7. CHAPTER VII.
ESCAPES FROM PRISON.
OCCASIONALLY there is a man shrewd enough to make his escape from
prison. When a convict has almost served out his time he is generally
selected to perform the duties of a "trusty," and allowed to go outside
the prison enclosure. By good conduct other prisoners gain the
confidence of the officials, and there are instances where these men,
though they may have several months to serve, are permitted to go beyond
the walls, doing duty for the prison. But they are rare. Generally a
convict, if he has long to serve, is not trusted to any great extent. At
times these "trusties," although they may have but a few weeks to
remain, cannot successfully resist the temptation to escape. Ordinarily
the escaped convict is overtaken and brought back.
I recollect an instance where two young fellows were thus
trusted. One of them had two months to serve, and the other but
twenty-seven days. They were given employment at
the reservoir, over a mile from the prison. No officer was guarding
them. They made an attempt to get away. After being absent a few hours
they were missed from their post of duty. The alarm was given, and
officers started in pursuit. They were overtaken and caught about five
miles distant, hid in the brush. They had concealed themselves in this
place, intending to make their escape in the darkness of the coming
night. The officers in search accidentally came upon them in this brush
patch. They were taken back to prison. They were compelled to work for
thirty days with a ball and chain attached to each of their limbs, after
which they were taken to Leavenworth, to the District Court, where they
plead guilty to the charge of attempting to escape from the prison.
Each of them received a sentence of one year at hard labor in the
penitentiary for this foolishness. After their present sentence has
expired, they will have to enter immediately upon the other for trying
to escape. At this writing, both of these convicts are digging coal in
the mines. They are not trusted now.
Another prisoner, a much older man than these two whom I have
described, tried to escape; he got as far as Ohio before the officers
secured him. During the late rebellion this man was a captain in the
army. He became involved in a quarrel with some of his relatives and was
sent to the penitentiary for forgery. On account of his previous good
character, on coming to the penitentiary he was immediately set to work
as a "trusty." Some few months after he was sent to the Missouri River,
over a mile from the prison, to do some work. No officer was with him.
Going down to the banks of the river he discovered a boat tied to the
shore. In a subsequent conversation, he told me when he saw that boat it
suggested the thought of escaping. His wife and children were in the
State of Ohio. They had removed there since his conviction. "The boat,"
said he, "seemed to say, `get in and cross the river.' I thought of my
family. Oh, how I longed to be with them! I could not resist the
temptation. I had some old overalls, and I drew these on over the
stripes. I got into the boat, rowed across, and hid in the woods on the
Missouri side until night. During the night-time I walked, and during
the daytime would lay by in the woods, occasionally going out to a house
begging something to eat. At last I reached my home in Ohio. I was
footsore
and almost starved when I arrived." Continuing his narrative, he
informed me that he had no peace of mind. He was in constant dread of
pursuing officers. Every man he saw he took to be a detective in search
of him. At last, so great was his alarm and uneasiness, that he
telegraphed the prison officials where he was. The warden went and
brought him back, For punishment he remained in the dungeon several days
and nights, and wore the ball and chain for over a month. This man has
not been tried yet for making his escape. It will probably be overlooked
because of the change in the prison administration. His original
sentence was five years.
Another prisoner made his escape, was away for five years; was
then discovered, brought back, and is at present eight hundred feet
below the surface, digging coal.
One day a young man was brought to the penitentiary under three
years' sentence. He was handsome and had winning ways. It was not long
before the officers had learned to like him. He was a natural confidence
man. It was difficult to resist his influence. After he had been in the
penitentiary a short time he was made a "trusty." For awhile he was
very dutiful and obedient. He was no fool. He gained the confidence of
the officers so that many of them would have confided their pocketbooks
to his care. He was permitted to go beyond the prison walls to quite a
distance. Finally he walked off. That convict has never been heard of
since. He was a slick one. After his departure it was found out that he
had walked away from the Colorado prison in the same manner.
The following is an instance of the shrewdness practiced in
effecting escapes. A hog-thief was convicted and sent to the prison.
He related that while traveling through the southern part of Kansas, a
mere tramp, passing by a farmer's residence, he saw a number of hogs in
a lot adjoining a grove some distance to the rear of the house. Passing
up through the grove, unperceived, he removed one of the boards and
drove the hogs out through the woods into a small pond where they
covered themselves with mud. Then driving them around on to the main
traveled road, he started with them for town some five miles off. As he
was driving along the highway, the owner of the hogs met him and
inquired where he was taking them. He replied that he was going to
market. The farmer said he was making up a car load and would give him
as much as he could get in town. After some further conversation the
parties agreed upon the price, the farmer buying his own hogs from the
tramp, who went on his way rejoicing. An hour or two thereafter the
farmer, going out into his field to see his hogs, found they were gone,
and upon examining those recently purchased, which by this time had
rubbed all the mud off, he discovered it was his own hogs he had
purchased from the tramp. He immediately set out in pursuit of the
thief, whose whereabouts were soon determined. The thief, after
receiving the money, went to town, took a train, but stopped off at a
little place nearby, and instead of secreting himself for a time, began
to drink. While dissipating he was overtaken, arrested, and held for
trial. Had he left whisky alone, he could have escaped. At the trial,
which soon followed, he was convicted of grand larceny, and on his
arrival at the prison was immediately put into the coal mines. After
working there for a week or ten days he became dissatisfied, and decided
to secure a position on the surface. One morning, as the prisoners were
being let down into the mines, apparently in a fit he fell
into the arms of a prisoner; when he landed at the bottom he was in the
worst part of his spasm; the officer in charge ordered him sent to the
top as soon as he had partially recovered, stating that it was dangerous
to have a man working in the mines who was subject to fits, as he might
not only kill himself but be the cause of the death of others with him
in the cage. To make his case more plausible, when the convict learned
that the officer had ordered him to the top, he began pleading to remain
in the mines and work, stating that he enjoyed the work and would rather
do service there than on the top. But the officer persisted; he was sent
up and reported to the deputy warden, who set him to quarrying rock.
