Allan Pinkerton (July 21, 1819 – July 1, 1884) was a U.S. detective and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton Agency, the first detective agency.

Pinkerton was born in Glasgow, Scotland to William Pinkerton and his wife Isabell. Allan emigrated to the United States in 1842. In Chicago, Illinois in 1850, he formed the Pinkerton Agency, which solved a series of train robberies. He was head of the U.S. Secret Service in 1861–1862 and foiled an assassination plot in Baltimore, Maryland, while guarding Abraham Lincoln on his way to his inauguration for his first term as president. He was so famous that for decades after his death, the word "Pinkerton" was a slang term for a private eye.

Pinkerton died in Chicago, Illinois, on July 1, 1884.

See American Civil War spies

External links

• A more detailed profile of him