George ThompsonThis poem was taken from a rare early collection entitled "The Prison Bard", written by prisoner George Thompson, a convicted abolitionist who served a sentence in the Missouri State Penitentiary in the 1840s. |
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I've often heard of prison cells,
And dreary things supposed they were;
Where gloom and darkness only dwells,
To fill the prisoner with despair.
And such they are, to carnal hearts,
Who have no Saviour and no god;
The day rolls slow, the night departs,
And leaves them still a drear abode.
But glory to th' eternal King,
Who brought me to this little cell;
Sweet pleasure here, I tind can spring,
For here my God delights to dwell.
A hallowed, consecrated place
A bethel is my little cell;
The heavenly Dove descends with grace,
And blessings more than tongue can tell.
The Father and the Son come down,
And with me make their blest abode;
Not all the honors of a crown,
Equal the presence of my God.
He sups with me and I with Him.
He feasts my soul with heavenly love;
And while I eat my food so plain,
He pours the manna from above.
Not king or prince finds such delight,
With all his daily, sumptuous fare,
As I, within my cell at night,
When breathing out my humble prayer.
These Iron doors and bracken walls
do fail to keep my Saviour out;
He comes and listens to my calls
Says, "Peace to thee, my child, fear not.
In peace I lay me down to rest,
While angels hover o'er my head;
and while with welcome slumbers blest,
They keep their stations round my bed,
When morning gilds the eastern sky,
early rise to sing and pray;
My Saviour still I find is nigh,
Who never leaves me, night or day.
Let monarchs have their wide domain,
And men of state in mansions dwell;
Let worldlings shining dust obtain,
But give me Jesus and my cell.
John B. "Firebug" JohnsonIn the 1880's, a man caught the public's attention with his antics in prison. That man was "Firebug" or "Desperado" Johnson, called by prison officials one of the most notorious of all the inmates ever to serve a sentence at the penitentiary. Johnson was first seen at the prison in 1882, serving a 12-year sentence for a robbery committed in Shelby County. Earlier, he had been accused of murdering two people in Jackson County but had beaten those charges. Johnson's record of mischief began at the Shelby County Jail, as the sheriff revealed: "Johnson was a bad man and would cause trouble. While in jail here he struck the jailer over the head with a missile and came within an inch of killing him. A short time after this, he broke jail and in so doing, fell and broke his leg." |
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Upon Johnson's arrival at the penitentiary, he was assigned to work in one of the prison shops. For six months, all was quiet and his behavior good. Then one night deputy Warden W. H. Bradbury discovered that Johnson and another convict named Anderson were missing from their cells. A search began, and Bradbury found the two prisoners hiding under a pile of rubbish. With them were ropes, knives, food and other items necessary for escape. Bradbury was not inclined to punish the men too severely, however, as he said "it is natural for a convict to want out of the penitentiary."
As punishment, Johnson and Anderson were each required to wear the ball and chain, but only for a few days.
As soon as the ball and chain were removed, Johnson searched for his cellmate and beat him bloody, viciously kicking him in the face and breaking his jaw. He blamed his cellmate for tipping off prison officials to the escape attempt. For this new offense, Johnson was given a severe whipping. As soon as he had recovered he returned back to work at the prison shop, where his most notorious act would take place.
All along, Johnson had been planning various means to escape, recruiting other prisoners to assist. His friends were slowly piling up kindling in their respective shops, making sure each piece of wood was saturated with kerosene. One night, while the convicts were being marched out to supper, they threw matches into the piles of wood. Very soon several of the prison shops were ablaze. Johnson kicked over a wood stove into a pile of loose straw, setting yet another building on fire.
The legislature was in session at the time, and the lawmakers soon received the report that the convicts were rioting. Every statesman and most of the clerks left the Capitol and stopped by the armory to pick up rifles and ammunition. Before too long, more than 100 armed men stood outside the walls of the prison.
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Amidst the smoke, fire and general confusion, the two thousand convicts now milled excitedly. Some of them tried to put out the flames but were knocked down and trampled by those in favor of a riot. In his book The Twin Hells, published in 1890, ex-prisoner John Reynolds described what happened next: "In the midst of this great excitement, Johnson the leader and four of his associates knocked down one of the guards and stripped him of his clothing. Johnson put on this suit of blue and started toward one of the towers. Reaching it, he asked permission of the officer on duty, Jack Gordon, to let down the ladder and allow him to ascend and assist him in "holding down the fort", as this was Captain Bradbury's orders. Johnson's intentions were to get on top of the wall into the tower, where the guard could open the large gate below by means 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. |
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"Gordon, when requested by Johnson 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. Johnson then returned to where the officials were fighting the flames, and began cutting a hose so as to stop the supply of water. The fire raged furiously. More than $200,000 worth of property (that figure would later rise to $550,000) was soon swept away in the 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 called a meeting and investigated the riot; the blame fell upon the convict Johnson. A criminal charge was brought against him in the courts of Cole County for arson. He was convicted and given an additional twelve years. |
"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. 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."
