Part 10 (1/2)
FORTY-EIGHT YEARS A PRISONER
John Hicks is the veteran penitentiary convict of the United States.
Under an alias he served one term in the Missouri penitentiary. Most of his time has been spent in prisons further east. He is now eighty-four years of age, and quite recently was released from the Michigan City penitentiary. Prison authorities have compared notes and find that he has actually served forty-eight years of prison life. He is the oldest living criminal in this country. He has served ten terms, the greater portion of them being in Indiana. His first crime was committed in 1839.
In some way he learned that a man named Bearder had $360 in his house.
While the family were at church Hicks rifled the house and stole their money. A marked coin led to his conviction, and he got a three years'
sentence. He was never, afterward, out six months at a time, and was sent up successively for burglary, criminal a.s.sault, robbery, larceny, cattle-stealing and horse-stealing. At the expiration of his fifth term, at Michigan City, he made his way to the office, where the directors were in session. He begged them to allow him to build a shanty in a part of the prison in which he could sleep and call his home. All that he asked was that the sc.r.a.ps from the table be given him for food. The board refused to allow him this, and Hicks bade them good-by. He walked to a small town near by, where he soon was arrested for thieving, and was taken to prison to serve what he declared to be his last term. His head is as white as snow, and in keeping with his long, flowing beard, and he looks like a patriarch, yet is not stooped a particle. His desire now is to secure honest work, that will guarantee him a home. He wishes to spend the rest of his days a free man. Had this man been a.s.sisted just a little at the expiration of his first term, he might have become a useful citizen, but as it was, his life was spent behind the bars.
When once the feet find themselves walking in the pathway of crime, it is very difficult for them ever to walk in paths of honesty and uprightness thereafter.
NINE TIMES
As I was walking through the penitentiary, in company with Deputy Warden Bradbury, he pointed out an old convict, and said, ”There is a fellow that has seen prison life. He is here this time under the name of Gus Loman. He is now serving his NINTH term in this prison. At the expiration of one of his sentences he went away and was gone over a year, and when he came back I asked him where he had been so long. His reply was, 'Simply rusticating at Joliet, Ill., with some friends.'
Every time he is sent to prison he gives in a new and different name and, of course, no one but himself knows what his real name is.” When asked why he comes to the prison so often, he remarked that, when once in prison it is impossible to get work to do on the outside, and he had made up his mind to spend the rest of his days in prison. He claimed that the fates were against him and he could not make a living on the outside, as no one would employ him; that he had tried it several times and failed, and now he had given up all hope. He is a bold, bad and natural thief. As soon as his term is out he goes a little distance from the prison, gets on a spree, gets into trouble, steals something, and soon finds himself back again in the penitentiary. He is now over seventy years of age, and is both a physical and moral wreck. What an awful warning for the young is the history of such a wasted life.
DESPERADO JOHNSON
This convict is the most daring and desperate criminal in the Missouri penitentiary. The prison authorities have had more trouble with him than with any other man who ever found a home behind the walls of this great inst.i.tution. He was sent up from Jackson County, and was charged with murdering two men before he was finally convicted of crime. On trial for these two murders be was successful in proving an alibi. The last time he was not so successful, and received a sentence of twelve years. Soon after his arrival at the prison he was set to work in one of the shops.
When he became a little acquainted, his innate cussedness induced him to raise a riot in the prison. It was a desperate undertaking, but he was equal to the emergency. For days and weeks he was on the alert, and when a guard was not on the watch he would communicate with a convict, and enlist his services, and give him his instructions as to what part he should perform when the signal should be given.
At last the day came when all was ready for the plans so well laid to be carried into execution. Each of the convicts who were to act in concert with him piled up a lot of kindling in their respective shops and saturated it with kerosene. When the prisoners were being marched out to supper, they threw matches into the piles of kindling-wood, and soon several buildings were on fire. Intense excitement now prevailed among the two thousand convicts. The ranks were quickly broken, and all was confusion. Some of the better disposed convicts tried to a.s.sist the officers in putting out the fires, and were in turn knocked down and trampled upon by those who were in favor of the riot. In the midst of this great excitement Johnson, the leader, with four of his a.s.sociates, knocked down one of the guards and stripped him of his clothing. Johnson put on this suit of blue and started to one of the towers. Reaching the same, he asked permission of the officer on duty to let down the ladder and allow him to ascend and a.s.sist him in ”holding the fort,” as this was Captain Bradbury's orders. Johnson's intentions were to get on top of the wall and into the tower, where the guard opened the large gate below by the use of a lever. The convict, once inside the tower, would knock the officer down, seize his gun, raise the lever, throw open the large gate in the wall, and permit the prisoners all to rush out. This was a bold scheme, and it is a wonder, during the great excitement that prevailed, that it was not successful. The officer on duty, when requested by the convict to allow him to ascend the ladder, coolly drew his gun, and told him if he dared to ascend he would send buckshot into his body.
