Hugh Bradley's 1940 history of Saratoga contains some information about Speck, based on local folklore as much as on any specific historical primary sources. In their 1983 article in "Western Folklore", Fox and Banner say that Bradley had cited an 1885 article in the "Hotel Gazette" about Speck and BI the potato chips. Bradley repeated some material from that article, including that "Crum was born in 1828, the son of Abe Speck, a mulatto jockey who had come from Kentucky to Saratoga Springs and married a Stockbridge Indian woman," and that, "Crum also claimed to have considerable German and Spanish blood."