The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1920-02-20

to contend with the notorious yves"
Allen, one of the worst desperadOes
ever in Sing Sing Having struggled
a knife and a can Of nitrOglycerin
into his cell, he refused to go on q
draft of fifty convicts to Auburn
Prison on July %, 1873. He fed into
the messroom, carrying the explosive
threatening to blow up the prison if
an attempt was made to capture him.
Warden Hubbell finally forced him
to surrender. Fourteen days later,
however. Allen was sent upstate
with another carload of convicts in
charge of Detective Jackson. 1t was
Allen who on April 10, 1871, with a
false key unlocked fifty cells and
was about to lead wholesale Jail
delivery when Keepers George
Batcheldor and Burling Winans in
terrupted them, arrested the ring
leaders and locked up the rest.
During the detectives prison career,
and more recent than many of the
, assaults herein mentioned, was the
savage attack upon Principal Keep
er Thomas McAnerny and Keeper
Edward McEneny, made by a West
Indian convict with a sharp dagger.
Only McEneny's timely assistance
saved McAnerny from being murder
ed.
i The prison slenth also recalls how
Keeper Edward Craft was killed by
escaping convicts back in Warden
Nelson's time, who bound, gagged and
imprisoned him in a chest in the
prison mess hall. Charles O'Neill,
one of the prisoners who got away,
was shot down the same day in
,Tarrytown by Keeper Charles Sulli-
van. The latter was indicted for
first degree murder and tried at
White Plains, but acquitted after a
sensational trial.
Since Jackson first came in contact
| with Sing Sing, which was years be-
fore he went to work there, there
! have been many and various forms OF
punishment used to subdue refrac-
tory convicts.
Tx There was the heavy iron cage
fastened around a convict's head
, which he had to wear when trying to
sleep. This was followed by the so
called shower" by which water
was deluged over and around pris-
: oner from a tank above with a ter
, rible suction which, according tC
, description, gave him fall the SEN
| sations of drowning" Then came
, the "crucifix," to which convict had
to stand strapped for hours with his
arms outstretched and his head back
} to prevent choking. Later they were
strung up by the thumbs, placed on
hooks and put on the lifting ma
i bchine Next came the weighing ma
, chine. More latterly they were fog
ged; still later they were padded
| and, finally, the dark cell or dungeon
, was used One after another these
| Icruelties were abolished by legisla-
ton or public sentiment. Yet with
all the torturesome punishments in
other days the convicts were faI
, more rambunctious than nowadays
During Jackson's employment al
Sing Sing there have been a hundred
investigations by executive, legisla-
, tive, judicial, reform and self-con-
stituted bodies. Many prison officials
have been discredited, prosecuted OF
removed But of all the vicissitudes
Sing Sing has been through not once
was jim Jackson under fire. His
, long record is untarnished.
!, He recollects the famous bread
and water riots of 1869 under War
: den Nelson, when the famous strike
was begun by 700 convicts demand
ing bread instead of mush at their
meals and ice water at their work
This was on July 16. For several
days pandemonium reigned. Every
one of the 1900 convicts quartered in
, the cell block slid his bunk out onto
the gallery and tumbled it in hear
on the stone floor of the basement
below. In order to quell them the
windows and doors of the cell block
were all locked tight and although
!, the weather was sitting hot the heat
was turned on the cell block. Then
, the convicts broke every window in
the place.
Jackson went through the mutiny
of February 10, 1883. Then 244
prisoners, employed in the contract
laundry, found fault with their work
and struck" Much property of the
laundry contractors, Perry e Co., the
stove contractors and other concerns
employing prison labor was wrecked.
Principal Keeper Jesse Dixon's
health broke down and Warden
Brush had to excuse him from fur
thar duty in quelling the strikers.
iAssemblyman Keyes, in the prison
ers' behalf, introduced bill to
abolish contract labor in prisons.
This eventually ended the contract
system and the overworking of pris-
oners for the manufacturers profits.
The worst rebellion Jackson saw
at the prison was in 1913, when War
den Clancy took charge. Then the
prisoners wrecked property, set fire
to buildings, assaulted keepers and
instructors by hurting missiles and
made a bedlam by rafting their cell
doors, catcalling and banging their
tinware on the steel doors. 1t was
finally broken up by drafting, in
irons, the ringleaders to Dannemora
Prison.
] Of the many incidents described in
this serial all are a matter of re-
cord. In justice to Detective Jack
son it should be explained that while
( he confirmed some of them not one
did he volunteer. He is nothing if
not modest He never courted pub
licity. If anything, he Stunned it.
| Yet he is as widely known as such
famous New York police investigators
as Inspector Byrnes, Inspector Nc
CIuskey, Chief Devery, Inspector
Schmitzberger, Inspector Faurot or
Detective Petrosini, with all of wnom
he was intimately acquainted and fire.
quently came in official contact.
Sing Sing, being federal prison for
many years, Jackson and the United
States Secret Service men frequently
worked together.
OF the great detectives of the last
half century Sing Sings investigator
r,ko I1axy shon