Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1909-04-22
AGED CONVICT
ASKS PARDON
WILLIAM 3. GLYNDoN, YEARS AT
FORT MADISON, WANTS TO
DIE FREE MAN.

Des Moines, April 21-Thirty- one
years ago William B. Glyndon was
convicted by circumstantial evidence
OF assaulting and numbering a 14-year
OLD girl on a country road in Grundy
county and began serving a life SEN
tence in the Fort Madison state prison.
Today the state board of parole will
meet at the state house to act upon an
application for pardon that came TO
Governor Carroll from Glydon, now
gray-haired man of 10 years, who says
ne wants to die in the free air,
Glydon has lived seven years beyond
the period of expectancy assigned TO
him by the life tables. An investiga-
ton by Secretary B. w. Carrot Of the
board of parole shows that he has
served In the penitentiary longer than
any other man now in prison in the
United States.
At Fort Madison last week Senator
Berry and other members of the parole
board interviewed Glydon. They found
him sturdy old man. intelligent, we'll
read, Industrious with mind and
memory undimmed by thirty one years
of prison toll and routine.
Wants to Die Free Man.
II want to die in the free air." said
Glydon. II have some relatives back
in eastern Ohio, and before my life
ends | want to find them and give them
the money l have saved from my pen
sion. Thirty-one years is a long time
to stay here in prison.
After the civil war Glydon drifted
west and stopped writing to his par
ents and brothers and sisters in Ohio.
He hunted and trapped in the north
ern woods and in the far west which
was then land of adventure and law
lessness. Returning to Iowa in the
seventies. he worked as a farm hand
in Grundy county.
One night he met a 14year- old girl
on country road, between two corn
fields. He spent the night at neigh
boring farm house. In the morning
the girls BODY was found In a corn
field at the side of the road. Glydon
sWore he was innocent when he was
arrested and has repeated it all
through the thirty-o one years that have
interviewed. The jury found him
guilty.
Glydon was 80 years old then. He
had lived in the open all his life and
loved life out of doors After he enter
ed the prison he was put to work in
the forge room, and when he took his
place in the line and began the, lock
step back to his cell at night the sweat
would drip from his arm when he
rested his hand on the shoulder of the
man in front.
Then Glydon would go to bed in his
wet clothes, preferring this to sleeping
naked, the only alternative. He con-
tracted catarrh and he told members
of the board that he had taken 1874
bottles of a single brand of patent
remedy. 1t helped him, and instead of
developing consumption he continued
to be sturdy and strong.
At the prison Warden Sanders and
other officials say Glydon is model
prisoner. He is one of the family now,
and has known no other life for so
many years that members of the board
asked him il he would not be unhappy
out of prison.
mo, no; l have had enough" the
old man answered. Il remember the
old town in Ohio and I remember how
it feels to be free. I was the freest
man in the country once. came and
went as l chose and made my living
by hunting and trapping
Attorney Frank Heald of Cedar
Rapids has charge of Glydon's case.
Members of the board are greatly in
terested in the old man and it is quite
likely that his desire to die in the free
air will be gratifed.