STRANGE STORY OF JOHN GREY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 869, 13 January 1930, Page 1

STRANGE STORY OF JOHN GREY

Returns to N.Z. a Free Man FORGERY CHARGES ABANDONED Adventures of Man From Texas THE Helensville land agent, John Grey, who was taken to Texas, U.S.A ~ as A. B. Crouch to face forgery charges involving 250,000 dollars, is returning to New Zealand a free man. A Press Association cablegram published in the late editions of THE SUN on Saturday evening announced that the 13 charges laid against Crouch had been dismissed. Today’s mail brings papers from Temple, Texas, containing reports of Crouch’s return and accounts of his experiences in New Zealand. His career makes a romance as remarkable as any fiction ever written.

'J’HIRTEEN indictments against A. B. Crouch, known in New Zealand as Mr. John Grey, charging him with forgery were dismissed by District Judge Breaster on the motion of the District Attorney, said the cable. It is learned that Crouch left immediately to sail for New Zealand, accompanied by his wife. The Attorney of the City National Bank, the heaviest loser among the several Temple institutions involved, asked Mr. Taylor, for the prosecution, to move for a dismissal of the charges. The District Attorney explained that the bank had stated that Mr. Crouch had made restitution, and since there was no other plaintiff, Mr. Taylor had not opposed the move. Mr. Crouch gave a bond of £6,000 when he returned here several weeks ago, and lived in Temple. His case had been set down for hearing in Court for January 21, but the bank’s disposition to clear him of the charges resulted in the motion being presented today. RECEIVED CORDIALLY RETURN OF CROUCH STARTING LIFE IN N.Z. As though he was merely returning from a holiday jaunt abroad, A. B. Crouch, known in New Zealand as John Grey, who arrived back in Temple, Texas, on December 9, in custody of Sheriff John R. Bigham, was received with the utmost cordiality by relatives and friends, after an absence of 13 years. “We are glad to be back in Temple,” said Crouch on behalf of himself and his wife, according to an interviewer for the “Temple Daily Telegram.” Crouch w-as in a Pullman drawingroom car, on the express from Los Angeles. Sheriff Bigham and Mr. John Terry, solicitor, of Auckland, sat in a nearby compartment. A crowd of friends of Crouch met him at the station in Belton, near Temple. After bond was arranged, he and his wife drove to Temple to spend the night in the home o'f his father, J. M. Crouch. They then left to visit for a few days with relatives in the country near there.

nuisance, and there is a standing reward of 50,000 dollars for an eradicator. “It rained ail of the time, hut we worked in the rain. That is the dreariest, most uninhabitable part of New Zealand, and only two days that winter was there dry weather to air our beds and clothing. We had no change of clothing, and had to watch to keep things from moulding front the damp. “The boys went to sehool, and helped after school hours.” Crouch produced a signed statement from McMahan certifying to the fact that “John Grey” did this day labour work for him from February 21 to December 5, 1917, for £l3 a month, and Mrs. Crouch earned £ll for teaching his two daughters music. He said “John Grey” was hard working, industrious and he and his wife were content to live in the tent home.

“It was such a miserable place to live,” continued Crouch, “we decided to go up to the North Island, where the climate was better, to lease a farm. Edith had 1,500 dollars left of which my father had given her after paying her passage over, and l had nothing. That was our stake .” He told of hunting for places to lease, of nearly being “skinned" on several deals, but finally finding a 42-acre farm near Helensville. An honest agent leased it to him. "The banker persuaded him to knock off 100 dollars of the first year’s 600 dollars’ rent, because the last man had lost the place and had let the fences down. The house seemed like paradise to us, with a fireplace in it and floors. Neighbours gave him milk for the babies until he got his first ton, though he tried to pay. One neighbour loaned him a mower to cut hay and all neighbours joined in putting up the hay for him. Crouch bought 22 cows on time payments, and he and the boys milked them by hand, selling milk to the factory. He lacked 500 dollars of having enough to pay for the cows. “We stayed at home and worked and paid for the cows by the end of the season. Cows are supposed to go dry for three months, but it was all the income we had, so we milked them right on through as long as they, would produce. Fortunately we had a good herd and it paid well. COWS PAY MORTGAGES “Cows lifted our mortgages. The reason we did so well was because we knew we were ignorant and carefully carried out all instructions of the Government bulletins. We got 40 cents a lb. for butter-fat.” The prosperous man who was found in Helensville, a successful, wealthy man, director in a bank, president of the country club and enjoying highest esteem of his people, recounted many stories of hardships in the early days. Soon after they got there Baby Edith fell from a pony, breaking her elbow. She was in the Auckland Hospital for three months, and the family did not have enough money to go and visit her more than twice. Once cutting green corn. Crouch severed a sinew in his left hand, and had to milk with one hand for three weeks. REACHES TOP “We sold our farm for a profit, bought another and sold it for a profit. Then I got a licence as a land agenr, and after a few years began to da much better.” Asked what he thought “when Bigham came into your office and presented the warrant,” Crouch laughed shortly and said: “I’d rather not say what I thought!”

Crouch was in good health, heavier than when he left Temple, wore a genial smile, and talked freely about people he had known in Temple, and his life in New Zealand, but declined to discuss the cases pending against him. "I will make no statement at this time. lam just getting into this,” he said. “Of course, X will go back to New Zealand when I can. It was necessary to sell my business there, as the real estate business depends on one’s personal attention. This trip is costing me a lot of money in that respect. We have been lucky in New Zealand, have done well, and have been happy.” Crouch w-as frankly happy at seeing “home folks,” and displayed no signs whatever of nervousness. “We appreciate very much the courteous treatment given us in every way by Mr. Bigham,” Crouch and his wife said STORY OF ABSENCE Crouch told a remarkable story of his absence. “We landed at Christchurch, on the South Island of New Zealand, to try to get work. They were building a tunnel at Otira, but I found they needed no men, and at a mining centre on the West Coast i failed to get work. At Croydon I was told that a progressive farmer named Timothy McMahan might give me a job, and I went in a horse and gig with Edith' (his wife) and the two girls (Joy, a year old then, and Eileen, three) to the farm. The boys stayed at the boarding-house.

“McMahan said he had no suitable work, but wanted a drain through a swamp. I said I could do it, and got permission to live in a tent on his land, as the only house in Croydon for rent was a dirt-floor shack that cost. 3.50 dollars a week. Our tent was on a pretty little river under willows, and we put in mattresses and lived there until winter floods drove us up the hill with our tent. “The swamp w r as a low place, with two creeks in it. He wanted a ditch six feet deep, four feet wide at the bottom, six feet wide at the top, and about three-quarters of a mile long. I would chop up the earth, and the boys would throw it out.

“We worked in the mud knee-deep, and at night would go home, wade in the creek to wash off, then take off our clothes until morning. It took two months to dig this. “Then we got a year’s job clearing out a thicket of stumps and blackberries. and straightening a creek in a 20-acre patch. Blackberries are a