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| Statue of Copper John on top of Auburn Prison. |
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| "Striped" prisoners at Auburn Prison. |
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| Oliver Curtis Perry. |
PERRY' S WORK.
A
Dreadful Revolt in Auburn Prison.
A REIGN
OF TERROR.
Sanguinary
Encounter Between Keeper's and Convicts.
THE
KILLED AND WOUNDED.
Frenzied
Felons Fight Like Demons—A General Uprising Throughout the Prison—The Fire Part
of the Plot—Thwarted by a Fellow Convict and the Brave Stand of Guards and
Keepers—How It All Ended.
[From the Auburn Advertiser April 1.]
One of the most appalling scenes ever enacted
in Auburn prison was precipitated at a late hour this afternoon and at one time
it possessed all the sanguinary features of a fierce clash of arms between rival
soldiery in full battle array. It was a general uprising of the convicts under the
leadership of that arch fiend, Oliver Curtis Perry, the notorious train robber and
desperado and eclipsed in magnitude and suddenness, and in its dire result, any
revolt that has ever taken place in any of the penal institutions of this
state. It is only remarkable that more lives were not lost and that the city is
not today at the mercy of a horde of desperate villains. At one time the prison
enclosure swarmed with the striped forms of hundreds of convicts fighting like demons,
all engaged in a mad struggle for liberty. Clubs, knives, sledge-hammers and
revolvers were wildly brandished and freely used by the frenzied felons, and
the air was full of flying bullets from the short carbines and revolvers of the
guards and keepers in the effort to repulse the insurgents. Many convicts were
mowed down, killed and maimed in the terrific engagement and several keepers
were carried to the hospital fatally wounded.
MYSTERIOUS FOREBODINGS.
For several days before the recent fire, the
keepers had been suspicious that some plot was brewing. Nothing tangible came
to their notice but the air of workshop and corridor seemed impregnated with an
indefinable something that breathed trouble. It was like the dire mutterings
that precede the coming storm. But the plotters guarded their murderous
intentions so well that not an inkling of the proposed [events] came to the
surface. A change of wardens always brings about a feeling of unrest among the
convicts and no doubt they had obtained some knowledge that the prison management
was about to pass into other hands. It is now thought the destructive fire of
Wednesday last was a part of the plot but that it failed of its purpose. It may
have been that just before marching to dinner slow fuses were ignited by the
convict fire bugs, counting upon the fire not getting under good headway until
they were on the return march to the shops after mess. But the fire burned too
rapidly and the 'victs were packed off to their cells without a chance to
rebel. They were not dismayed by this miscarriage of their plans, however, and
they have ever since been busy organizing the awful revolt of to-day and which
was undoubtedly fully matured and ready to spring in case the incendiary scheme
failed.
KEEPERS OVERPOWERED.
The denouement came at 3:30 o'clock this
afternoon. As the hour approaches the keepers in nearly all the shops became cognizant
of the fact that some of the convicts were laboring under undue excitement. In
one or two instances these suspicions were communicated to the principal keeper
and he had just prepared to make an investigation when the storm broke.
Simultaneously in all the shops a half dozen of the more desperate convicts who
had been assigned to accomplish
this act, fell upon the keepers, disarmed them, threw them to the floor and
soon had them securely bound and pinioned to benches and heavy machinery or
else left them helpless upon the floor tied in a figure 8. The stout sticks of
the keepers, their revolvers and keys were then appropriated by their captors.
TO ARMS!
This was the first act of the conspirators and
it had been effected at a signal between confederates in each shop. The next
step in the plot was for all to arm themselves with such weapons as were at
hand and to quickly apprise the other convicts of the full extent of the
uprising, for not more than one-tenth of the whole number had been let into the
secret for fear of treachery. It was very naturally surmised that after the keepers
had been overpowered the ranks of the rebels would be augmented by nearly all
of Copper John's forces. This crafty reasoning proved correct for when the
first act of the drama had taken place, those who knew nothing about the revolt
were thrown into the wildest confusion, but when they learned the uprising was
general throughout the prison they were not slow to join in the fight for
freedom. Quickly picking up anything that would serve as a weapon—knives from
the shoe-shop, clubs from the cabinet shop, standards from the brass foundry
and even pieces of the machinery which they had dismantled, they made their way
to the open air and flocked about the leaders, awaiting orders for the last and
decisive attack upon the gates that barred their progress to liberty. A pistol
shot was the signal.
