The Catskills' most enduring treasure tale is about the hoard of Prohibition-era gangster Dutch Shultz who was gunned down in a Newark chop house shortly after he returned from Phoenicia in Ulster County. His dying words, recorded by a police stenographer, give tantalizing clues to the location of his vast fortune. The book was also featured on Fox Cable's "Million Dollar Mysteries."
John Conway was born and raised in Sullivan County, NY, and educated at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. He has been the Sullivan County Historian since 1993, and an adjunct professor at SUNY -Sullivan since 1999.
He is the author of seven books, with an eighth, about organized crime in the Catskills in the 1920s and '30s, due out next year. He wrote a weekly column on local history for the Times Herald-Record newspaper for more than 12 years beginning in 1987, and currently writes a similar column for the Sullivan County Democrat. He was a contributor for the latest edition of the Encyclopedia of New York State.
From 1980 to 1994 he hosted a popular call-in radio talk show and is regularly asked to provide a historical context for Sullivan County news events by the New York Times, Associated Press, and Fox News, among others. He has appeared on the Fox television series, Million Dollar Mysteries, discussing the lost Catskills treasure of prohibition era gangster Dutch Schultz, and on the BBC television documentary, Stand Up America, discussing the impact of the Borscht Belt on American comedy. He also recently collaborated with the Times Herald-Record newspaper on a series of award winning video documentaries, which are available for screening at www.classiccatskills.com.
He has lectured on Sullivan County history throughout New York and Pennsylvania, including at the New York State Museum in Albany. He has received a number of awards, including a New York State Broadcaster's Association first place award for best public affairs program for A Look Back, in 1995. He was selected for the Sullivan County Historical Society's prestigious History Preserver award in 2002, has won several merit awards from the Upper Delaware Heritage Alliance, and was honored with the Manville B. Wakefield Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to the preservation of local history by the Sullivan County Heritage Alliance in 1992.
He spearheaded Sullivan County's Stephen Crane '95 Festival to commemorate the local ties of author Stephen Crane on the 100th anniversary of the publication of his most noted work, The Red Badge of Courage. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Sullivan County Historical Society, a member of the Sullivan County Bicentennial Committee, and is on the advisory board of the Catskills Institute and the Acquisitions Committee of the Museum at Bethel Woods.
He lives in Barryville, NY with his wife, Debbie and their two dogs, Spencer, a 165 pound Newfoundland, and Carter, a rescued pit bull mix.
