Lincoln's Grave Robbers

A paid accomplice to a counterfeiting operation, the boodle carrier protects the “shover” from being caught with fake bills by carrying the “boodle” (money) on their person. Typically, the boodle carrier is an innocent-looking individual, often a teenager. The boodle carrier follows the shover discreetly, handing them one bill at a time for them to pass at businesses. That way, if the cashier recognizes the bill as counterfeit, the shover can show that the rest of his money is genuine and claim that the fake bill was given to him elsewhere as change. In Lincoln’s Grave Robbers, Patrick Tyrrell gets his first lead on the shover Jack Hughes when Hughes’s boodle carrier is arrested by police with his pockets full of fake cash. This capture leads Tyrrell to the underworld bar known as the Hub and, eventually, to the discovery of the Lincoln bodysnatching plot.

Coney is a contraction of “counterfeit money.” This posed a grave threat to the US government during the second half of the 19th century, when, at times, fully half of the country’s paper money was counterfeit. During this era, engraving was a huge industry; it consisted of cutting detailed designs into a hard surface, usually by hand, for use in printing.