Foiled in this, the desperado returns to where the officials are fighting the flames, and began cutting the hose so as to stop the supply of water. The fire raged furiously. A strong wind sprung up adding intensity to the flames. Over $200,000 worth of property was soon swept away in this direful storm of fire. After a fearful conflict the prisoners were overpowered and driven into their cells.
A number of them were severely wounded. Several died of the injuries received. The prison directors had a called meeting and investigated the riot. The blame fell upon convict Johnson. A criminal charge was preferred against him in the courts, for arson. He was convicted and served an additional sentence of twelve years. This, added to his former sentence, makes twenty-four years of imprisonment for this desperado.
When he was taken out of the penitentiary to stand trial for setting fire to the prison, he was heavily loaded with chains, and in the custody of six prison officials. It was feared he would make a desperate effort to escape during this trial. On his return to the prison he was placed in a dark dungeon, and has been kept caged up ever since, like a wild beast. When he is given exercise he wears a ball and chain and an officer walks immediately behind him, with a loaded Winchester, ready to shoot him down if he makes any bad breaks. The officials are very careful when they enter his cell for any purpose, as he is liable to kill them. Captain Bradbury, the deputy warden, in speaking of him, says, he is the most desperate criminal he has met during his thirty-three years of prison experience.
HENRY BUTLER,
a colored representative of Pettis County, has served the longest consecutive term of any of the male prisoners. Henry killed his man, and for this mistake has been doing service for the State of Missouri ”without money and without price” for the past fifteen years. The story of his downfall is very romantic. He was a married man, and the father of an interesting family. There lived near him a young lady of color, very handsome and attractive, so the story goes, and for whom Henry had a great liking. There was nothing wrong about all this, perhaps, if Henry had not permitted his affections to go too far. Instead of admiring this dusky maiden at a distance, as he should have done, he brought her to his home, and cared for her there in a manner too affectionate for the tastes of his colored neighbors. Henry was remonstrated with, but to no purpose. At the close of church services one moonlight Sunday evening his neighbors held an indignation meeting, and it was resolved to put a stop to Henry's little love scheme, as it was now very evident that his wife was getting tired of having the maiden about her so much. The meeting adjourned that evening to have the next one the following night at Henry's front gate. During the ensuing day he was apprised of the intentions of his callers, and was urged to let the young lady depart from under his roof. Henry refused, since love is blind. He got his shotgun in readiness to protect his home and his rights. At the appointed hour some twenty-five or thirty neighbors gathered at the place selected, and demanded of Henry that he should give up the maiden loved, or pull hemp. At this juncture Henry called into requisition his double-barreled shotgun and turned both barrels loose on the excited throng. The result was a stampede, one negro killed and two wounded. For this brave deed he was arrested, tried and sent to prison for life. In solitude for fifteen years, Henry has had the privilege of thinking of his illicit love, none of his former neighbors daring to molest him or make him afraid.
The case of a prisoner who was in the Missouri prison under the name of
GEORGE ELLIS
is very remarkable. Over in Kansas a cold-blooded murder had been committed. It seemed impossible for the authorities to discover any trace of the murderer. Shortly after this murder had been committed, Ellis was arrested and tried in Missouri on a charge of horse-stealing, and got a two years' sentence. He heard of this murder having been committed in Kansas, and, for some reason best known to himself, he went to Deputy Warden Bradbury and confidentially told him that he had committed the offense, and asked him to notify the authorities of Kansas. This was done and a pardon was granted Ellis that he might be taken to Kansas and tried for murder. No doubt, Ellis' motive in stating that he was guilty of this offense was to get out of the penitentiary.
He supposed that after getting pardoned out of the Missouri prison, he would have no trouble in proving an alibi in the Kansas murder case, and in this way go free. He was taken to Kansas, tried, and failed to establish his alibi, and was found guilty of murder and sentenced to the penitentiary for life. If Ellis was guilty of murder, he surely would not have told on himself and exchanged a two years' sentence in the Missouri prison for a life sentence in the Kansas penitentiary. He is, no doubt, innocent of this crime, but should serve a few years in the Kansas inst.i.tution because of his smartness.
THE SUICIDE
A young man by the name of John Welch was sent from Stoddard County for an heinous offense, under a sentence of ten years. His family were among the best people of that county, and highly respected. John proved to be a black lamb of the flock. He had not been in prison but a few weeks when he got enough of that kind of living, and, being unable to have his resignation accepted, he concluded to end his career by committing suicide. It was on a beautiful Sunday morning, and the prisoners having been to religious services, were on their way back to their cells to spend the rest of the day in solitude. The chapel where the services were held is in the third story of a large brick structure. An iron stairway is attached to the wall on the outside of the building. It was down this stairway the convicts were marching, one behind the other, when John, stepping out of the door on to the stairway, instead of following his comrades down and into his cell, as he had done on former occasions, leaped out into s.p.a.ce and fell to the ground. When he was picked up, life was extinct. He received his pardon that day, but gave his life as the ransom. No one can imagine how much this youth suffered before he brought himself to that point when he decided to make that leap into eternity.