The Corn-Cutter of Broadway

Did you hear the one about the foot doctor who owed his reputation to Abraham Lincoln? Issachar Zacharie was not trained as a medical doctor, although he used the term throughout his professional life. He was a chiropodist who made a living trimming corns and bunions and cutting toenails in New York City. Zacharie used forged certificates and references to inflate his qualifications. The truth was that he learned his crafts as a child apprenticed to a physician.

Zacharie had one very important client, though. The "doctor" had suggested he be put in charge of a team of podiatrists for the Union Army in the Civil War, but the idea was not taken seriously. However, army officials and senators asked Zacharie to work on their feet. Abraham Lincoln eventually availed himself of Zacharie's services and liked the corn-cutter very much. Lincoln actually sent Zacharie on a couple of spy missions disguised as diplomacy during the war. Once Lincoln was assassinated, Zacharie quickly learned he was a nobody among Washington's elite. Read the story of the fraudulent foot doctor at The London Dead.  -via Strange Company