The capture of Red Leary, whose escapes have been so numerous, has brought to my mind reminiscences of some other famous escapes which have been made from New York prisons in times past by thieves and murderers or persons under sentence. Some of these escapes are very interestin’, and show a deal of nerve and “grit.”
When the New York Hotel was the crack place for all the big Southerners, years before the Civil War, a doctor called Gallaudet boarded there. Gallaudet was a tip-top doctor, but a man who had his own ideas about everythin’, sometimes right ideas, sometimes wrong, and who had a very quick temper.
One day he was sent for by a gentleman who was sick at the hotel. The doctor called on the sick man at once, and found he had the small-pox. Now the doctor didn’t have that terrible fear of the small-pox that most people have; he didn’t believe in frightenin’ everybody, either; and so he attended to the sick man, but didn’t tell anybody what the real matter with him was. Instead of that, he invented some long name for the disease, and while givin’ everybody an idea that the man was very sick, told everybody he would pull through all right.
But some of the servant girls had a look at the sick man and got scared, and soon people got to talkin’, and the truth came out, and the guests of the hotel were frightened like a flock of sheep at a big wolf. Cranston, the proprietor of the hotel, of course heard all about this, and he was mad as could be that the doctor hadn’t come to him and reported the sick man’s case just as it was.
So, one evenin’ at dinner, Cranston began to take the doctor to task, and spoke to him pretty roughly, which was, perhaps, all right, only Cranston might have waited till after dinner. The doctor answered Cranston back, and high words arose between the two men. The guests generally took Cranston’s part, because they thought that the doctor had trifled with ‘em about this small-pox matter; and seein’ this, the doctor got very angry. At last he jumped right up from the table, took hold of a water pitcher and hurled it with all his might at cranston’s head. Smash went the pitcher, down went Cranston, insensible and bleedin’, dangerously wounded. For some time his life was despaired of.
Cranston was put to bed, and the doctor was taken to the station house. After a while he was tried by the court of General Sessions, and, bein’ found guilty, was sentenced to the penitentiary for one year.
The doctor took his sentence very coolly, and everybody wondered at his coolness. But as he told a friend in Paris afterward, he had made up his mind from the first to escape or take poison, so that he could afford to keep cool.
After bein’ sentenced the doctor was taken to the Tombs, then he was to be put into the Black Maria, or prison van, and taken over to the penitentiary, and two police officers were detailed to have him in charge till this programme was carried out. But the doctor proposed to change this bill of fare a little. He suggested to the two officers who had them in charge that, as he was goin’ to be locked up for a year, he would like very much to have just “one good time,” with his friends before he went to jail. He accordin’ly proposed to the two officers to come with him to a fashionable restaurant up-town, take dinner with him and his friends, and then he would go with ‘em to jail all right. The two officers naturally liked this idea first rate. It would give ‘em a tip-top dinner and plenty of wine and cigars at other people’s expense, while, of course, they could keep their eyes, and If necessary their hands, on their prisoner all the time.
So they agreed to the dinner, and started off in a hack for the restaurant. There the doctor met by appointment two or three gentlemen friends, and the party, including the two officers, sat down to an A No. 1 dinner, with good wine. The two officers never had tasted such wine before, and couldn’t get enough of it. The wine got into their heads, and then into their tongues. They told their best stories, and all the gentleman present flattered ‘em by listenin’ very attentively and tellin’ them they were such capital fellows; in fact, they never knew how really smart they were till these gentlemen at the restaurant got praisin’ them for their smartness, and makin’ them take wine with ‘em on the strength of it.
All of a sudden the doctor was taken sick, and he quietly and politely begged to be excused for one moment (as did Harry Genet when, some few years ago, he slipped the Sheriff’s officers), and left the party in the most natural way in the world. His coat and hat were left lyin’ on the table in the room with some of his things, so the two officers thought all was O.K. and that the doctor would be back in a minute, as soon as he felt better. But he never felt better; at least he never felt well enough to return. He turned up a few weeks later at Havana, where his family joined him, and a few months later he was heard of in Paris.
Now there was nothin’ very desperate or what they call in the books “heroic” about this escape, but it was, to my notion, rather clever, because it was so mighty simple, and it required a heap of nerve to do a simple thing so coolly, on which so much depended.
