Alexander Keith Jr.

The nephew of Halifax businessman Alexander Keith, he worked for a time as a clerk in his uncle's brewery.

[1] During the American Civil War, when Halifax was home to many Confederate sympathizers, Keith acted mostly as a blockade runner and courier.

He was also involved with Luke Blackburn in a plot to send clothes infected with yellow fever to northern cities in the United States.

[4] This led to a major catastrophe in Bremerhaven in 1875, when a time bomb he had placed in the "caviar" barrel accidentally went off on the dock, killing 81 people.

After the tragedy was revealed as a murder/insurance scam on a large scale, the disappearances of other ships were investigated to see if Keith and his possible associates were involved.

"[7] The Dynamite Fiend: The Chilling Story of Alexander Keith Jr., Nova Scotian Spy, Con-Artist, and International Terrorist[8] by Ann Larabee was published in 2005.

Alexander Keith Jr. is also a character in Boris Pronsky and Craig Britton's novel Forty-Ninth,[11] central for the execution of the Alaska Payment Conspiracy in the book.