On this day in 1930 Leon Roberts was jailed in Knoxville, Tennessee. <\/p>\n
His crime? Wearing a Masonic pin when he wasn\u2019t a Mason.<\/p>\n
Roberts, from Alabama City, Alabama, was in Knoxville looking for work during the height of the Great Depression. After weeks of fruitless searching he was out of money and needed help. A sympathetic woman in the city sent him to see Dr. J. D. Henderson, who was known to assist those desperately in need.<\/p>\n
After meeting the doctor, he asked Leon what he was wearing. He told him that it was a Masonic pin. After being told that, Dr. Henderson, who was himself a Mason, asked Roberts some questions only a Mason would be able to answer. When Mr. Roberts was unable to answer those questions correctly, the doctor informed him that he was a deputy sheriff and that he was placing him under arrest.<\/p>\n
At that time it was illegal in Tennessee for anyone not a member of the Masons to pretend they were, and that included wearing an official Masonic pin. Unable to pay the fine (between $2.00 and $50.00), Leon Roberts was placed in jail by the judge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On this day in 1930 Leon Roberts was jailed in Knoxville, Tennessee. His crime? Wearing a Masonic pin when he wasn\u2019t a Mason. Roberts, from Alabama City, Alabama, was in Knoxville looking for work during the height of the Great Depression. After weeks of fruitless searching he was out of money and needed help. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Man Jailed Impersonating A Mason - December 20, 1930.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,25,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-holidays","category-oddities"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-nP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1478,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1477\/revisions\/1478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}