The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-21
ESCAPE OF PRISONERS.
Daring Act of Couvicts mt wilIlamsport,

Daring Act of COnvicts ut VILLA mspOrt, Pa.
The Williamsport Gazette and Bulletin of the
18th instant says:-Four prisoners escaped from
our county Jail between one o'clock and daylight
ON Sunday morning. Their names are Thomas
McCabe awaiting trial on charge of burglary
at Muncy; John heinernan, awaiting trial a
charge OF hiring horse and not returning it:
Arthur Kaighn and John Prescott, commiTted
for burglary and robbing the house of Mayor
Herdic. The management of the affair displays
considerable skill, and shows that accom-
plices from the outside had furnished
the prisoners with tools to work with.
Prescott had managed to saw off large
bolt which locked his cell, and must
have accomplished that work by closing the
during the day, when not watched. This ena-
bled him to reach through the grating with a
stick and push the bolt of his door back aud
walk out. This accomplished he released the
other prisoners, whose doors were bolted but
not locked, but could not be opened from the
inside. A prisoner by the name of Coder, under
a sentence for some misdemeanOr, has had
charge of the hall at night and has been very
faithful in seeing that all was right The libe-
rated prisoners went out to his cell, which was
not locked, and threw quilt over his head and
face, so that he could not make the slightest
noise.
On his struggling they held revolver to his
head, and told him if he made any noise they
would Kill him, and were about to gag him,
when he said his mouth was sore from a wound
received in the army, and it would kill him.
lney lnen placeu Suaru OF Jnree men over
him, while fourth proceeded to the grated
window at the rear end of the second story hall,
and commenced the work of saving off bar
When he became tired he would come and
stand guard over Coder, while one of them
would take his turn at saving. The instru-
ments used for this purpose were two old table
knives made into saws by filing teeth in them.
When the bar was sawed off, the prisoners tied
whole sheets together, forming rope to the
ground or near it. They then tied Coolers hands
and feet, put towel over his mouth and passed
through the grated window and into the jail
yard. There they found a clothes line which
they threw over the wall, securing the end on
the inside, and made their escape.
Coder finding that they were out crawled on
his hands and knees and knocked at the door of
another cell, the occupant of which gave the
alarm, when Sheriff Piatt came to the scene to
find that four of his boarders had left without
paying their bills. The Sheriff was up at
o'clock and looked through the hall to see If all
was right, and Coder dId not go to sleep till
half past j. The escape was effected between
half past l and half past o'clock. The scamps
had taken the precaution to turn
the water on in the closets of the
cells, so that the noise made by that would
drown any made in the prosecution of their
work. Of course all this could not be done
without accomplices from the outside. Some
one had conveyed them the knives for saws, a
revolver, and dirk-all from the outside as
the prisoners were searched when they were put
in. Prescott concealed the tools in his cell by
cutting hole in his mattress and slipping them
IN when he was not at work. reward is
offered for their detection.