A Cincinnati Photographer Might Have Been A Baron But He Was A Lousy Detective

Cincinnatians awoke on the morning of 26 Sep 1896 to discover that there was a baron in their midst, heir to a “colossal fortune.” According to that day’s Cincinnati Enquirer, one Warren H. Spohn of Hamilton, Ontario, was on his way to London with a battered family tree and some family heirlooms to prove his brother, residing in the Queen City, was the true fifth Earl of Ludlow, Viscount Preston and Baron Ludlow of Ardsalla in Ireland.John Lee Spohn, the heir prospective, lived rather humbly in Cincinnati’s West End, operating a small photography studio and gallery. He and his family arrived in the United States from his native Canada in 1882. Spohn was married to Mariah Laster of England. The couple had three daughters, all married and all also living in Cincinnati. According to the Enquirer:“He has always known and cherished the fact that he was the lineal descendent of the house of Ludlow, but, being a modest and a poor man, never boasted of his ancestors nor mentioned the fact…