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After he was released, he authored a booklet under the direction of Warden D. C. McClung that details prison operations, including the many factories. The book is entitled: Buried Alive or Eighteen Years In the Missouri Penitentiary. He had this to say about the high walls that separated him from freedom and family: As a prisoner, I have no means of knowing the exact length or height of this surrounding wall, but there are many hundreds of feet of it, built of stone, about 40 feet high, but looking to us prisoners to be about 17,000 feet high and about a mile thick, dividing us from the outside world, our wives, babies, our all; and many a tear-stained eye looks longingly at it, trying to penetrate, and see how things look in the great big beautiful outside world, where flowers bloom, where birds sing, and where men can come and go, where men can fondle their newborn babies and meet their families in love. |
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Reno Gang Executes Historic CrimePostwar chaos was the perfect backdrop for the activities of some siblings about to perpetrate a historic crime. The Reno family moved their six children from Kentucky to Rockford, Indiana, before the Civil War. They settled on what was considered in those days to be a large farm. The wild brothers—John, Simoen, Frank and William—were involved in a series of incidents, including several arsons, around Rockford and Seymour, a neighboring town. The family relocated just outside St. Louis, on the Missouri side of the Mississippi. When the war started, all four of the unruly brothers joined the Union Army. Only one would remain in the army long enough to be honorably discharged. The others continued their lawless behavior and, by the end of the war, all four had organized a dangerous gang of outlaws whose territory included Missouri. |
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On the evening of October 6, 1866, three of the four brothers boarded an Ohio and Mississippi Railway train near Seymour. They entered an express car, assaulted a railroad employee and then forced open a safe containing $16,000. A larger, more secure safe was thrown from the train. The fourth brother and other gang members attempted to open it with no success. Evidently, there was an eyewitness to this historic first train robbery, for a posse was soon formed that gave chase. The gang fled southwest to Missouri, a haven for outlaws. Soon after eluding their pursuers, the Reno Gang robbed the Daviess County Treasurer's Office in Gallatin. They got away with $22,000, a huge sum of money at the time, and fled back to Indiana. Because of their previous criminal escapades, the nation's premier detective operation, the Pinkerton Agency, was also in hot pursuit. |
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John Reno had been recognized by an eyewitness to the Gallatin robbery and soon he was apprehended by Indiana authorities. Secretly transported to the Missouri line, he was taken into custody by the Daviess County sheriff. Tried and convicted of the treasurer's office heist, John Reno was given a sentence of 25 years in Missouri's penitentiary. While he was safely behind bars, the remaining brothers and gang members continued a string of murders and robberies that lasted for months until the Renos were caught and lynched by Indiana vigilantes.
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The saga of John Reno doesn't end there. Governor B. Gratz Brown commuted Reno's sentence in 1873, on the last day of his term of office. The circumstances surrounding the commutation invite speculation. The governor had asked the secretary of state to countersign and affix a seal on a blank pardon that the governor had already signed. His explanation for the unusual request was that he had not made up his mind whether he would use it or not. He did use it and an official document shows that on January 8, 1873, his last day in office, he commuted John Reno's sentence from 25 years to ten. The commutation entry in prison records, however, was subsequently erased and, even later, torn from the record book. |
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Further intrigue is ignited by court documents that follow a dispute over $4400 that was deposited in an account for the incarcerated John Reno. The Adams Express Company was trying to claim the money as recovery from a robbery, but Clinton Reno, John's less infamous brother, claimed the money was his and should be returned to him. Clinton maintained that Sheriff Ballinger of Daviess County had offered to use what influence he and the Daviess County court had to procure a pardon from the governor for John if Clinton would pay $5000 toward reimbursing the county for the stolen funds. Clinton could only raise $4400, which he sent by his sister, Laura Reno, with instructions to give it to no one but Ballinger. Laura didn't find Ballinger, but was persuaded by Warden David W. Wilson to leave the money with him. Wilson gave her a receipt and deposited the money in the Jefferson City Savings Association for John Reno's use. In a long and convoluted opinion, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld a Cole County Circuit Court decision that Adams Express Company could not claim the funds.
Prison records show that John Reno, age 29, five feet and five inches tall, dark auburn brown hair, gray eyes, and fair of complexion, was ordered discharged from MSP by the Missouri Supreme Court on February 18, 1878, after serving a sentence of about ten years. He was turned over to an Indiana agent and served a short sentence in that state. In the prison records, the world's first train robber had listed his occupation as farmer.
John McDonald writes book about time served at MSPPenitentiary Experience Inspires AuthorsGeneral John McDonald. ex-convict and author, served in the administration of President U.S. Grant as a revenue agent. McDonald did eighteen months at MSP for stealing whiskey tax funds. McDonald served his time in A-Hall. He wrote a book about his experiences in 1880, Secrets of the Great Whiskey Ring and Eighteen Months in the Penitentiary. |
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Around Christmas 1895, two friends talked in a tavern owned by Bill Curtis at 11th and Morgan Streets in St. Louis. The man named William "Billy" Lyons, age 25, was a levee hand along the steamboat docks of the busy Mississippi River. The other man, Lee Shelton, sometimes known as Sheldon, claimed to be a carriage driver. In reality, he was a pimp and gambler who ran an underground prostitution club. As the evening progressed, Billy and Lee drank heavily and talked more and more animatedly.
What had begun as light-hearted chat between them turned ugly when Billy snatched the hat off his friend's head. Lee demanded it back. Billy refused and Lee sprang from his seat and drew a nickel-plated revolver from his pants. Without hesitation, he shot his friend in the stomach. Billy, mortally wounded, fell to the barroom floor as Lee retrieved his hat, tucked the revolver into his waistband, and strolled out into the St. Louis night. Billy died the next morning.
Within a short time, Lee Shelton was arrested by the St. Louis police. He was held in jail until his trial.
Because there were two versions of the story, one in which Billy came toward Lee with a knife when Lee demanded his hat back, the first trial in July of 1896 ended in a hung jury. But when a second trial concluded, Lee Shelton was found guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in MSP. He arrived in Jefferson City by train October 7, 1896. After significant political pressure, Gov. Herbert Hadley pardoned Lee in 1909.
Lee returned to St. Louis and his old habits and livelihood. He now had tuberculosis. The disease was rampant at the time and he may have contracted it in the crowded A-Hall where he served his sentence. Following a new conviction for armed robbery and assault, Lee returned to prison in 1911. He died in the old red-brick MSP hospital.
Although his life ended, the story of Billy and Lee became folk legend as it was told and retold along the levees and in the barrooms in riverport cities like St. Louis and New Orleans. This story, and many like it, gave birth to the American ballad. A song about Lee, performed by New Orleans singer Archibald (Leon T. Gross), became a rhythm and blues hit in 1950.
Later, another New Orleans talent, Lloyd Price, was making a name for himself, soaring to the top of the charts with six Top Ten hits in 1952-53. Price was drafted and while serving in Korea and Japan, he continued to entertain, incorporating the story of Billy and Lee into his stage act. When he returned to the States, his successful career as a musician continued. He gave the Billy and Lee story a fresh rewrite and, upon release, "Stagger Lee" became an instant sensation, selling 200,000 copies a day.
Lee gave his name as Lee Stack or Stack Lee when he was an inmate at MSP. There are no records indicating where he is buried. If unclaimed, his body would have been interred in a potter's field about a half-mile from the prison, now on the grounds of Lincoln University.
