.
Now, the report continued, Sarah was traveling the colonies claiming to be Princess Susannah Carolina
Matilda promising appointments and promotions all while she levied heavy contributions from
prominent southerners. The report ended with an advertisement by William Duvall of Sarah's escape.
He had noted the blemish in her right eye and offered five pistoles, or gold coins, as a reward
for her return. Duval had sent a man after her who might have caught up with her in Charleston.
If she was captured by her former owner however, she was free by September of 1773, when the
Marchioness de Waldegrave appeared in New York, possibly she used funds from her southern
expedition to buy her freedom. The Boston Post-Boy said that she was Sarah Wilson alias Carolina
Matilda, and she still insists upon the verity of these pretensions. She added the title of Princess
of Cronenberg to her repertoire as well. The papers followed her travels in the north closely,
from New York she traveled to Newport and Providence Rhode Island and then to Boston.
She was in Boston when on December 16th The Sons of Liberty threw tea into the harbor. As thousands
had gathered to watch the spectacle, it's possible that she was a witness to that historic event.
But the reports about her always seem suspicious about her motives. I mean after all, she wasn't
the first person to try to con people out of money by claiming to be someone that she wasn't. The
Massachusetts Evening Spy said of her that, “She was the most surprising genius of the female sex
ever to be obliged to visit america.” With the word obliged implying that she was a transportee.
By this time she seemed to find willing hosts more because she was a curiosity than that
anyone actually believed her tales. “As the Duchess of Brautensburg or her Serene Highness
Carolina Augusta Harriet, Princess Hereditary of Brauntenberg,” the Essex Gazette reported,
“that she has occasioned much employment to busy curiosity. It is confidently said that she is a
person of the very first distinction in Europe.” Reverend Cutler, one of her many hosts, wrote in
his journal that “She appears to be a person of an extraordinary education, but is generally supposed
to be an imposter.” Reports of her are fewer after 1775 as the War for Independence likely made her
travels more difficult. By 1777 she returned to Boston and even sent a letter to be delivered
to George Washington, although no one knows if the general ever received it. Styling herself a
certain princess she seemed to have been living on the good will of others. In her last years she
lived with John and Lydiate Costello in Berwick Maine; she died in February 1780. Her obituary
identified her as “A strange lady who called herself the Duchess of Cronenberg, but is supposed
to be one Sarah Wilson, a convict.” Lydia Costello believed Sarah an imposter, but still addressed
her by her title and during her sickness, gave her that attendance a lady of that character
might have expected. Despite Lydia's misgiving, John Costello placed a letter in the newspapers
that her Serene Highness had died, and not as the malicious vulgar had been pleased to call her,
Sarah Wilson. According to him, Sarah had fled Europe to escape her marriage to Charles Frederick
Adolphus Johannes, eldest son of the King of Sweden and that she was cousin to Queen Charlotte.
Unsurprisingly there was no King Charles Frederick Adolphus Johannes of Sweden. You know objectively,
Sarah Wilson was a thief and a fraud whose lies caused real harm, and yet for some reason,
just like in Anna, people chose to believe her even when the lies seemed to be obvious,
and people remained fascinated with her even when the lies became known. And the question is
why? In a 2013 Ted Talk, Professor Matthew Hornsey of the University of Queensland suggested that
“The reason that people are so fascinated with impostors is because all of us strive to put
a positive face to the world. All of us strive to hide our flaws in the face of other people.
We’ve become quite good at it, to the point that the idea of a true self,
or an authentic self, becomes harder and harder to find.” “Maybe,” the professor posits,
“the reason that we are so intrigued by imposters is not because we want to be like them,
but because we worry that deep down…we are like them.”
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