COMMANDER PERRY.
Oliver Curtis Perry then placed himself at
the head of the striped army, revolver in hand and urged his followers to stand
firm and to stop at nothing that stood between them and freedom. "On to
keepers' hall" was the cry that went up and the insurgents, now numbering nearly
a thousand strong, were ordered to advance on the double-quick. Perry looked as
resolute as when he had one hand upon the throttle of a locomotive while firing
his revolver at his pursuers with the other, at the time he made his famous
attempt to escape on a stolen engine after robbing the express car. The howling
mob at his back yelled like so many demons as the march was taken up and if any
luckless keeper had fallen into their clutches his life would have paid the
penalty. Only one chance was afforded for the inflamed mob to gratify its
brutal instincts. The noble mastiff belonging to the warden's wife was
gamboling in the yard and set up a bark at the rioters, when one of their
number—a life man, brutally butchered the faithful dog with a shoe-knife, an
act that seemed to meet with the approval of his fellows. More bludgeons were
then obtained from the debris of the great fire and the determined malefactors
marched on unmolested.
IN KEEPER'S HALL.
Up to this time the officers on day duty in
the main hall of the prison were still in ignorance of the thrilling scenes taking
place in the shops and in the yard. The principal keeper was on the point of
visiting the shops to investigate the cause of the seeming feeling of unrest that
had been reported to him when he heard the signal shot fired by Perry, and the
next moment he was astounded to see the stripeds flocking in the yard like a
herd of wild zebras. Their menacing air and the weapons carried did not long
leave him in doubt as to the terrible import of this strange spectacle. An
organized revolt, with all its attendant horrors of murder and blood-shed was
unmistakably well under way. He realized that heroic measures must be taken on
the instant or the desperate stripeds would force their way out and swarm over
the city 1,300 strong.
TOWNS TO THE RESCUE.
Meantime,
something was going on in the deserted shops upon which the insurrectionists
had not reckoned. There was one convict who had held aloof, quietly refraining
from joining his fellows in the uprising and who now proved himself worthy of
unconditional pardon. His name is Charles H. Towns, the ex-revivalist and pious
fraud of this city who is now serving a term for grand larceny. He had
determined to do all in his power to thwart the schemes of the conspirators. As
soon as they had left the broom shop where he is employed, he cautiously crept
out of his place of concealment, grasped a knife and quickly cut the thongs
which bound the prostrate keeper. Then the pair took several knives from the
work benches and proceeded to liberate the other keepers. So cautiously was
this work accomplished that every keeper was freed without a suspicion of the
fact entering the minds of the howling mob outside the shops. The elated
keepers then took a round-about way to a private door in the north wing which
they entered and then made a rush
for the arsenal in the main part of the prison.
BULLETS AND BLOODSHED.
By this time the principal keeper had marshaled
his forces and was preparing to repel the assault of the invaders just as the
reinforcements dashed into the room, every man doubly armed. It was right in
the nick of time, too, for at that instant the heavily barred-door yielded to
the terrific blows of the sledge hammers in the hands of strong convicts and
the leaders sprang forward into the room, while the area outside seemed black
with the surging crowd of striped demons. Their yells of triumph were answered
by a deafening roar of musketry as a score of carbines at short range poured
their deadly contents into the advancing hosts. A dozen of the assailants who
were crowding into the door fell to the floor writhing in pain and filling the
air with imprecations. Perry, as usual, seemed to bear a charmed life and escaped
with a bullet hole in his hat. This staggered the attacking party for a moment and
it fell back paralyzed at the fall of its leaders. The mob hesitated momentarily
and then another deadly volley was poured into its midst by the determined
keepers, whose blood was now up. Several more convicts threw up their hands and
went down in a heap and that settled it with the remaining rebels on the stone
steps leading to the hall. Despite the stentorian commands of their intrepid
leader, they retreated precipitately to the yard.