Admitted thief, Shoo-Fly, serves his fifth termOne convict in particular captured the attention of prison officials in 1899. He was from Kansas City, and had just arrived at the penitentiary to serve his fifth term. Known by the nickname Shoo-Fly, he freely admitted to being a thief and said he would, given the chance, "steal anything that is loose at both ends and not securely nailed down." Local reporters and prison officials alike found his honesty charming, as most other convicts denied their crimes and vehemently declared their innocence throughout their prison term. Shoo-Fly was well known as a convict who was polite, not a troublemaker, and someone who would procure for people any article they asked for. All that Shoo-Fly needed was a little time, and he would soon appear with the item, no matter how bizarre or unusual the request. He was proud of his ability, and prison employees had great fun testing his prowess. |
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During his previous term, one of the guards had asked Shoo-Fly to get him a spool of silk thread.
"It's impossible," the guard told him. "I've stumped you this time!"
Four or five days later, Shoo-Fly casually handed the thread to the guard, apologizing for the delay. The other guards hooted and cheered.
On October 25, 1904, prison officials were not too surprised to see the man who came shuffling into the prison. It seemed he just couldn't stay away for long. He was 88-year old "Dutch Charlie", who had just arrived to serve his twelfth sentence in the penitentiary.
Over the past half a century, he had been seen at the prison 11 times before, under various names, each time for charges of grand larceny, burglary, or stealing. Once he was nabbed for violating his pardon conditions.
The First Sentence
He was first a prisoner at the penitentiary on June 14, 1852, for the crime of grand larceny.
He came from St. Louis County under the name of Lewis Meyer; he was 36 years old and had a
two-year sentence. He was pardoned August 21, 1852.
The Second Sentence
The record of his second sentence shows that he was received October 5, 1854 from St. Louis
County for two years for grand larceny, under the name Lewis Meyers. He was pardoned November
13, 1855.
The Third Sentence
He arrived at the penitentiary March 16, 1861, under the name of August Meyer from Gasconade
County, to serve a term of two years for grand larceny. He served out his entire sentence.
The Fourth Sentence
He arrived April 23, 1872 from St. Louis County under the name John Miller, for two years for
grand larceny. He was pardoned by Governor Woodson on October 23, 1873.
The Fifth Sentence
Received June 19, 1880, from St. Louis City. This time known as August Lohman, he was to serve
two years for grand larceny. He was discharged under the three-fourths law December 7, 1881.
The Sixth Sentence
Received at the penitentiary October 1, 1883, from Cole County under the name August Lohman,
for violating his conditional pardon by returning to Jefferson City. He was discharged April 1, 1884.
The Seventh Sentence
Arrived at the penitentiary December 22, 1885, from St. Louis County, under the name August
Lohman, to serve three years for burglary in the second degree. He was discharged under the
three-fourths law on June 17, 1887.
The Eighth Sentence
He was received October 21, 1888, from St. Louis City, under the name Charles Lohman, serving
two years for grand larceny. He was discharged April 30, 1892.
The Ninth Sentence
Arrived November 9, 1890, from St. Genevieve County under the name August Meyer, for two years
for obtaining property under false pretenses. He was discharged April 30, 1892.
The Tenth Sentence
Received September 29, 1894, from Franklin County, under the name of August Welienkamp, for
two years for larceny from a dwelling. Discharged March 25, 1896.
The Eleventh Sentence
He was received July 1, 1901 from Cole County under the name of August Wellenkamp, to serve
sixth months for failing to leave Cole County. He was discharged December 31, 1901.
The Twelfth Sentence
This time he was received on October 24, 1904, from Warren County under the name August Dickman,
for three years for grand larceny. He says that he had bargained to buy a man's farm in Warren
County, and while doing so, spotted the man's watch. He waited for an opportune time and stole the watch.
During his many years of incarceration, he had become known simply as "Dutch Charlie" because of his German ancestry, and possibly, because his "real" name was constantly changing!
Serving sentence at MSP changes a lifeKate Richards O'Hare—#21669—Agent of Change While youthful and energetic entrepreneurs named Priesmeyer, Bruns, Houchin, Parker, Sullivan and Oberman built factories, careers and fortunes under the contract labor system, an equally youthful and energetic Kate Richards O'Hare was on a collision course with their success. In 1919, O'Hare began serving a federal sentence at the Missouri penitentiary that would change her life and contribute to reforms in inmate labor practices. O'Hare exposed the harsh working conditions, verbal and physical abuse and cruel punishment for failing to meet unreasonable work quotas in her book, In Prison, published by Alfred Knopf in 1923. She horrified the public with her description of the "black hole," a cell completely devoid of light and furnishings where inmates could be punished for falling short in their piecework. Rations consisted of a half teacup of water and two small squares of thin bread per day. |
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O'Hare's story of Minnie Eddy's punishment in the hole for twenty-one days on this starvation diet ends tragically when Eddy is released from the hole and allowed to gorge on normal prison fare. She died the following day of a perforated colon.
Of her own experiences, O'Hare said: "The first thing I was compelled to do when I went to prison was to stitch a lying label on the overalls I made. This label stated that this prison-made garment was manufactured by a respectable firm hundreds of miles away in another state; it bore no indication that it was one of the most hated things in modern commerce—prison-made goods."
O'Hare's nine hours of labor a day for the Oberman Manufacturing Company netted the prison, by her own calculations, about $1,800 in ordinary salary a living wage at the time. She actually received $10.50 for nearly a year of labor.
Former MSP Inmate Appointed Assistant Director of California Department of Penology
It has been said that your life is what happens while you are making other plans. Such was the life of Kate Richards O'Hare, born on March 26, 1877, in Ada, Kansas. As a young woman, she left this obscure Midwestern town and moved to Kansas City where she became an apprentice machinist. She joined and became active in the International Order of Machinists Union. She worked long hours for the union and in her spare time was devoted to religious activities, temperance work, and social justice issues. Kate Richards planned to change the world.
