OCR Text |
Show .jTha.elerar aacapa from tha county JaU of Charles Riia soma tlma early last Friday morning has, brought to mind number of other escapes in Utah, some of which were fraught with serious r a-s nits for those is charge of tha prisoners. prison-ers. Tha most noted escape in the history of Utah, and one that cost, the life of the prison warden and a trusty, occurred oc-curred at the Utah Territory prison in 1875. Col. William Nelson, now of the Tribune, had been appointed United States Marshal, and arrived in Salt Lake City the day of the break. He did not, however, assume charge of the prison until the day following. At that time there were not nearly so many convicts in the prison as at tha present time. Among the prisoners were "Joe" Smith, a horse-thief, a man named C&nin, who was serving a life sentence, and Chaxlea Williamson, who escaped four times from the prison. pris-on. The men know thoro was to be a change In Marefealshipe, and that the guard was to be increased. Trusty Downs the Warden. For some reason, never explained, every guard in the establishment went to dinner at one time, with the exception excep-tion of Warden Berger. Aa inside trusty announced to tne Warden that he wished to come out with a bucket of garbage. As the request was a usual one, the warden opened the door. A number of the prisoners were lying inside in-side the wall, apparently asleep. The trusty passed through the door, and before the warden had an opportunity oppor-tunity to close it, the trusty grabbed him about the.body. The action was a signal for the men to make their attack. at-tack. Before the wardeti could call for help he was felled with a stone concealed con-cealed in a sock carried by one of the prisoners and was beaten to death. By elimbing on each other's shoulders shoul-ders some of the man managed to reach the room in which the guns and ammunition am-munition were stored. While on the wall they were discovered bv an outside out-side trusty named Carter, who undertook under-took to give the alarm, bnt was shet by Williamson and died from the wound the same dight. The men then wslked from the jail door into the qusrters where the guards were eating their dinner. Marched Guards Inside. The guards were taken completely bv surprise, and offered no resistance. j-if h ... : :: made his escape, steafeng a Ivoree and saddle belonging to the Sheriff. . The horse returned ..home seven xlays later and the -saddle' was shipped by express bak to tco JStcriff, seven days .after th escape. .... '.': "Had Business. to Boo to.'' - ; .0ne of the most novel escapes in the annals of theUnited States was that of a man from a Kentucky jail about two years ag. He had been Convicted' of "moonshining" and sentence! to a term in the State prison. .Tha man asked for a new trial, which .was granted. grant-ed. - While waiting for tha trial he escaped, es-caped, leaving a note for the-Sheriff that he would be back in five days. Every door and bar in the jail waa intact, in-tact, and the mystery of - the escape troubled the officers. . . WLen the jailer made the round of the lail on the fifth morning he found the prisoner securely locked in his cell. When questioned he informed the Sheriff Sher-iff that ho expected tha next trial to go against him. j- "I had some business that no one could attend to for me, and so decided to attend to it myself' he said. When asked how he got out and back in again, the man informed the Bheriff that he had escaped and returned bv means of a key. The lock to the jail was what is known as a "Bull lock," with a peculiar shaped key.' The prisoner pris-oner had taken the handle of his pock-etknife pock-etknife and broken the blade out. From day to day he had watched the jailer as he had unlocked the cell, taking each day a small mental picture of the key, which he had .tried to duplicate on the handle of his pocket-knife. After Af-ter several months' work he had accomplished ac-complished his object. No Jail la Proof., In speakinjt of alleged burglar-proof safes, and ofjails from which no one could escape, Warden Pratt said yesterday: yester-day: ' There is no such thing made ss a jail that cannot be broken, or a safe that cannot be blown -open. When an officer begins to think that his jail is invincible, jusT then-he wants to look out for trouble. The men on the inside spend hours trying to tgure out a way of escape. Their are willing to take anv chance. They have far mere at stake--life and liberty than the man who built the jail. "It is the same with safes. They can be broken, as is proven slmont everyday every-day in the year. There is only one safe way. and even that fails at-times. It is eternal vigilance." They were marched to the inside of the prison and locked up. Driving even-prisoner even-prisoner before them, the desperate men started to escape. One of the prisoners, who was serving a life sentence, sen-tence, left the gang and returned to the prison. With a sledgehammer he broke open the door and released the guards. Later this same prisoner took a rifle and assisted in the rapture of a number num-ber of prisoners. As a reward for his act he was pardoned a short time lster. Nearly all of the prisoners, including Williamson, were captured. Williamson, William-son, however, escaped at a later date. Another noted delivery from the State prison was October 8. 1897. when Harry Tracy. Frank W. Edwards, W. H. Brown and David Laot escaped while working in a trench a short distance dis-tance from the prison. Brown is now sn inmate of the Kansas prison. Harry Tracy Was Here, Tracy was arrested some time later in Oregon, snd escsped from the State prison there. His historv from the time of his last escape until be committed commit-ted suicide after having killed several officers, is too well known to require repeating. The other two of the quartette quar-tette were never heard of in Utah sf-ter sf-ter their eerspe. October 9, 1903. "Ed" Mullen, "N'ick" Haworth. James Lvnch, "Abe" Majors, Frank Conner, Harry Waddell and FTank Dayton made one of the most daring attempts at escape in the history of Utah criminals. In some manner, never explained, the men became possessed of firearms. In the attempt at escape Davton was shot and killed, and Waddell, Mullen and Lynch were wounded, as well as fiuards Wil kinson and Jacobs. All of the men were recaptured. This break cost the State in the neighborhood neighbor-hood of ?0. That was the last .iail-bresk .iail-bresk at the Ptate prison. Four v'ears before that, on May 30. 1RP9. Charles Bishop escaped by sawing his way out of the woman's wsrd, in which he had been confined. Borne of the old timers in Salt Lake "ity will remember "Jack" Begon. who shot and killed a man in the business busi-ness section of the city. While being taken to jail Begon escaped from the officer. He was traced west, and finallv arrested in Los Angeles, from which city he was brought bask to Salt Lake City bv Arthur Pratt, who is now warden war-den of the State prison. This was in 1875. Escapes Once Common. In the early days of what is now the State prison, escapes were of a common occurrence. This was due to two cause. First, the building was not of the strength that it is todav, and sc-e ond, there were not ssffieieni guards to watch the men. As already stated in THE TELE GRAM, Riis is the only man who ever escaped from the county vail, though a number have tried it, including James Lynch, who is now serving s life sentence' in tbe State prison. One of the most noted prison escapes in the hitorv of this country was November No-vember 7, 1001. when thirty prisoners escaped from the Government prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., killing a number num-ber of the guards. A majority of these prisoners were recaptured, but some have never been founn. Spelling Causes Murder. A man named Bahormon killed another an-other in Nebraska a short time sgo ovr the proper spelling of a word. Tne man was arrested, tried, convicted And sentenced to life imprisonment A short time after he had been placid in jail he escaped. Aearing a note thanking thank-ing the 8beriff for Lis kindness. It waa believed that be had been furnished fur-nished with keys by some friend from the outside. "Kid" Logan, who was sftenced some time ago in Knoxvilie, Tenn., to 125 years in the State prison, escaped while awaiting transfer to the State prison. Logan was convicted, on three counts, of having held up and robbed two trains of United 8tates mail. In some wav Lognn secured a piece of wire from a broom. While the night jailer was passing his cell he threw tke wtre over his head from between the bars of the cell. After choking the iailer iato unoon-MJosft&tis, unoon-MJosft&tis, he eecar4hit keys ad |