History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II, Part 77

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1196

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II > Part 77

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Pursuant to this act Joseph Olds, of Circleville, Samuel McCracken, of Lan- caster, and Charles Anthony, of Springfield, were appointed directors and on December 7, 1832, submitted a report recommending selection of the site on the east bank of the Scioto " about half a mile north of Columbus." The tract thus preferred contamed about fifteen acres. Its title was in a complicated condition, but this difficulty was overcome by contract with the senior and junior Joseph Ridgway, Otis and Samuel Crosby and D. W. Deshler, citizens of Columbus, who in consideration of a cash payment of $750, and the site subscriptions, then amounting to $1,170, undertook to and, at an expense of about $2,000, did obtain a good title to all the ground, and on October 17, 1832, conveyed it to the State free of all encumbrance. An additional strip was bought of John Brickell for fifty dollars, making a total cost to the State for the entire tract, of eight hundred dollars.

Nathaniel Medbery was appointed superintendent, and submitted a plan for a building with a frontage of four hundred feet, surrounded by a wall twentyfour feet high, and containing seven hundred cells. The gross estimated cost of the entire work was $78,428.51 : exclusive of convict labor $58,744.61. The stone- work, measured in the wall, was contracted for at $1.48 per perch ; the brickwork at $2.40 per thousand. The contractors were to be provided with the labor of as many convicts as they could employ, not exceeding thirtysix, the guarding to be done at their expense. During the season of 1833 the work progressed rapidly until the violent outbreak of the cholera in that year compelled its suspension for the summer. From 80 to 100 convicts were employed. Nathaniel Medbery was appointed first warden of the new prison on October 27, 1834, and during the next two days the convicts were transferred from the old prison to the new. On Mareb 5, 1835, the directors appointed Isaac Cool deputy warden, H. Z. Mills clerk, Rev. Russell Bigelow chaplain and Doctor M. B. Wright physician.

The new prison was thus opened under a new law, with new officers, new rules, and a new system of hiring out the labor to contractors instead of selling the manufactured articles in behalf of the State. At first the system of disci- pline in the new institution was very severe but gradually it gave way to more humane methods. The humiliating lockstep and the cruel punishments known as the " showerbath " and the " cat " have all been successively abandoned. A sep- arate department, with eleven cells, for female convicts was constructed in 1837. By December 12 of that year the new prison was fully completed, its aggregate cost up to that date having been 893,370. The law providing for a chaplain hav- ing been repealed, a Young Men's Prison Society was organized in the city to pro- vide means for supporting one. The effort was not successful, and appeal was

581

THE PENITENTIARY.

made to the General Assembly to provide a moral instructor for the convicts. In their report delivered in January, 1837, the directors say :

During another year the penitentiary buildings and all necessary fixtures in and about the prison can be completed, after which, as we fully believe, no appropriation from the treasury will be required to sustain the institution, unless the labor of the convicts shall be applied in erecting other buildings for the State and in that case appropriations equal to the value of the labor thus applied will be sufficient. We go still further and predict that the institution properly managed will not only sustain itself but will annually refund to the treasury a sum equal to the interest upon the cost of the building.

When the penitentiary was removed from its original site, a question arose as to whether the title to the tenacres of ground which had been donated for its use and occupancy remained in the State or reverted to the original proprietors of the town. In the General Assembly committees reported at two different ses- sions in favor of the State's title, and on March 17, 1838, the Governor was authorized by law to have the ground platted and sold. Proceedings pursuant to this act rested with the diseretion of the Governor and nothing was done until March, 1847, when Elijah Backus brought snit to recover the ground from the State. In June, 1851, Backus obtained judgment, by default, and was given possession of the property. In March, 1852, the State brought suit to regain its title, but in the ensuing November a verdict was rendered against its claim. On appeal taken, this judgment was reversed in September, 1854; the State again came into possession of the ground, and in 1857 a portion of it was sold. During the session of 1857-8 the General Assembly authorized the payment of one thousand dollars of the proceeds from the sales to the widow of Alexander Mclaughlin, one of the original proprietors of the city.