Although an activist by nature, she made time for reading. Influenced by the leading socialist writers of the day, she officially joined the Socialist Labor Party in 1899. It was through this involvement that she met and married fellow socialist, Francis P. O'Hare. Together the O'Hares lectured throughout the United States, Great Britain, Canada and Mexico. In 1904, Kate wrote and published a socialist novel entitled What Happened To Dan? In 1910, she ran on the Socialist ballot for a congressional seat from the state of Kansas but was defeated. In 1912, she and her husband co-published the weekly National Rip-Saw from St. Louis, Missouri.
Kate became the chairperson of the Socialist Party's committee on war and militarism. This position allowed her to lecture from coast to coast in opposition to the United States' involvement in World War I. In July of 1918, she gave a speech in Bowman, North Dakota, that would change her life forever. Following this speech, O'Hare was indicted under the new Federal Espionage Act. She was convicted of espionage and sentenced to prison. On April 15 of the following year, Kate entered the Missouri State Penitentiary.
At the time of her incarceration, the Missouri State Penitentiary was one of the largest, oldest, and most overcrowded prisons in America. The 19th century system of silence in which there was no verbal communication between prisoners was imposed on the inmates. Prisoners were not segregated by the seriousness of their crime, and women were housed in a section of the male prison known as Housing Unit 1. Blake McKelvey, a leading historian on American prisons said of the Missouri prison system, "Missouri was the State that maintained the most wretched and congested prison in the country." This system was also known for contract labor and striped uniforms. For Kate, #21699, being incarcerated in such a system was harsh. She was forced to work 50 hours a week in a clothing factory for a private manufacturer of denim smocks.
Prior to her incarceration, O'Hare had known William R. Painter, the warden of the Missouri prison, who had been a former Attorney General. She complained to him about the deplorable conditions at the prison. Her complaints drew an investigation by the federal government and as a result, some improvements were made.
Even with the improvements, separation from her husband and four children was difficult. Her family remained emotionally close to her. It is reported that on one occasion her oldest son, Dick, was refused permission to play his cornet during a visit. The boy, displaying his mother's courage, walked across the street and proceeded to play for his mother while the women prisoners, sentenced to silence, wept at the beauty of his concert.
Communication between inmates was prohibited and communication with families was limited. Kate was allowed to write one letter per week, then two letters per week, and finally because she was a model prisoner, three letters per week. Her letters were sometimes confiscated. Other times, they were mailed only after censoring. Kate's voice could be heard through her letters, nonetheless. Her first sixteen letters to Frank were published to give others a glimpse into life in prison and to gain support for her release.
While incarcerated, she remained a voracious reader. She read primarily on the subject of psychology in an effort to understand the human psyche in desperate social conditions.
While at MSP O'Hare pursued a commutation of her sentence. She did not want a pardon because it would imply guilt. Because of letters sent to the Department of Justice on her behalf, President Woodrow Wilson commuted her sentence and she walked out of MSP on May 20, 1920. She received a full pardon from President Calvin Coolidge two years later. Her life was forever changed by her experience at MSP. She abandoned socialist agitation and pursued prison reform efforts. In 1939, she was appointed by California governor, Culbert Olson, to the position of Assistant Director of the California Department of Penology. Her reform efforts had a major impact on California's penal policies and many of these reforms were implemented throughout the country.
Kate Richards O'Hare died in Venecia, California, on January 10, 1948. Although she did not plan to spend the majority of her adult life working for prison reform, that is what happened while she was making other plans.
Article by Jim Erhardt, for The Walls Speak Journal, Missouri State Penitentiary, July 2002(condensed)
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Emma Goldman imprisoned for inciting a riotWhile O'Hare was incarcerated at MSP, another international activist shared the women's quarters there with her. Emma Goldman, known as "Red Emma," was serving one of her several imprisonments for charges ranging from inciting a riot to advocating the use of birth control to opposition to World War I. Goldman was born in 1869 in Kovno, Lithuania. By 1886, she and her sister had emigrated [sic] to Rochester, New York. In those first years in the United States, Goldman's lifetime passions were cemented: She would become a radical anarchist and an outspoken feminist. Her activities and persona would sometimes eclipse her contributions to developing feminism and civil rights. |
She was incredibly controversial. Teddy Roosevelt called her a "madwoman ... a mental as well as a moral pervert." The San Francisco Call said she was a "despicable creature ... [a] snake ... unfit to live in a civilized country." The government called her the "ablest and most dangerous" anarchist in the country and she was pursued much of her life by two of the most notorious law enforcement officials in American history, Anthony Comstock and J. Edgar Hoover. She is credited with having had tremendous influence on the founders of Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union. She began publication of Mother Earth in 1906, a radical, anarchist journal.
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Goldman's arrival at the Missouri penitentiary on July 17, 1917, must have caused a quiet stir. Probably most of her prison mates and custodians, like the rest of mainstream America at the time, knew little about her other than the sensational headlines decrying her as a "dynamite-eating anarchist." She would be released eight days later on appeal and returned February 6, 1918, when she lost. She listed her age as 48, her occupation as nurse and lecturer, and her religion as "free thinker." Not surprisingly, while in prison, Goldman was known as an agitator, fomenting rebellion among the women prisoners. However, Kate O'Hare had this to say about her fellow inmate: The Emma Goldman that I know is not the Propagandist. It is Emma, the tender, cosmic mother, the wise understanding woman, the faithful sister, the loyal comrade ... Emma don't [sic] believe in Jesus, yet she is the one who makes it possible for me to grasp the spirit of Jesus. |
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(From Rebel In Paradise by Richard Drinnon, 1961)
It is certain that Goldman would have continued the free dissemination of her thoughts to the people she came in contact with at the penitentiary, even in the face of the imposed silence. She would have found her fellow prisoners an irresistible audience for her views on women's rights, which, in her anachronistic views, included the right to exercise birth control, the right to legal abortion, and the right to "free love."
Prison administrators were glad to see her leave on Saturday, September 27, 1919, when she was arraigned before a United States commissioner. When she testified that she did not have the money to pay her $10,000 fine, she was told she was free to go anyway. Immediately, she used this forum in front of the assembled reporters to blast the Missouri penitentiary:
Life for women serving in the Missouri Penitentiary is the worse kind of slavery. Until about one month ago, there was neither enough food nor a variety. The food situation has changed for the better, and decidedly so since the government sent agents here to investigate conditions. There are things happening in that department of which the world knows nothing, but I intended to lay the facts bare before the federal authorities. The blind cell for the punishment of women convicts is a human atrocity. One woman to my certain knowledge was confined in the blind cell and kept on bread and water for nineteen days.
