The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1897-06-18

hAoiS " lOOh at, anu DIT the SAINT lll1e
there would be retained the most strik-
ing relic of the Tombs. which has been
mentioned so frequently in the history
OF the city for sixty years.
The Tombs was built on the site of the
old Collect Pond, which had been filed
up generations before the erection of a
prison there was thought Of. Five
years before the building was put up
its plan was adopted by officials who
had read Stevens Travels" popu-
lar book of the time, and had been inn
pressed by one of the Illustrations in the
book, picture of an Egyptian tomb.
Their idea was to have the city prison
so forbidding in appearance that no
body would care to become an inmate of
it. It's destination, the Tombs, was Sc
lected on account of the form of the
building
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE
CUPOLA.
At the time of its completion in 1888
the TOmbs had a cupola, but the cupola
was destroyed by fire in November.
1872, and was never rebuilt Connected
with that fire was a mystery which
kept the city in a ferment for many
months. The fire broke out at the mo-
ment when John C. Colt was to be
hanger for the murder of Samuel Adams
and there are New Workers living to-day
who believe that the torch was applied
| to the cupola of the prison to prevent the
execution of Colt, and that he escaped
from the TOmbS at the time of the eX-
element. The case of Colt had been
before the public for over a year, and
had caused widespread excitement
John c. Colt was a brother of the man
ufacturer of Colts revolvers, and he had
published a book, of which Samuel
Adams was the printer On September
II, 1871, Adams went into Colts office
at Broadway and Chambers street to
protest against what he had declared
was an effort of Colt to cheat him out of
his money, and he never left the office
alive. His mutilated body was found
later packed in salt in a box which Colt
had shipped on the schooner Kalamazoo,
at Maiden Lane and the East River,
and the walls of Colts office were found
to be spattered with ink as if an effort
had been made to conceal blood stains
The watch which Adams had carried
was found in the possession of Caroline
HenshaW, a young woman who had
lived with Colt Although Colt was tried
and convicted, he had so many infiuen-
tiaI friends that the public did not be-
lieve he would be hanged, and on the
day set for his execution there was a
multitude of people in Center street
-Four hours before Colt was to be
hanged he was married to Caroline
Henshaw in the Toombs. The hanging
was announced to take place at 4 p. M,
and at that time the firemen We're
called to the Toombs 10 fight the fire
which had started in the cupola. Some
of the firemen declared later that they
saw Colt get into a hearse that was
in the courtyard of the prison, and
that the vehicle was driven away rap
idly when the excitement of the fire
was at its hight The prison officials
said that a keeper had gone to Colts
cell and had found Colt dead with a
dirk sticking in his heart. A body,
which was declared to be that of Colt
was buried later in ST. Marks Church
yard, but there was a prevailing be-
lief that Colt had escaped from the
prison alive, and that his was the first
escape from the Tombs.
There have been few escapes from
the Tombs, but there have been many
suicides in the gloomy building, and
several men who have been in the shad-
ow of death there have cheated the
hangman by poison, knife or pistol One
of the earliest and most remarkable of
the escapes from the prison was that
effected by Bridget Mack, an Irish girl,
only i years old, who had been i'm
prisoned for theft. She got up in the
night, when everybody else in the wo-
mans prison was asleep, tore some
bricks out Of a fireplace and climbed
up through a chimney fiue to the roof
of the prison. Then she jumped off the
roof to the ground a distance of thirty
| feet and got away safely.
An escape from the Tombs which
caused a sensation in the city was
made by William j. Sharkey, who muir
dered Robert t. Dunn, in 1873, Mag
gle Jordan, Sharkeys sweetheart, was
allowed to visit him in the prison. One
day, after she had been in his cell and
had passed out again, the wife of
Wesley Allen went to visit her hus-
band and said she had lost her pass
card. When the search for the card
was in progress Sharl1ey's cell was seen
to be empty, and it was remembered
! that a person who appeared to be a
tall, yelled woman had gone out with
Mrs Aliens pass card. Sharkey es-
capped to Cuba and later went to Spain.
| He never came back to this city.
THE LAST ESCAPE.
The last escape from the Tombs was
| made by John Meyers, a burglar, in
June 1898 He dug a hole through
! the wall of the old prison from his cell
on the upper tier, squeezed his body
| through the hole on a dark night and
| let himself down with a rope Of bed
clothes to the ground on the Elm
street side of the courtyard. Then he
climbed to the roof of the woman's
prison, went over the roof of the
| Warden's quarters on the Leonard
street side and let himself down outside
the wall. He got away safely, but was
caught again some weeks later and sent
| TO prison.
| For more than half a century the
| hanging of murderers in the Tombs at
tracted much public attention. Those
| executions have been divided into two
periods In the first period, from the
! time of the completion of the Tombs
until 1858, twenty years, seventeen men
were put to death by the rope in the
| courtyard of the prison. No fewer
| than thirty-eight men had been SEN
/