On June 9, 1841, James Clark, a couviet senteneed from Scioto County for highway robbery, atrociously murdered Cyrus Sells, a prison guard, by stealing upon his victim from behind and beating him down with an axe. The murderer's motive was revenge for some rebuke or punishment he had received. Sells, whose age was twentytwo, was a resident of Columbus and a member of the Columbus Guards. Within a few months of the time when this tragedy occurred, Esther Foster, a negress then serving a term in the prison, beat a white female convict to death with a fireshovel. On February 9, 1844, Clark and Esther Foster expiated their crimes on the same gallows, erected at the southwest corner of Mound and Scioto streets. The execution, says Martin, " called together an immense crowd of people, both male and female," and the occasion was one of "much noise, con- fusion, drunkenness and disorder." Sullivan Sweet, a wellknown citizen, was pushed over in the crowd and fatally trampled by a horse.

The visitations of the prison by cholera in epidemie form on different occasions have been described in Chapter XXXV of Volume I. Worse for the prison than cholera, so far as its discipline and general usefulness are concerned, has been its frequent subjection to partisan " reorganization." In 1839 Nathaniel Med- bery, a valuable warden, gave place to W. B. Van Hook, who, in turn, was superseded in 1842 by Richard Stadden. In the current chronicles of 1843 we read of a meeting of citizens beld to protest against the removal of Mr. Stadden, who was declared to be " a faithful officer, a respected citizen and an upright man." His successor, appointed in 1843, was John Patterson, who, in turn, gave place in 1846 to Laurin Dewey. Such are a few of the changes, mostly on partisan account, which, at intervals, have disturbed the management of the institution from 1822 until the present time.7 A newspaper paragraph of 1843 contained the following suggestive statements :

582

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

If half we have heard on good authority is true, the walls of the Ohio Penitentiary, could they speak, would disclose " prisonhouse secrets " that would make the blood curdle. We are against flogging in the army, navy, madhouse or penitentiary, if it can be dispensed with. . . . If the managers of that institution [the Ohio Penitentiary] could substitute such a persuasire as cold water for the cats and other instruments of torture and bloodletting here- tofore employed, we are certain they would elicit an expression of universal commendation from the community.8

In the current chronieles of 1851 we read of the arrival of three or four boy conviets sentenced to the Penitentiary from Cleveland. They were brought in manaeles and " as they hobbled from the cars to the omnibus," wrote an observer, " they laughed about their awkward fix and looked hardened and indifferent to the terrible punishment awaiting them." "The sight," adds this writer, " was sicken- ing." One of these boys was only ten years of age. Incidental to his incarcera- tion among adult offenders a loud demand was raised for a " house of refuge " for juvenile offenders.9

A law transferring the appointment of penitentiary directors from the Gen- eral Assembly to the Governor was passed in April, 1852. Additional legislation providing for the appointment of a board of three directors and otherwise affecting the organization of the management, was enacted in 1854. Alleged inhuman cruelties inflicted upon Toliver Coker, a negro convict, by Deputy Warden Watson, was, in that year, investigated by a legislative committee which made a report attributing to Watson almost incredible barbarities, and demanding his resigna- tion. During the same year, J. M. King, a prison guard, was arrested on charges of embezzlement, and assisting convicts to escape. Advertisements of convict labor for hire appeared in the newspapers of the fifties. Attempts to classify the prisoners according to age, crime, second convictions and other standards, were made in 1854 but were not successful. George H. Wright and Joseph Deemer, prison guards, were arrested in Mareh, 1855, for an alleged attempt to aid the escape of a prisoner named Charles Freeman. On September 10, same year, two female convicts escaped by climbing over the prison walls. The warden's report for the year 1855 declared that the provisions of law requiring the warden to clas- sify the conviets according to their age and disposition had been carried out as far as " practicable with existing contracts." Alleged malpractice by the prison phy- sician by which a convict named Shannon became entirely blind was investigated in 1857 by a legislative committee which reported recommending that the charges against the physieian be subjected to a judicial examination. Shannon had been sentenced for one year on pleading guilty to manslaughter, consisting, it was said, in dealing a death blow to the assailant of a woman who called for his assistance. His case awakened a great deal of popular discussion and sympathy.

