The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1893-01-07
scAenfD FOR LIBERTY.
some Famous Escapes From Praaon ~
: Cunning Conyicts.

While the 4tte0Ht1 ~ 1872 se>ssss Sf-S6
sing have been mipy the successes have
been few. The few successes inclsde the
,erv !, remarkable case Of Frank Kohler,
,.vs the Brooklyn Eagle. This man was
sent to Sing Sing 10 1879 for crimes COM
nitted at Port Jssvis, and after be had
bssn confined about FIVE months he got q
fellow convict to head him up in . barrel
and roll the barrel on barge which was
being loaded with new barrels 1t the prison
dock. When the barge was near larry
tewn, on its way down the river, Kohler
broke out of the barrel, plunged over
board and swan ashore.
There was an attempt Of convicts to
escape from Sing Sing in body in 1879
which was dramatic in the extreme and
tragic as we'll. Hundreds of convicts we're
working in the quarries overlooking the
railroad. There had been no suspicion
of an uprising, when 200 men leaped from
their work, seized quarrying fools and
made for the railroad cut where they
jumped down upon the tracks. The
guards fred a few random shots but they
were so taken by surprise at the formid-
ableness Of the revolt that their 6rst efforts
at checking it were of little avail. The
squad Of escaping convicts ran down the
tracks toward New York, led by q man
of gigantic stature, named Cunningham
The keepers were considerable distance
In the rear. A single keeper managed to
get in advance of the mob, raised his rifle
and fred. Cunningham dropped face
downward on the railroad track dead
The convicts paused for a moment, when
= new leader came forward and they ad.
YAnced again. The cool headed keeper
raised his rife again and the new leader
fell dead, and then the onrush of the
convicts was again checked, and this
proved fatal to the attempt, for the men
Immediately gave up and allowed them
selves to be led back to the prison.
The exploits of George Kint at Sing
Sing we're Of very remarkable character.
He is supposed to have effected his escape
by the use of an acid which softened
stone. He was sent to prison for ten years
for committing robbery out of revenge.
Kint was a very skillful mechanic and in
ventor, and he claimed that his employers
had used bis inventions to his hurt, and
he took revenge upon them by opening q
combination safe several times in sue
cession He worked in the machine shops
at Sing Sing and was forever experiment
ing with acids which he made UP himself
One day this alchemist was not to be
found in his cell, and a more thorough
search failed to discover him; but the
stonework of his cell in which the bolts
and those of a window were imbedded
was found to be discolored and cut away.
It was claimed that the stone had been
30 treated by Kint that it would yield
readily to q common knife. The river
was frozen over at this time, and it is sup
posed that Kint made his escape across
the ice for he was soon afterward captured
in Hackeusack. Kint, however, did not
stay captured. In three years he escaped
again by working the dummy game, and
this time fed to Canada, where he was
found but could not be extradited, and
80 this clever criminal is numbered among
the very fey who have made successful
escapes from Sing Slug.
1t doesn't seem possible that convlcts
can successfully work what is known as
the dummy game, but it has been done a
number of times. One Of the latest in
stances occurred at the State prison at
Charlestown, Mass on the night Of jan
uary 20, 1901. Henry Garfield made up
a dummy in his cell by means of blanket
and some straw taken from his mattress
the straw being very cleverly used to imi-
tate mans hair, and the entire work
being 80 neatly done that veteran watch
man, accustomed to the tricks of convicts
did not notice the deception when he
flashed his lantern into tho cell on his
regular rounds. The arrangement of the
dummy, however, was only small part
of the work Of escape which this man had
to perform. Locks and bolts and thick
walls, and many Of them, were still be-
tween him and liberty Garfield is said
to have been an expert in the use of tools,
and having some lie cut his way out of the
cell by making hole in the wall above
bis cell door, which admitted him into
what was known a. the attic.
He concealed all evidences of his work
as it proceeded by whitening piece of
pasteboard and placing it over the aper-
ture which he had made and concealinp
the bricks under his bed. When Garfield
had crawled through the narrow opening
over the door of his cell, and thence up
intothe attic, he went through ventila-
tor and lowered himself to the storeroom
with rope made of blanket. In this he
found suit Of clothes intended for an
other convict whose term would soon ex.
pire, and he quickly exchanged his prison
garb for these and then climbed up to q
transom and let himself down with a rope
found in the storeroom, and with this
last performance he reached the nr;son