This was no better job than working in the coal mines. Providing
himself for the occasion, by putting a piece of soap in his mouth,
assuming a frenzy and frothing at the mouth, he would almost deceive a
physician as to the nature of his malady. Later, it was decided that he
was unable to do duty on the rock pile, and was placed in the "Crank
House" with the cranks. Those prisoners, who have either lost their
mind or are suffering with temporary insanity, not incurable insane, or
wholly idiotic, are
classed as "cranks," and have an apartment by themselves. As a rule this
class of individuals are harmless and not guarded very closely. Their
cells are not locked up until nine o'clock at night; the others at six
o'clock. During the noon hour the officers leave them alone, in fact,
being of a supposed harmless disposition they are at no time closely
guarded. This fellow improved the opportunities afforded by the noon
hour. He would go into one of the towers and work as long as he dared
cutting the bars with a saw he had made out of a knife. He labored in
this manner until one of the bars was sawed so near off that a little
push would remove it. One afternoon he bade the other cranks good-bye,
telling them he was going to fly that night. They made sport of him,
thinking he was growing more insane. He went so far as to say good-bye
to the officer, stating that he had received a revelation from God the
previous night, and that an angel was coming to liberate him. The
officer, of course, thought he was getting more and more insane. When
night came he slipped out of his cell and secreted himself in a portion
of the cell house where it was dark, and when the officer came to lock
up, the crazy hog-thief was not missed.
Along in the night he pushed aside the bars and made his escape. This
was the last the prison authorities heard of him until they learned he
was arrested at St. Joseph, Missouri, and held there on a charge of
grand larceny for the same thing that he was in the Kansas
penitentiary—stealing hogs. An officer went up there to get and bring
him back to the Kansas penitentiary, but the St. Joseph authorities
refused to give him up. He was tried there and sent to the Missouri
penitentiary. After his term expires in that place he will have to serve
out his original term in the Kansas penitentiary. "The way of the
transgressor is hard," even if he does pretend to have fits.
One of the most interesting and perilous attempts at escaping
from the penitentiary was the following: In the evening, after the day's
work is over in the mines, the convicts are all lifted to the top, as
before stated, and remain in their cells over night. One Saturday night
a convict, with a twenty years' sentence, resolved that he would remain
in the mines, and try to effect his escape. He had supplied himself with
an extra lot of bread and meat, and hid himself in the darkness of the
mines
when the men were marched out in the evening at six o'clock. When the
count of the prisoners was made at the evening lock up, this man was
found missing. As he had not been seen since the prisoners were taken
from the mines, it was believed, correctly, that he had remained below.
There was nothing done about the matter that night, the officers knowing
there would be no opportunity of effecting his escape during the
night-time, as they had carefully closed the shafts at the top. They did
not set any watch until the next day. During that Saturday night this
convict climbed eight hundred feet to the top of one of the shafts. The
wooden beams running across the shaft are about five feet apart.
Standing erect on one of these beams he threw his arms over the one
above his head, and would swing up to it. In this manner he worked his
way to the top of the shaft. When he reached the surface how great was
his disappointment, for instead of finding the shaft open, as he
supposed it would be, he found that the cover was down and that he was
unable to get out of the shaft, and thus out of the coalfields into the
woods adjoining. When he discovered this there was nothing to do but
descend, This was a perilous undertaking.
The cross-beams were covered with oil which, dripping down from the
machinery above, made them very slippery. A number of times he came near
falling, and if he had done so, he would have reached the bottom a
mangled mass. It required nearly the entire night for the ascent and
descent. When he reached the bottom he took a lunch of bread and meat,
went to the base of the other shaft, which is about one hundred yards
distant, and began his ascent of it, with the hope he would find it
open. It was daylight when he reached the top. Two officers had been
stationed there to watch him. Arriving at the surface and just ready to
get out, they took charge of, and marched him into the presence of the
deputy warden. When the convict related the narrow escapes from death in
his efforts for liberty, the deputy warden was so affected he refused to
punish him.
Out in the world, with the blessings of liberty all around us, we
do not realize the priceless boon they are to us; but when we stand in
the presence of the perils that are undertaken in order to gain them
when deprived of their benefits, we begin to comprehend the real value
of these sacred immunities of citizenship.
