Boston Post, Massachusetts, July 19, 1921 

The medium mentioned in the headline, Chief James Henry Rheamount White Cloud, held a seance the week before where multiple spirits were supposed to play their musical instruments while the Chief sat in a bag with all the lights turned out. One of the men at the seance, Converse Nickerson, although a spiritualist himself, was clearly skeptical, because he decided to shine a flashlight on the Chief to see what was going on. 

What the group saw was Chief Rheamount, half out of his bag, playing a guitar. The Chief then smashed the guitar over Nickerson’s head and abruptly ended the seance, making his exit through a cellar window. At this time he hadn’t been seen since, but said that he’d be back soon to prove he was not a “fake”. After four years of hiding he was found and arrested for this incident in 1925.

Before this, in Aurora, Illinois there were multiple charges of malpractice laid against him. In 1911, he took out a marriage license to marry a girl named Maggie Magox, 20, and gave his age as 45. The Belvidere Daily Republican, reporting on his upcoming nuptials and hinting at fraud, voiced their doubts about the Chief’s Indian heritage, stating he looked more Ethiopian than anything else. The article also mentions grand jury charges there for practicing without a license. He didn’t marry Maggie, but in 1918 married Edna May Bauer, 20, in Milwaukee. 

The Chief had been in trouble in Newark in 1912 when a woman, Jessie Gaver, 39, was found dead in his hotel room under suspicious circumstances. Her daughter, 14 at the time, and the small legacy left for her by her mother, were placed in his care, but shortly after he was charged with contributing to her delinquency. He was also charged with leading an immoral life, apparently he’d had many liaisons with young girls. Jessie’s body was eventually exhumed. A memo card in his desk was found with the saying “there are microbes in kisses, but I like the little devils”. At different times, to different authorities, he presented himself as Jessie’s brother, cousin and nephew. 

 In 1920 he was arrested again for fraud, this time in Chicago, claiming that he could have former President Roosevelt and his son Quentin appear at his seances.

After the musical seance debacle in 1921 he continued selling quack medicines and practicing as a chiropractor. In 1928 he was charged with practicing without a license in Ohio. At the time, his defense acknowledged that Chief White Cloud did claim to have the same powers as Jesus Christ, but they claimed that the Chief only asked for donations and didn’t charge fees.