The article further quoted Goldman as saying that she and O'Hare had kept the women inmates from rioting on two or three occasions because of the food she described as "bile." Quoting the tirade in their September 27, 1919 edition, the Jefferson City Democrat-Tribune took a personal shot at Goldman: "Emma Goldman does not look like she had been underfed. She looks better than she did two years ago, and she must weigh close to two hundred pounds!"
A niece, bearing a large bouquet of flowers, had traveled to escort Goldman back to New York and deportation proceedings on Ellis Island.
The two famous activists, Emma Goldman and Kate Richards O'Hare, left their mark on the penitentiary, just as it did on them. It's impossible to measure what impact their residency in the capital city had on the local community. Surely they, and their views, would have been discussed and debated in some of the business and social circles.
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O'Hare's written observations and accounts of Missouri's convict labor system in her books, In Prison and Dear Sweethearts, contributed significantly to the changes that would soon occur. A state law abolished the contract labor system in 1917, and returned control of both the inmates' labor, and the prison shops themselves, to the state. Now, instead of "inside" contractors, the same factories were run by "outside" contractors who were slow to comply with outlawed practices such as punishment for failing to meet piecework quotas. A newly created State Penal Board would feel immediate and intense pressure from organized labor and scrupulous business leaders who were outraged to have to compete on the open market with prisoner-produced goods. The Board would be compelled to look for other methods to employ their inmate charges. O'Hare's impact would be felt even later with the passage of the Hawes Cooper Act in 1929. |
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The Young Brothers GangNot all the young men who resorted to crime did so in obscurity. In the 1920s and into the '30s, three brothers became very well known throughout Missouri and surrounding states for their habitual crimes—thieving from homes, stores, banks and trains. They were Harry, Jennings and Paul Young, born and raised in the Ozarks near Springfield. Paul and Jennings served a brief term in the penitentiary for robbery in 1919, then immediately joined Harry and returned to terrorizing and robbing small businesses in Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas. Although they were the suspects in many crimes, they stayed one step ahead of the law. |
One day, acting on a tip, the Greene County sheriff showed up to search the Young family home. He found a quantity of expensive rugs upstairs and other stolen goods hidden in outbuildings. The Young boys' mother, Willie Florence Young, claimed no knowledge of the stolen property or of her sons' criminal activities. The sheriff was skeptical, but Jennings took the rap for her and returned to the penitentiary.
While he cooled his heels in MSP, brothers Paul and Harry kept up the family tradition, robbing and shooting. Harry was sent to the penitentiary in 1927, but soon all three were free again.
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| Paul Young. |
One day Harry was driving recklessly through Republic, Missouri, when he was apprehended by City Marshal Mark Noe. Marshal Noe's body was found in a roadside ditch several miles out of town the next day. Harry laid low for more than a year, eluding capture.
On January 2, 1932, evidence indicated that Jennings, and probably Paul and Harry, were at the old homestead. Greene County Sheriff Marcell Hendrix gathered rifles, ammunition, deputies and detectives to make the raid. In all, eleven men headed for the farm seven miles southwest of Springfield that day. Sheriff Hendrix had been a neighbor of the Youngs for many years and believed they would not harm him. When they arrived, the men milled about the farmhouse for a few minutes, banging on doors and hollering. They thought they heard noises coming from inside.
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| Jennings Young. |
To the surprise of the lawmen, shots rang out and the ensuing ambush left six of the posse dead. The men left standing hid or left to summon help as the Young brothers, or whomever was inside the house during the melee, melted into the crowd that collected that day. A massive manhunt followed as officers grieved their fallen comrades and vowed to find the killers. Governor Henry S. Caulfield offered rewards of $300 each for the apprehension and conviction of Harry, Jennings, or Paul. Anyone with even a passing acquaintance to the Young brothers was questioned. Several family members were brought in and held under high bond. Paul Young surrendered to Texas authorities without ever establishing whether or not he had been a participant in the killings.
Within a few days, a carpenter in Houston, Texas, called the police to report that he had rented a room to two men answering the descriptions of Harry and Jennings Young. In a short time, legions of officers, armed with an arsenal of weaponry, assembled.
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| Harry Young. |
Harry and Jennings made good on a promise they had made to their mother, that they would never be taken alive and be subject to public hanging. Harry and Jennings shot each other at point-blank range. When officers cautiously opened the door, they found Jennings crumpled dead in a pool of blood and Harry near death. He was placed in an ambulance but never regained consciousness, and he, too, died a short while later at the hospital.
No deathbed confession was elicited, and no one has ever known for sure who actually fired the shots that killed the officers in the largest single peace officer massacre in the history of the United States. (Source: Young Brothers Massacre)
Harry Snodgrass, "King of the Ivories"Another celebrated inmate, Harry Snodgrass, became known as the "King of the Ivories" because of his exceptional piano playing while serving a sentence in the penitentiary. Every Monday night, listeners nationwide were entranced by his musical talent. Radio station WOS broadcast from the dome of the Capitol Building in Jefferson City, and was so powerful that telegrams and postcards from all over the nation, Mexico and Canada poured in expressing appreciation of Harry's music. |
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Snodgrass also gained the title "the lost popular radio entertainer" in a nationwide contest that had been conducted by a radio magazine. But not all of the glory went to Snodgrass. The prison orchestra and Missouri State Prison Band were also featured guests on the radio program. An indication of their popularity was shown by the fact that following one of the WOS broadcasts, more than 7000 cards and letters streamed in from avid fans. Cigarettes, cigars and candy also were sent by the admirers in appreciation of the music. One owner of a large summer resort in the East traveled all the way to Jefferson City to beg the Prison Board to recommend a parole for Snodgrass. He said he could offer Harry a job 'on the spot', but the board members were not willing to grant clemency, on the grounds that it would not be proper to show special favoritism to one prisoner.