Another man called Robert Green escaped from the Tombs by a lot of coolness and nerve condensed into about ten minutes’ time. This Green was imprisoned for grand larceny, and had a cell on the second tier. He was pretty good at imitatin’ things, and one day a friend came to see him who had a visitor’s ticket. He borrowed this visitor’s ticket, and after a great deal of trouble he succeeded in imitatin’ it. He kept this forged ticket secreted about him, and watched a chance to get out of his cell. He had to watch and wait a good while, for the keepers on the inside of the prison all knew him, of course. But one mornin’ when he wasn’t expectin’ his chance, it came right to him. Nobody happened to be around, and so he stepped out of his cell, into the corridor. His heart was thumpin’ on the double quick, but he kept quiet and cool and walked very slowly, just as a visitor would, at his leisure. The keepers in the corridors and the yard happened by an extraordinary chance to be somewhere else just then, and he got to the outside gate of the Tombs all right. There he had to wait a minute, as somebody was talking to the gate-keeper. It was only a minute, but it must have seemed a year to him. Well, the party talkin’ to the gate-keeper got through with his palaver at last, and then Robert Green walked up to the gate-keeper, who didn’t know him, and presented this forged ticket. The gate-man looked at it carelessly, of course, not suspecting such a thing as the possibility of anybody forgin’ a ticket, let alone the idea of a prisoner presentin’ it himself in person, and let Green pass. Most men would have almost run the minute they were out, under these circumstances, but Green was too smart for that. He took his time, walked slowly along Centre street, and then, when he had gone a block or so, turned the corner and that was the last seen of Mr. Green.
Some years after the escape of this Green, a thief called Conrad Smith, alias Schraeder, managed to get out of the tombs for awhile. Smith was confined in a cell on the second tier, but as the prison was full he didn’t have the cell to himself. There were two men imprisoned in it along with him. One of these two men was a big fellow, arrested on a charge of attempt at murder; the other was a little fellow who had tried his hand at burglary. Smith was an oily-tongued rascal, and soon gained the goodwill and the entire confidence of the other two men. He at once formed a plan of escape, and swore by a cast-iron oath that if the two men would help him to get out he would in his turn, from the outside, assist them to escape. So a bargain was struck, and the three men set to work with a will, under the direction of Smith.
By the aid of the big murderer and the little burglar Smith turned his bed up endwise against the floor of the cell. This wasn’t very hard, but the next step was harder. It was to remove the iron lintel beneath the cell window. This they contrived to do at last, and so by doin’ they made a hole in the wall about twenty-nine inches long and nearly seven inches high. They tried to make this hole a little larger, but they couldn’t manage it, so they, or rather Smith, made the best of it.
The agreement was that Smith was to try to get out through the hole first, and if he succeeded he was to wait and help the rest out, too. Just before making his exit through the hole, Smith took this cast iron-oath again to help his fellow prisoners after they had helped him, and then he made his final preparations.
He stripped to the buff and rubbed himself over from head to foot with soap, so as to slip through the hole as easy as he could. Then he put his clothes into a bundle and tied a string to ‘em, so that his comrades could let ‘em down to him after he had slipped through.
Then he went through the hole; he got his head through first; then he braced himself to the the best he could with his hand against the wall, on the outside, and twisted and squirmed like an eel, and worked his way out at the rate of about an inch or so every five minutes. He was several hours wrigglin’ through the hole, and, naked as he was, the perspiration oozed from him at every pore. It was a warm night though, in the early part of September, so he didn’t catch cold. There was no moon, which was all the better for him, and it was cloudy, which made it all the better still.
At last he wriggled his way through and dropped on the ground outside. Then the big murderer let down his bundle of clothes and Smith dressed himself in a hurry. Smith was now all dressed and free, and according to the terms of his cast-iron oath, he was to wait and let the big murderer and the little thief work their way out, too, helpin’ them where he could.
But either because Smith thought it would take too long for the other two to get out, or because he didn’t see exactly where he could now help ‘em, or because he was afraid of not gettin’ off all right himself, or because he didn’t care to keep his oath, now that it was of no further use to him, or for all these reasons put together, Smith didn’t keep his oath and wait, but skedaddled off on his own hook. He did it very quietly, though, so as not to let the two prisoners above him find out he was goin’ back on ‘em. It bein’ a dark night was a good deal in his favor, because it prevented the two prisoners from seein’ what he was doin’. So Smith climbed, like a cat, from the yard where he stood to the roof of the cook-house, which was in the rear of the prison. Then from the roof of this cook-house he made his way to the top of the wall, and then jumped from the top of the wall, (some thirty feet), and with nothin’ worse than a severe shakin’, was out once more in the streets of New York.
