The Author
About the Author
The great-great-grandson who told the story
Hundred Cents on the Dollar was written by Ben Thompson, the great-great-grandson of William H. Malone. An attorney by trade turned researcher, he caught the genealogy bug early and was surprised that no one had ever taken the time to tell this unbelievable story. So he set out to tell it himself.
His grandmother, Ethelee Malone Carlson, spent fifty years tracing the family genealogy. Ben spent years pulling the federal record himself, from the clemency file to the National Archives branches in Chicago, Kansas City, and College Park, and set the two accounts side by side.
He built it like a case file
Trained in the law, Ben assembled the book the way he would assemble a file: every fact sourced, every conflict between the sources flagged rather than smoothed over, and no thumb on the scale. He does not tell you whether his ancestor was guilty. He lays out the record and steps back, leaving the last seat in the jury box open for you.
Malone’s story is unbelievable for how unlikely it was, but extraordinary for how uncommon it was.
Ben, the author