On May 27, 1857, Bartlett Neville, aged 27, from Athens County, was brutally murdered by a fellow convict named Albert Myers, from Clark County, who came up behind Neville while he was helping to carry a bucket across the yard, and struck him down with an axe. Neville was a harmless individual, not believed to be of sound mind or judgment. Myers was convicted of this erime before Judge James L. Bates, who sentenced him to be hung on September 3, 1858. On account of alleged insanity he was respited by Governor Chase until December 17, 1858, when he was hung at the Franklin County Jail. His remarks and con- duct, both at his sentence and at his execution, were of the most brutal and revolt- ing character. In October, 1859, onchalf of the lots on the Old Penitentiary tract were sold by order of Governor Chase.

On April 4, 1859, the General Assembly, by joint resolution, authorized the Governor to appoint a commission to inquire and report as to the necessity for enlarging the institutional capacity of the State for penitentiary punishment, and to suggest whether, should such enlargement be deemed necessary, it should be

583

THE PENITENTIARY.

made by adding to the prison at Columbus or by building a new one in some other locality. The members of the commission appointed pursuant to this reso- lution were Thomas Spooner, of Cincinnati, Nelson Franklin, of Circleville, and Kent Jarvis, of Massillon. In November, 1859, these commissioners met at Columbus, received. proposals for the new penitentiary from fortyone different towns, and started on a tour of inspection.

Two female convicts escaped from the prison during the night of November 1, 1860. They were retaken near Worthington. Of twentyone convicts in the female department in April, 1862, two were sisters who had been sentenced for shoplifting. One of these was the mother of seven children ; the other had left at home a babe about three weeks old. In May, 1861, Samuel Groff, a convict in the saddletree shop, was shot by a guard named Taylor and fatally wounded. Groff had struck Taylor and attempted to incite a mutiny. In June, 1863, a negro convict from Cleveland, named Stephens, concealed a hammer in his clothes and with it struck and killed a fellow negro convict named Howard. In 1864 an annex for insane convicts was completed at a cost of $15,000. In January, 1865, Daniel Heavey, an old guard, was fatally stabbed with a shoeknife by a convict named Edward A. Drew. An attempted mutiny in November, 1865, was sup- pressed by use of some violence, withont fatal results, by Deputy Warden Dean. In January, 1866, James McDonald, an old prisoner who had been recently dis- charged, returned to the prison by scaling its walls. He was suspected of an attempt to release a former comrade in crime, and was committed to the city prison. On recommendation of Warden Walcutt and Governor Hayes, the General Assembly, by resolution of May 16, 1868, authorized the purchase of ten- acres of additional ground contiguous to the northern boundary of the establish- ment. On the first of October next ensuing this land was purchased of the Lincoln Goodale estate for $20,000; in 1871 it was enclosed by a wall twentyfour feet in height.

During the Civil War the Ohio Penitentiary was used, by consent of the General Assembly, as a United States military prison. In consequence of this it became the receptacle, during that period, of many prominent Confederates and abettors of the rebellion. Most conspicuous among this class of its occupants was General John Morgan and his associates, whose capture and commitment to the prison have been described in the tenth chapter of this volume. Morgan and the Confederate officers taken with him, numbering about seventy in all, were confined in the ground rauge of cells, and the one next above it, in the interior cellblock of the east wing. Here they were isolated from all the prisoners com- mitted for civil crimes. In going to and from their meals they marched across the prison yard ; with this exception their daily exercise was limited to prome- nades in the galleries which coursed around the cellblock. Two military sentinels patrolled the corridor in front of the cells, a turnkey was constantly on the watch, and frequent tours of inspection were made by the prison officials and guards. No newspapers were allowed to reach the captives, their correspondence was sub- jected to rigid inspection, and between sunset and sunrise they were all locked within their cells. Nevertheless, on the morning of November 28, 1863, the dis- covery was made that during the preceding night Morgan and several of his com- panions bad escaped from the prison. The story of this wonderful exploit has been frequently told, with many variations of statement, but perhaps never more authentically than by Colonel Donn Piatt as he gathered it from the lips of a Confederate participant, and communicated it to his paper, the Washington Capital. According to this account, General Morgan managed to communicate with friends outside the prison by means of trusted convicts who were permitted to go into the city on errands. His original design was to organize a general convict revolt and blow up the prison, but while he was meditating this scheme be learned that