Smith’s escape made a big stir, and there was a hue and cry raised about it. All the detectives in town were after him, but as there is no place to hide in like New York, he wasn’t found for over a month, though he was in the city all the time. In fact, he wouldn’t have been caught at all, perhaps, if, one fine evenin’, he hadn’t felt like a walk and made up his mind to have one. So he strolled out from his hidin’-place and walked along the Bowery, enjoyin’ all the sights and sounds, and the fresh air, and the lights, and the life. He met several people of his own kidney, whom he knew, and among others he met a man whom he didn’t know, but who knew him the moment he set eyes on him. This man was a detective, and he quietly called for assistance and followed Smith into a lager beer saloon. Just as Smith was drinkin’ a glass of lager the detectives grabbed him. Smith fought like a tiger, and meant to kill somebody before he got caught. But he was not able to do just as he wanted just then. The detectives had somethin’ to say about it, and pretty soon Smith found himself back in the Tombs, where the little burglar and the big murderer whom he had deserted crowed and chuckled over him, and made it pretty warm for him till he was taken up the river to Sing Sing.
The coolest escape ever made from the Tombs was accomplished by six young men, all of ‘em minors. These six youngsters didn’t put up a scheme, or wait for night; didn’t do anything desperate. They just jumped out of a window of the Tombs on the Franklin street side at about four o’clock in the afternoon. Several men saw them jump out, but they didn’t bother with them, and so the six escaped. The fellow who was the lead in this free and easy sort of jail delivery was called John Mahoney, and he afterwards became one of the most notorious jail-birds and jail-breakers in the United States. This John Mahoney was born in New York, and, before he wound up, went through as many adventures as Jack Sheppard. One of his chums was Jerry O’Brien, who was executed for murder at the age of twenty-three.
Mahoney escaped from prison six or seven times. Once, when he was escapin’ from the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island, he fell right on an iron picket fence. He broke his right arm and sprained his ankle. “All right,” says Mahoney to himself. “I can go to the hospital now for a few weeks, and then finish up my escape afterwards.” And he fulfilled both parts of his programme.
At another time, when they were takin’ him to Sing Sing, he waited till they were goin’ through the tunnel near Thirty-fourth street. Then he hit the constable in the eye and jumped the train. They caught him at last and sent him to Sing Sing, and made up their minds this time that he shouldn’t escape. The prison officers put a ball and chain on his leg, and kept him all day sitting in the hall of the prison, under a keeper’s eye. He stood this sort of thing several months, when he altered matters.
He got hold of an old coat and a pair of spectacles, the spectacles bein’ like those worn by some of the prison-keepers. Then he played sick at noon time, and stayed in his cell while the rest of the prisoners were at their meals. While the convicts were eatin’, Mahoney was disguisin’ himself. He put on the old coat and the spectacles, though he still had on the prison striped pants, and in this queer rig–half prisoner, half keeper–he walked to where the prison contractor had his closed wagon standin’. He jumped into the wagon, wrapped a horse blanket that was in it over his prison pants and put the horse to his speed. The keepers in the prison yard began to suspect something and ordered him to stop, but on dashed Jack Mahoney in the contractor’s wagon. He dashed all through the village of Sing Sing, though the villagers tried to stop him, as there is a reward of fifty dollars paid for the arrest of every escaped convict, but Mahoney escaped into a barn, where he stayed overnight, hid away in the hay, takin’ his chances of being shot as a robber or pitchforked by accident, and after an excitin’ sleigh ride the next day, managed to get all safe to New York.
Mahoney was a “cool hand,” but Harry Hawk, another jail-bird, was a trump in the line of nerve. He was committed for burglary, and there was a sure case against him. He was bound to be sentenced for several years at any rate. But while he was waitin’ sentence the name of a prisoner was called who was to receive his discharge. Quick as lightnin’ an idea occurred to this Hawk, and quick as a hawk he acted on it. He stepped right up answer to this other prisoner’s name, received his discharge, and skedaddled.
The chance of success in such a wild scheme as this was about one in a million, but Hawk tried it and got the millionth chance.
[Editor’s notes: All the above anecdotes were taken from: The New York Tombs: Its Secrets and Its Mysteries. Being a History of Noted Criminals, with Narratives of Their Crimes by Charles Sutton, 1874.
The French doctor’s name was Theodore (H.) Gaillardet, brother of Eugene Gaillardet and Theodore Frederic Gaillardet, both of whom edited New York’s French language newspaper, Courrier des Etats-Unis. He did leave New York and went to Havana, Cuba–from which he sold patent medicines, advertised in American newspapers.
Henry’s Hawk’s escape was a bit more random–and clever–than indicated above. A contemporary account from the New York Tribune of Aug. 17, 1860:
John Mahaney (his preferred spelling, though Mahony and Mahoney were often used) was profiled in Thomas Byrnes’s 1885 book, Professional Criminals of America. In a previous web project to annotate the profiles in that book, I included more complete accounts of some of Mahaney’s early jailbreaks.]
