April 27, 2026
Introduction: In this third of a six-part series, James Pylant tells the saga of the Billingsley family in America, a tale involving genealogy, crime and Hollywood. James is an editor at GenealogyMagazine.com and author for JacobusBooks.com, is an award-winning historical true-crime writer, and authorized celebrity biographer.
Here is the third article about the Billingsley family. Touching on genealogy, crime, and celebrity, it traces the family connections from Barbara Billingsley of Leave It to Beaver to Peter Billingsley of A Christmas Story, as well as to the owners of the famous Stork Club.
Part II of this series explains how Logan Billingsley ran afoul of the law, then went on the run and disappeared. Part III recounts more of his misadventures – and his eventual reformation.
On the Lam
We pick up his story with this 16 November 1917 newspaper article recounting how the infamous bootlegger made a jail escape.
This article reports:
Copies of the Omaha World-Herald received in Seattle today tell the story of how Logan Billingsley, former king of Seattle bootleggers, recently escaped from the Omaha police. No mention of the charge against Billingsley is made in the story.
Logan duplicated this performance in Seattle last spring when, after being sentenced to thirteen months in the federal penitentiary, he escaped from the United States detention station. After getting away from the Seattle jail Billingsley amused himself by writing letters to the newspapers while a fugitive from justice.
Now all Omaha, including the police of that city, according to the World-Herald article, are asking the question, “Where is Logan Billingsley?”
In July 1918, police discovered Logan was using an alias, Paul Allen, in Detroit, Michigan. But when they went to arrest him, “Paul Allen” was Logan’s brother, Sherman. A second “Paul Allen” sighting was brother Fred, while brother Ora was the third decoy. All three were living in separate apartments in Omaha. Their mother, Emily Billingsley, was also in the city, where she managed a grocery. (1) Their father, Robert W. Billingsley, avoided conviction. Tragically, he had died at 53 on 14 May 1918 after being struck by a Detroit streetcar. (2)
Arrest and Imprisonment
Logan was arrested in Toledo, Ohio, and on July 22 he was extradited to Washington’s McNeil Island federal penitentiary to serve his 13-month sentence for violation of the federal liquor shipment law.
He served the full 13-month sentence and was then released.
More Arrests
Upon release from prison, Logan was immediately arrested by a King County deputy sheriff and brought back to Seattle to serve a 60-day sentence given in 1916 for a bootlegging charge, plus an additional 83 days if he failed to pay a $250 fine. An application for his pardon was presented to Governor Louis F. Hart, who rejected it.
And there was more bad news for Logan: he faced immediate arrest in a repeat performance of his last release. This time, a deputy sheriff from Oklahoma took him to that state to satisfy an old warrant. What Logan did next made newspaper headlines.
Logan was arrested for a second time in Toledo, Ohio, on August 5; however, he fought extradition to Seattle. That same month, the Sooner State granted him a conditional parole that he “must forever absent himself from the borders of Oklahoma.” The consensus of Oklahomans was that the fugitive was beyond their state’s reach, and a fortune had already been spent on multiple attempts to bring him to justice.
Mysterious Yacht Disappearance
On 8 December 1919, Logan applied for a passport for a trip to the Bahamas, Cuba, and Jamaica, stating he would be “accompanied by wife Hattie M. Billingsley.” He declared that Hattie was born on 15 January 1894, thereby making her 25 years old. (3) Her reported age and marital status were likely a ploy to avoid another statutory rape charge.
The following day, Logan and his pretend wife were among 36 people who boarded the Grey Duck, movie mogul D. W. Griffith’s Nassau-bound yacht. When the yacht failed to reach its destination, a search party was launched on December 14. “The Griffith company had been filming in a picture in Miami, Fla., and had left Nassau to obtain additional scenes,” said a report. Some believed that the passenger listed as Logan B. Billingsley couldn’t be the bootlegger from Seattle, contending that his wife’s name wasn’t Hattie M. Billingsley.