584

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

a large sewer passed under the prison directly beneath the cells occupied by him- self and party. This information was communicated to him through the ventila- tor of his cell by a convict who had been one of a gang engaged in cleaning obstructions from the sewer. Morgan at once adopted new plans. What they were, and how executed let Colonel Piatt narrate, as he gathered the story from his Confederate informant :

The cell appropriated to the General was in the second tier above, reached by a stairway and a gallery ; so he selected the one occupied by his brother in which to make the attempt. Their first object was to obtain tools with which to work. This they accomplished by taking from the convicts' dinner table as they passed -and not from their own, as this would have excited suspicion - the short, strong, dull knives ground square off at the end, so as to rob them of danger as weapons. Every day added a knife to the Confederates until fourteen were secured. Their first effort was to remove the stone pavement beneath the cot of the cell selected. The pieces were broken into small fragments and deposited in the ashes of the huge stoves used to warm the halls. This had to be done slowly and cantiously, for the appearance of any large quantity or large fragment would at once arouse inquiry. After the stone pavement was removed a layer of cement was found. This too was broken up and divided between the stoves and the mattress, from which the stuffing was removed and burned as the material increased. The bed of the cell consisted of a cot, reared during the day against the wall and when down covered the hole at which the men were digging. They took turns at this slow, tedious process, and at the end of three weeks reached the sewer, arched with brick. Through this a hole was opened large enough to admit the body of a man.

Had the briekwork, cement and pavement been honestly executed the prisoners would not have so readily opened the way. But likeall the government work, it was found to be rotten and easily removed. To lower one of their number into this foul receptacle and explore the same came next. Owing to its size, and the fact that water was flowing through contin- uously, the air was not so poisonons as they feared ; but they found at the lower end where the sewer leaves the prison for the river, a heavy iron grating that defied all efforts made to break through. Driven from this end, the prisoners tried the other. It terminated at a wall. They attacked this wall. Their first impression was that getting through this obstacle. they would find themselves in the open country. Close but cautious questioning of guards and convicts - such convicts as I have said before, being near the close of their terms, were there- fore used as messengers- with such observations as their indomitable leader could make, convinced them that this wall was between them and, not liberty, but a court surrounded partly by a prison and partly by a wall some thirty feet iu height. There was nothing left them, however, but to dig through.

It seemed an endless work, certainly no light one, for the wall was found, when pierced. to be fourteen feet from ontside to outside. This work again was facilitated by the dishon- esty of the government contractors in building the prison. After penetrating the shell of solid masonry the interior was found to be rubble held together by a mortar of sand. One day a messenger convict who had been trusted by the Confederates in carrying written mes- sages to their friends outside, produced from one leg of his pantaloons a slender pick such as miners use, and from the other a short stout handle. This was repeated until more picks were furnished than could be used. And then followed - this time from his bosom - a shovel ; after that came bits of candles, and continued until Morgan ordered the man to desist, fearing that he might be discovered. The fellow gave over with much reluctance, for the receipt signed by Morgan for each article delivered brought him a hundred dollar greenback, and he was rapidly and easily accumulating a fortune.

