Stephen Burroughs (1765 - 1840)

Stephen Burroughs

Stephen Burroughs was an American adventurer and con man, impostor and counterfeiter who became a writer and preacher.

Stephen Burroughs as a child moved to Hanover, New Hampshire, and as a child earned and proudly carried the reputation of an incorrigible bully, everywhere and always looking for trouble. During the Revolutionary War at the age of 14, he ran away several times, then in the Continental Army, then left it. In the eyes of society Burroughs was a scoundrel: a fugitive, a deserter, pretended to be a ship's doctor, a pastor, escaped from several prisons, including the island fortress and even by burning the prison. The fame of his exploits often ran ahead of himself.

Stephen later moved to Canada and led a group of counterfeiters, and a few years later suddenly decided to reform himself and became a youth pastor.

By the age of 33, Burroughs had accomplished so many daring "feats" and adventures that he decided to write a story about himself in his own words. His full of adventures book "Memoirs of the Notorious Stephen Burroughs" was published in 1798 and then reprinted under different names many dozens of times. And Burroughs himself died in 1840 in Canada as a free and wealthy man.