Nevertheless, other job offers were made to Snodgrass and other prison musicians. A Kansas bandmaster heard the program one evening. He immediately offered a job to one of the members as soon as he heard the man had been released. The offer was accepted.
The prison band, also known by the title the 'Peaceful Village Band', had come a long way in a short time. An article in the penitentiary newspaper, The Clarion, commented:
"For a long time, we have wanted to say something good about "Peaceful Village Band", but it has been rather a hard thing to do. Now, however, we can easily do just that without blushing, getting red behind the ears or otherwise feeling that we have underestimated other people's sense of esthetic in music.
"It certainly has improved under the instruction and leadership of Virgil Coombs. Formerly the hardest part of doing time in the Missouri State Prison was listening to the horrible tintinnabulations of amateur musicians grouped under the somewhat nebulous head of 'Peaceful' Village Concert Band. We even went so far as to write a letter to Judge Ralph S. Lotshaw, asking if there was anything in our commitment papers to the effect that we should listen to the band's various noises."
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Now, the Band and orchestra were known nationwide, and the piano player Harry Snodgrass the featured attraction. The December 9, 1924 Jefferson City Daily Post said, "... while most prisoners sent to the penitentiary are lost and forgotten by the outside world as soon as the gates clang shut behind them, Harry has gained fame as the 'star' performer on the Monday night programs radiocast from station WOS. He came into the prison as Harry Snodgrass and now he is known as the "King of the Ivories" because of his ability to tickle the piano keys and please radio fans by the thousands."
When an announcement was made over the air that Harry, due to leave prison January 16th of the next year, would walk out the gate a poor man, more than $300 in gifts and donations were received for him at the radio station by the very next day. Within a couple of weeks, more than $2000 waited for Harry upon his release.
Harry was serving a three year sentence for attempting to rob a confectionary store his St. Louis. During the attempt, his accomplice had been shot and killed by a friend of the store owner who engaged in a duel with the two men. Snodgrass blamed his trouble with the law on "white mule" (liquor) and stated that the robbery job was his first and would be his last venture into crime.
Harry received many offers of employment on vaudeville circuits, in theaters, cafes and with dance orchestras. According to Bob Priddy, Harry's last WOS broadcast was on January 14, 1925. A crowd estimated to be in excess of a thousand people attended this final performance by Harry as an MSP inmate. Priddy relates that, at the end of the concert, WOS Station Director A. T. Nelson presented $3,587.35 to Harry, a small fortune by 1920's standards. The money had been donated by listeners from across the country. Following this farewell performance at the Capitol, more than 3,700 telegrams were received from fans wishing Harry well. On January 16, 1925, Governor Sam Baker commuted Harry's sentence. He was granted a full pardon on February 1, 1926.
Before Snodgrass left the penitentiary, he was presented with this special poem, penned by his friend and fellow convict, Albert Allen:
Friend, Harry we will miss you
Tho' glad to see you go
Back to your wife and baby
and loved ones that you know.
We've all enjoyed your-music, and
We thank you for the same
For all the strains you've played for us
We'll ne'er forget your name.
God bless you when you're on your way
To fame and then at last,
Look forward to your future, and
Forget about the past.
The straight and narrow path will make
Your friends more proud of you,
Just take advantage of your chance,
This is your friend—adieu.
Following his release, Snodgrass and J. W. Witten, WOS's announcer, traveled to Evansville, Indiana, for a week-long engagement. In 1926, Snodgrass made several records for the Brunswick record label.
As time passed, so did Harry's fame. He never returned to the walls where the convict concerts had launched his career as a pianist. The death and final resting place of the small time thief who mastered the keyboard and claimed a place in popular culture as "King of the Ivories", remains a mystery.
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Pretty "Boy" FloydClose on the heels of the Young brothers' infamy, a notorious band of outlaws headed by an Oklahoman, wrought havoc in the Midwest, robbing banks and murdering in cold blood. Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd was no stranger to Missouri. On December 18, 1925, he had arrived at the penitentiary after pleading guilty to a $12,000 St. Louis payroll robbery. Prison records list this as his first offense. Later, when Floyd became famous, penitentiary officials remembered him as having been a "good" prisoner. One officer, Captain Hargus, recalled: "On the whole, he was a good prisoner ... but that doesn't mean he was a model prisoner. He would steal things like most of the convicts but he didn't go out of his way to cause trouble. As far as I know, he was only in trouble one time. At the morning call, Floyd was a little slow in arising. One of the guards swore at him and Floyd, who was always hot-tempered, knocked the guard down. We put him in I-Hall solitary for a few days." |
Harvey Hayes managed the penitentiary cold storage plant and once reminisced about Floyd to a reporter:
Floyd used to come after ice and he would take advantage of the opportunity to steal potatoes which the convicts used in making whisky. The potato room was not visible from my office and while I was sure he was stealing potatoes, I couldn't catch him at it.
I tried to be out in the hall when he came but he was smart and came at a different time every day. Finally, I saw him pick up a bag of potatoes, carry them out and throw them in a wheelbarrow with a block of ice.
Floyd saw me coming after him, dropped the wheelbarrow and started running. He was rounded up in the yard. He acted insolent and I batted his ears a few times.
Floyd was first put to work in the prison kitchen and later given a job in the machine shop as a plumber's helper. He kept to himself, was quiet, and caused no other trouble.
Floyd was released from the penitentiary without fanfare on March 7, 1929, under the seven-twelfths rule. But by 1933, Floyd was wanted in several states and known to police as "the most dangerous man alive." In Missouri, he was wanted for three murders. He had shot down a federal prohibition agent during a liquor raid. He was wanted in Toledo, Ohio for killing a policeman there. Numerous Oklahoma bank robberies were credited to Floyd and his gang; he was also wanted in that state for murdering an officer.
Floyd filed ten notches in his pocket watch to mark the number of men he had killed. Police officers were warned that he was heavily armed with machine guns and wore a steel vest for protection.