But it was not to abandon the fray, however,
and there they stood in sullen silence awaiting the expected sortie of the
keepers. It was not long in coming for they soon charged upon the now thoroughly
enraged convicts in the effort to disperse the mob. The scene that followed
beggars description. Its only parallel must have been during the reign of
terror in France. It was a fierce hand to hand conflict in which the primitive
weapons of the convicts played an important part. It must be remembered they
also had revolvers among them, and bullets were thick as rain, while the
carbines, Winchesters and six-shooters of the keepers banged away until that
end of the town imagined war had been declared.
Messengers had been dispatched to call out the
police force, and to find Captain Kirby to order out the Wheeler rifles and the
news of the revolt spread like wild-fire. At every volley the striped form of
some convict was seen to go down and now and then a luckless keeper would fall
with a fractured skull.
PERRY MORTALLY WOUNDED.
When the battle was at its height and the
rattle of musketry seemed loudest, rivers of blood already reddening the ground,
the redoubtable Perry gave the order in commanding tones, "Set fire to the
prison!" The ranks of the rebels broke in wild disorder to comply with the
command, and just as Perry turned to lead a detachment toward the oil tanks be
was shot in the neck by a well directed ball and the chronicler of this horrible
tragedy awoke from dreamland to find he had been afflicted with nightmare on
the morn of the first of April.
[Cortland] Board of
Trustees.
At the meeting of the board of trustees last
evening a petition from the majority of the taxpayers on Richard-st. was read
requesting that the board change the name from Richard to Sands-st. because the
land was at one time wholly owned by George N. Sands and that there was another
street in the village by the name of Rickard, which was confusing. As no
objection was raised the name was changed.
The bond of Frank J. Peck for $85,000 as
village treasurer was received.
The matter of having the janitor give a
general alarm of fire after the regular alarm has been given, fully described
in last Friday's STANDARD, was put in the hands of the chief of the fire
department who is to investigate the matter by inquiring among the various
companies and suggest the best plan to the board. The
following appointments were made:
Clerk—Fred Hatch.
Street Commissioner—Byron D. Bentley.
Board of Health—Daniel L. Lucy, first ward;
Daniel Geer, second ward; J. D. Doran, third ward; Dr. Isaac A. Beach, fourth
ward.
The following walks were ordered:
REPAIRS.
James S. Squires, N. side Squires-st,
James S. Squires, W. side Owego-st.
Duane Call, N. side Tompkins-st.
W. J. Hollenbeck, N. side Railway-ave.
B. F. Tillinghast, E. side James-st.
W. W. Kelsey, W. side Reynolds-ave.
Mrs. Ella Johnson, W. side Frank-st.
D. Hatfield, S. side Park-st.
William Woodard, N. side Railway-ave.
NEW WALKS.
James S. Squires, N. side Squires-st.
Mrs. F. Reynolds, W. side Owego-st.
Mrs. Sylvia Bell, E. side Reynolds-ave.
John Ellison, N. side Squires-st.
The clerk was instructed to buy a new account
book.
The following bills were allowed and ordered
paid:
Street commissioners' pay roll, $117.65
J. B. Sager, meals, etc. for lockup, 1.71
John Callihan. cleaning walks, 4.00
Holden & Seager, coal, 27.75
C. S. Bull, three months' salary, 250.00
Frank M. Samson, salary, 25.00
Police force 98.00
E. D. Parker, taking Harry Beers to Rochester
state Industrial school, 8.26
Fred Hatch, salary, 25.00
William J. Moore, recording, etc., 16.00
Fabric Fire Hose Co. mittens and patent
respirators, 36.90
Cortland STANDARD, advertising and printing,
112.00
Charles W. Collins, sundries, 9.65
John Garrity, hauling Hook and Ladder truck
5.00
Cortland & Homer Electric Light
Co., 406.60
Dorr C. Smith, services rendered, 2.25
The following were admitted to the Water
Witch Steamer & Hose Co., Harley Hubert, Edward Butterfield, Charles Van
Bort, Charles W. Cook, Herbert DeClercq, Torry Allen, Charles Deremer, William
Harvey and Edward Parmiter.
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