The storm-tossed Grey Duck and its passengers finally arrived safely after five days, which Griffith called “a most distressing experience.” The incident created such a newspaper sensation that suspicion grew that it was nothing more than a publicity stunt.
Logan and Hattie exchanged wedding vows on December 20. She was not 25, but only days away from turning 17. Later, Hattie Mae gave 14 December 1901 as her birthdate. (4) This date is consistent with her age in the 1910 census in April that year. (5)
Flourishing in New York City
It was not until 1922 that Seattle prosecutor Malcolm Douglas said he learned that Logan was alive and well in New York.
Divorce
Logan and Hattie had one child, Logan Jr. In 1926, Logan filed for divorce against his wife and sought custody of their son. The husband alleged that she “succumbed to the attractions” of an army captain in December 1924 at his Long Island quarters, 17 days before she committed an “improper intimacy” with a major in Miami. (6) However, divorce plans were cancelled. Then in 1931, Hattie Mae filed for divorce in Florida, alleging his “extreme cruelty.”
In 1936, Logan was indicted for mail fraud, but the charges were dismissed. On May 29 that year, he and third wife Frances Longworth were wed in Florida. (7) They had three sons.
Reputation Rehabilitated
Logan founded the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians, inspired while employed by the U.S. Indian Service in Anadarko. The non-profit organization was incorporated in 1952.
In 1962, Variety announced plans were underway to develop a theatrical production, The Billingsley Boys, a “saga of 79-year-old Logan Billingsley and brothers Fred, Ora, and Sherman.”
Death
Death claimed Logan Billingsley on 4 August 1963.
This obituary shows how much Logan Billingsley had reformed his reputation. There is no mention of bootlegging:
Logan Billingsley, 80, Katonah, N. Y., founder of the Indian Hall of Fame, Anadarko, died Sunday at Mount Kisco, N. Y. Services will be Wednesday at Anadarko.
Billingsley came to Indian Territory from Tennessee with his family, first settling in the Beaver County area, later moving to Enid, Anadarko, and finally, Tishomingo.
After graduating from the University of Oklahoma, he was engaged in many business ventures around the country and in Cuba.
He went to New York in 1919 and started a real estate business which made him a multi-millionaire.
He was the first chairman of the 1939 New York World’s Fair Committee and was a past president of the Bronx Chamber of Commerce.
For a time he was connected with the U. S. Department of the Interior and later became the founder and executive director of the Indian Hall of Fame.
Survivors include his wife, Frances; five sons, Glenn; Logan Jr.; Jerome; Robert; and Francis; two brothers, Sherman, owner of the Stork Club in New York; and Ora; and a sister, Mrs. Harry Donnellan.
“I think my father realized that in New York he could shed his old identity,” said his son, Robert. “The Oklahoma years had been an embarrassment. This was a journey to respectability.”
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Note on the header image: old photos and correspondence. Credit: https://depositphotos.com/home.html [051723]
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(1) “Billingsley Flits Again from Custody,” Seattle [Wash.] Union Record, 9 July 1918, page 3.
(2) Robert W. Billingsley death certificate, no. 5107 (1918), “Michigan, U.S., Death Records, 1867–1952,” online database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 5 May 2025).
(3) Logan B. Billingsley, no. 149010 (1919), “U.S., Passport Applications, 1795–1925,” online database with images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 14 February 2024).
(4) Hattie Mae Billingsley, no. 265034940, “U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936–2007,” online database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 14 February 2024).
(5) Wilburn Key household, Cairo, Grady County, Ga., “United States Census, 1910,” FamilySearch.org: posted 18 January 2025), which mistranscribes his name as Melburne Ren, 41; wife Susan, 39; and daughter Hattie Mae, eight.
(6) “He Falls Out with Wife Who Fell for Uniforms,” Daily News (New York), 17 November 1926, p. 12.
(7) Logan Billingsley/Frances Longworth (1936), “Florida, U.S. County Marriages, 1823–1982,” online database, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com: accessed 2 May 2025).
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