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On Wednesday, June 14, 1933, two Columbia, Missouri, law officers were brutally shot. Sergeant Ben Booth of the Highway Patrol and Sheriff Roger Wilson lay dead. The bounty on Floyd rose to $6,000. Then three days later, on June 17, a massacre at Union Station in Kansas City shocked the nation. Frank Nash, a famous Oklahoma outlaw, was being returned to the federal prison at Leavenworth, where he had escaped three years earlier. He was surrounded by federal agents and state law officers. Suddenly, a roar of machine gun fire erupted, seeming to come from everywhere. Nash crumpled to the floorboard of a car, dead, and four of the lawmen were fatally shot as well. |
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Immediately, A massive manhunt ensued immediately lead by the U.S. Department of Justice. "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Adam Richetti and Verne Miller were identified as the killers. In all, fifteen people were implicated in the plot, thought to have been an attempt to free Nash. Richetti was apprehended. Miller died at the hands of a fellow gangster. Meanwhile, Floyd managed to elude law officers. It was rumored that he might be hiding somewhere in Missouri, and for weeks frightened citizens all over the state reported real (or imagined) Floyd sightings. On October 2, a man resembling Floyd was seen in Iowa and was, reportedly, headed toward Missouri. Roadblocks were set up on bridges at Boonville, Hermann, and Louisiana. On October 14, bridges in St. Charles were blocked after two Floyd-sightings in that town. |
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The desperado showed up on the farm of widow Conkle—an Ohio woman—tired, dirty and hungry. He asked her politely to fix him a meal, which she did. He told a story of having gotten lost while hunting. When Mrs. Conkle's brother, Stewart Dyke arrived, Floyd asked if he would drive him to Youngstown. Dyke declined, but agreed to take him to Clarkson. When they were preparing to drive away, two cars full of officers swiftly wheeled into the yard. Floyd jumped out of the car, pulled a gun and made a run for the corn crib. Instead of remaining barricaded there, he made a mad dash towards the woods. Three federal agents, headed by Melvin Purvis of the Department of Justice, and four local lawmen, gave chase. Purvis yelled, "Halt!" Floyd did not. Purvis ordered the men to fire. Four bullets struck Floyd. Dying within minutes, the "most dangerous man alive" met quick, sure justice. |
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Adam Richetti, his accomplice, was sent to MSP. Early on Friday, October 7, 1938, he was led, blindfolded, into the gas chamber. As prison officials strapped him into the chair, he muttered, "What have I done to deserve this?" All day, federal officials had tried to pry details out of the gangster regarding the Union Station massacre, but Richetti remained sullen and tight-lipped. Nobody would ever know the true details of that day. Finally, the door slammed shut on the doomed man and forty witnesses, including the son of one of the victims, watched as the fatal gas was released. Richetti gulped, then uttered one last cry. Four minutes later, he was declared dead. |
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Note: A rumor has circulated for many years that Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd was an escapee from Prison Farm #3, later a part of the Algoa Intermediate Reformatory. A close look at prison records contradicts that. Floyd never served time at Prison Farm #3 or Algoa. Perhaps he is being confused with the first person to escape from Algoa, a Floyd Collins, who was serving a two-year sentence for forgery. Collins escaped June 5, 1932. |
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Charles "Sonny" ListonIn 1950, an inmate by the name of Charles Liston was received at the penitentiary. He was due to serve time for two charges of robbery with a dangerous and deadly weapon and two charges of larceny. He and two accomplices had held up a service station, cab stand and a cafe on Market Street in St. Louis, among other crimes. Liston was illiterate, one of 17 children, and had rarely held a job for very long. While his father was still alive he had helped him farm, then had drifted from bus boy to working on ice and coal trucks to picking chickens. But while incarcerated, Liston, soon known as "Sonny", found his niche in life: he learned to box, and he fought well. |
One day the publisher of a St. Louis newspaper saw Liston box and thought he showed promise as a professional. The next day he contacted the Board of Probation and Parole and talked with officer Richard Niles. If Liston could be released on parole, the publisher promised, he would personally see that Sonny received a job and training as a boxer.
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"Sonny" Liston was released on parole October 31, 1952, and his rise to success was meteoric. He learned to read and write a bit; his associations with businessmen and managers taught him grooming and polish. He lived and trained at the Pine Street YMCA. He began working at Scullins at Steel until such time as he could support himself from his earnings as a pro boxer. |
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Almost immediately, Liston was entered in the Golden Gloves Amateur Boxing Tournament, held is St. Louis. He won, and then proceeded to win the National Heavyweight Championship in Chicago in March 1953. |
James Earl RayJames Earl Ray was born in Alton, Illinois on March 10, 1928. While he was still a youngster, his family moved to Ewing, Missouri, a small, poverty-stricken farming community in the northeast part of the state. The Rays fell into the category of low end of the Ewing lower class and were known as the town's "white trash". Raised to be suspicious of everybody, little "Jimmy" especially learned to despise blacks, although he had little to no contact with them throughout his life. |
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Ray later moved to Quincy, Illinois, a rowdy gambling- and prostitution-ridden river community on the Mississippi River. There he began associating with the town's "bad element" and getting into minor scrapes with the law. On October 10, 1959, Ray and accomplice James Owens, an ex-convict, held up a Kroger store in St. Louis. Caught, tried and convicted, Ray was given a 20-year sentence at the Missouri State Penitentiary. Even before he hit the penitentiary, Ray had been initiated into prison life. He had earlier served terms in Joliet and Pontiac prisons in Illinois, and Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas.
Only a few months into his sentence, Ray tried to, escape by climbing over the wall on a homemade ladder. The ladder collapsed, and Ray was nabbed. Five years later, he tried again and this time made it to the roof before being spotted by a guard. He became well-known as the penitentiary "hide-out artist" for his ability to disappear within the prison for days on end. On Sunday morning, April 23, 1967, Ray made good his escape plan. Reporting to work early for his job in the prison bakery, he was helped into a large box that was used to ship loaves of bread. Soon, a truck from Renz prison farm drove up to pick up a supply of bread. Several boxes, including the one containing Ray, were loaded up, and the truck left the penitentiary. Somewhere between the penitentiary and Renz, Ray escaped.
