River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1914-06-25

Montgomery six were sent tC
~ Sing Sing. while the others
went to Clinton and Auburn.
The six Sing Sing men were manacled
in couples. but as Montgomery was a
"lifer'' additional precaution against
attempted escape was taken by hand
cutting him to a guard as well as to
his prison mate. There were three
links in the chain Of humanity and
steel.
Montgomery found that the prisoner
locked to his right wrist was a heavy,
long armed man with the prognathous
jaw who had sworn heartily and bit
terly the morning of the lineup at po-
lice headquarters.
The six men and their guards piled
into an automobile van in front OF the
TOmbs on Center street. Above the
Changing Of the gong of the machine
and the heavy o Of vehicular traffic
as they were taken toward the Grand
Central station Montgomery could hear
the man beside him keeping up d low
groWI, as Of d beast dreaming Of bat
tie. Had he known the length Of this
mans sentence he might have envied
him, for he was to serve only fifteen
years. His offense was burglary.
They boarded a train for Ossining at
the Grand Central station.
At Tarrytown. where the electric
zone ended. the train was delayed
while an engine was coupled to the
coaches. Here the tracks run on the
very edge of the Hudson, the river
splashing the ties during high winds
from the west.
Across the river Montgomery could
see q pretty cluster of houses half hid
den in the trees. 1t was the village of
Nyack. Just over the skyline and be-
yOnd the last peaked roof was a cot
tage standing back from the broad au-
tomobile road which leads to Tuxedo.
Within that cottage was the little
mother with the faded eyes and the
heart that had turned to lead in the
criminal courts building In New York.
His eyes peered hungrily through the
coach window. He had written to her
from the TOmbs. 1t waS a brave letter
of determination to some day prove to
the world that he was innocent of the
crime of which he had been convicted.
He advised her to cast about for a
bOarder so that she could keep the
taxes paid on the home. His father
had been a Mason in good standing,
and the Masons had helped her before.
They would help their dead brothers
widow again, he told her.
The boy pressed his forehead against
the window pane and Toasted his eyes
for the last time on the heavily wood
ed farther shore.
One of the strongest swimmers among
the sturdy country boys about Nyack,
he had swum the river, a good three
and a half miles, more than once, and
this scene In all it's simple loneliness
was old, and sweetly old. to his young
eyes
The train paused at Scarborough and
was off again in less than a minute.
Suddenly the eyes of the boy 1T the
window encountered total darkness
and to his ears came the din of a rail-
road tunnel. The short tunnel was di-
rectly under the entrance to Sing Sing
prison. In a few seconds the train
cleared the tunnel and stopped at Os-
shining station.
a covered tumbril was ready to take
them up the steep road from the sta
ton to the highway running south and
to the prison. The team of horses
struggled upward. straining and pant
ing, and, reaching the highway, stop
ped to blow. The convicted men had
a few more precious moments in
which they could feast their eyes with
glimpses of sky, river and hills
through the open front and rear Of the
vehicle.
At the end of the road doomed a bar
rack-like building of gray stone. fast
blackening with the years. 1t was the
first of the prison structures, and
about it ran a high and wide wall. At
regular intervals upon this wall were
little octagonal sentry houses and in
each of these stood a man with a rifle.
The building, rising high above the
wall, had narrow Sits in it's sheer
stone sides, and these Sits were crisis
crossed with steel bars.
Within this structure a cell awaited
Montgomery. 1t would be his resting
place at night after the days work in
the shops of the walled city of silence,
sorrow, sweat and celibacy. OF the out
side world he would see only a patch
of sky squared by the steel bars. He
would be as the police thought a yegg-
man should be-buried alive.
James Montgomery was stripped of
his clothes and finally stripped of his