The heavy wall was pierced at last and quite an excavation was made in the earth of the courtyard, when the conspirators turned their attention to constructing openings into the thirteen other cells. As the escape was to be made in the nighttime each cell, of course, had to be tapped. After careful measurements and calculations, the precise places were desig- nated and working from below, the arch was broken and the earth removed, all but the stone pavement ; that was left so that a few blows would open the way at the moment when escape was determined upon. In the meantime other necessary preparations were being made. A rope was constructed of the sheets of their beds torn into strips and twisted together. At seven every night the prisoners were locked in their cells, and as an hour after, there was an inspection which consisted of a lantern being thrust through the door- so that the the officer in command could see that his prisoner was in bed, it was necessary to get substitutes. To this end paddies were constructed out of their underclothes, stuffed with the filling of the mattresses. After this Morgan's men slept with their heads covered, so that their inanimate substitutes might not be discovered. For awhile the officer would call the prisoner, but found

585

THE PENITENTIARY.

it so difficult to awake him that this was abandoned, the puzzled guard saying that Kentucky " rebs " slept like " niggers," with their heads covered, and "sound as whiteoak wood."

All was ready for the desperate attempt, and the leader was waiting for a stormy night, when one day he received through their trusted messenger a bit of paper. On the paper was written, "Warden of the prison changed tomorrow." John Morgan was not slow to learn the meaning of this. A new commandant meant a new broom, new regulations, an insnec- tion and perhaps discovery. Morgan did not know that this change was the result of an anonymous letter received by Secretary Stanton, written and mailed in Columbus, that hinted darkly at a revolt in the State's prison and the destruction of the State's capital. But he did know that the attempt was to be made that night or abandoned.

During the winter almost a perpetual twilight reigns within the gloomy walls of the State Prison at Columbus. Sometimes this deepens into night, and then the unhappy inmates know that a storm is raging without. The eventful day forced on them for the attempt so long in preparation was lighter than usnal and it was resolved to fight their way out should that way be obstructed by guards. To this end their blunted knives were sharp- ened to a point, and fourteen of these deadly weapons, deadly in such hands, were distributed to as many men.

The first difficulty to be overcome was to get General Morgan from the cell in the upper tier to one of the cells communicating with the sewer. He selected his brother, not only because of the personal resemblance, but for that he thought it just for others that the pun- isbment following the discovery should fall on himself through the one nearest to him. Night came and the brother hurried into the General's cell, while the General placed him- self in the one vacated below. The change worked well, when, at the moment the guard was about leaving, having locked in the prisoners, one appeared at the cell door so lately occupied by the General, thrust a lantern in at the opening, and, just as the younger Mor- gan was giving up all as lost, demanded a rattail file loaned the General the day before. "What file ?" thought the young man. He had not heard of the article, borrowed under pre- tense of making a ring for a lady from a hone. He had, however, enough presence of mind to betray no confusion, but began, with his back to the door, an active search for the misera- ble file. As luck had it, his hand fell on the article where it had been left upon the hed. Covering his face with his hand, as if the light hurt his eyes, he gave the file to the guard and then listened with throbbing heart to the footsteps that died away in the distance.

The clang of the irongrated door as it swung to was the signal for immediate action. The pavements above the sewer at the designated places were broken through, and fourteen men dropped into the foul receptacle. The candles were lighted and the work began. Five feet of earth had to be removed before midnight, and taking turns they worked as probably men never labored before. Rapidly, as the earth was loosened, it was passed back into the sewer, their wooden cups being used for this purpose. At last an opening was made, enlarged sufficiently to admit the passage of a man, and John Morgan pushed his way through and stood upon the ground of the court. He found the sky overcast and a drizzling rain slowly falling. The place seemed deserted. The man on guard bad evidently sought shel- ter from the inclement weather. One by one these resolnte men emerged from the hole. Grasping each other by the hand and led by their General, they moved slowly and quietly toward the wall that divided the female prison from that which they so lately occupied. The wall was reached, and the stoutest bracing himself against it with his hands, another mounted to his shoulders ; then a third climbed above the two, and a fourth was making his way up when the second man missed his footing and all fell to the ground. This mode of scaling a perpendicular wall is successfully practiced by French zouaves and acrobats. But it requires strength and dexterity, a dexterity that comes of long practice, and this practice had been denied Morgan's men. General Morgan then shifted from the dividing wall, after listening a minute to find whether the noise of the unhappy tumble had been heard, to the corner furthest from the prison.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II, Part 77

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1196

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1196