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Nearly a year later, on Thursday, April 4, 1968, Ray committed the crime that would make him famous. First, he rented a room for a week at a run-down rooming house in Memphis, Tennessee. The rooming house was located across from the Lorraine Hotel. At 6:01 Thursday evening, Ray, armed with a Remington Gamemaster 760 30-06 rifle, took careful aim at the man standing on the balcony of Room 306. He squeezed the trigger and hit Martin Luther King Jr. squarely in the right side of his face. The bullet lodged in the spine and King went down, fatally injured. |
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Ray was amazed at the publicity surrounding his deed. He had thought that killing King would make him a hero; instead he was a hunted man. Although Ray immediately left Tennessee, he was later apprehended in Memphis and taken into custody in July, 1968. Tried in the Shelby County criminal court, he was convicted of murder in the 1st degree and sentenced to 99 years in prison. He was sent to the maximum security Brushy Mountain facility, located in a rugged, mountainous region of Tennessee. He tried twice to escape from that facility, and once succeeded in making his way outside the wall. He was found by tracking dogs under a pile of leaves, nearly frozen to death, and returned to the prison. |
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In March of 1991, James Earl Ray was transferred to the River Bend Maximum Security Facility in Nashville. His next opportunity for parole will most likely occur in late 1993 or early 1994. Ray remains on escape status in the records of the Missouri Department of Corrections.
Inmates Present Challenges, Dead or AlivePrison records do not reveal what happened to the bodies of inmates who died in prison but most were either claimed by their families, donated to the University of Missouri for medical research, or were buried by the state. From the very early days of the penitentiary, there was a pressing need for a burying ground for those unfortunate enough to die behind the prison walls. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, burials for convicts were not performed with much consideration for the departed. The earliest documentation regarding burials at the penitentiary is found in George Thompson's 1847 book, Prison Life and Reflections: Those who die are nailed up in a rough box and placed beneath the ground, with much less ceremony than many make over a dumb brute. When Capt. Gorden's [Gordon's] dog died, he had a nice coffin made, and fine grave stones cut, with a splendid inscription, "My Dog Trip" ... |
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Thirty-three years later, General John McDonald, a convict turned author himself, described a convict burial in his book, Secrets of the Great Whiskey Ring and Eighteen Months in the Penitentiary:
When a convict dies he is stripped of everything except the course shirt he has on at the time of death and is then carried to the "dead room" which is in the basement of the hospital. The burial takes place at the convenience of those whose duty it is to perform this office; sometimes directly after death occurs and then again it is delayed for a day or more. When the time of burial is decided upon the body is placed in a coffin of unplanned boards containing some shavings for it to rest on; the "dead box" is then shoved into a dirt cart drawn by a mule. A Negro drives the cart while following behind is a "trusty" carrying a spade. This queer procession winds its way out to the convicts' cemetery near the brickyard, where the body is dumped into a shallow hole and quickly covered up. The brick makers, in using so much clay, have encroached upon the burying ground, and many bones have been unearthed, but they are thrown into gullies and serve to fill up with fresh dirt that washes about the yard.
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McDonald went on to say that a number of convicts' bodies were "submitted to the scalpel for the curiosity of medical science." This no doubt, took place at the University of Missouri which was located only thirty miles from the penitentiary. |
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John McDonald's description of the prison cemetery gives a valuable clue as to its location. The prison brickyards and clay pits were near the prison quarry, an area that is still visible today. There was only one quarry, of the several that the prison operated, that was near the prison brickyard and clay pits. All three—the quarry, brickyard and clay pits—were just outside and east of the main prison wall, near what is now Chestnut Street and Capitol Avenue. The perimeter wall that exists today was not built until after 1900, with final completion around 1914. The prison cemetery from at least 1844 until around 1870 to 1875 is believed to have been where the prison ball field is currently located. That is the only location inside the prison's perimeter walls that has not seen substantial building construction over the years.
In James B. "Firebug" Johnson's book, Buried Alive or Eighteen Years in the Missouri Penitentiary (published in 1905), Johnson seems to confirm the cemetery's new location farther from the prison, but the unedited description obviously predates the days of Warden Pace's hearse:
When a convict dies he is placed in a pine box, and in charge of a trusty sometimes accompanied by the prison chaplain with a mule hitched to a cart they wind their way to the convicts' cemetery on a hillside south of the suburbs of the city. The cemetery contains about five acres of ground, overgrown with thorns, briars, sumac and thistle. Here in their final cells repose the bodies of nearly one thousand convicts, who have laid down their burdens to rest while time was passing to slow for them. The trusty and chaplain arrive with their dead burden and hurriedly perform their duty and depart for the place seems to be a forlorn and desolate one.
The land Johnson describes is where the current Lincoln University Library and Student Union buildings now stand. In the 1930's, the late Jefferson City funeral director Victor Buescher was authorized to move a number of convict remains from the cemetery at Lincoln University to what is now Longview Cemetery, at the western edge of Jefferson City. Buescher told Schreiber (in 1989) that the burials consisted only of skeletal remains and there were no markers, records or identification of any kind. He indicated that many bodies had been buried one on top of another in shallow graves. The exact number of bodies Buescher moved is unknown, but what is known would not support the "nearly one thousand convicts" referenced in Johnson's book. One conclusion that can clearly be drawn is that between McDonald's admission to the penitentiary in 1875, and when J.B. Johnson wrote his account in 1905, the prison cemetery was moved from the penitentiary site to the Lincoln University site.
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Inmate death records—from disease, violent acts, suicide or natural causes—are undoubtedly inaccurate and under-represent the number of bodies for which there is any accounting. They do contribute to the theory that a cemetery of significant proportion exists on or near the penitentiary grounds. Other factors support this theory as well: (1) In 19th century America, the families of convicts oftentimes did not know, or did not care to know, what happened to convict relatives who died behind prison walls. An even greater factor was the poor communication that existed. Frequently, family members received no notification of the death. Even if they did, transportation from Jefferson City was limited and few families could afford to have a body shipped by steamboat or train from the prison to another geographic area. |
Also supporting the belief that a burial site of some proportion exists is the fear that the populace in the 19th and early 20th century had of the spread of infectious diseases like smallpox, cholera, typhoid and tuberculosis. Prison officials who dictated how bodies would be disposed, the prisoners who would dispose of them, and the public that observed, would have buried bodies as quickly as possible. Convict bodies, which were not embalmed in those days, would not have been transported any significant distance from the prison.
