A New York Herald reporter commented that 'the whole scene was as businesslike and free from excitement as if the business before the Court were the argument of a technical motion involving a question of $10 costs'. But when Judge Rumsey pronounced his sentence it was clear that justice was not only swift but severe.
Perry was sentenced to five years for the first count of the first indictment, and twenty years on the second count, five years on the second indictment, ten years on the third indictment, and nine years and three months on the fourth indictment. The sentences were to be served as hard labour in Auburn prison and were to run, not as sentences often do today concurrently, but consecutively. In all he was to serve forty-nine years and three months. Even by the standards of the day, it was a harsh sentence.
'Half A Century Hard' was how one paper described it. If he survived, he would be released at the age of seventy-five in the almost unthinkable year of 1942. Perry listened to the sentence without any obvious show of emotion. One Lyons reporter interpreted his expression: 'Perry received his sentence as meekly as an erring child receives a mother's kind reproof. The bravado had left him. The wild western spirit had died away and the most noted desperado of the East, perhaps of the country, quailed before the verdict of grim justice.'
Swift calculations of the time Perry would serve, with reductions for 'good behaviour', were published, amounting to a term of twenty-nine years, four months and twenty-three days. In this case he would be released on 13 October 1921 at the age of fifty-six. But few who had witnessed, or read about, his escape attempts and refusal to knuckle down to life in jail believed his sentence would not be served in full. If he tried the same tricks in Auburn he would learn what the real penalties for insolence could be. A formality that followed his sentencing added a slightly chilling note to the hearing, as Perry's will was approved. In it he bequeathed his personal effects, including $300 cash and a diamond ring to his father, and his pistols to Sheriff Thornton.
Although he seemed to have been in a daze during the hearing, Perry swiftly rallied, laughing and talking as he returned to the jail, and set about preparing for the following day's move to Auburn. The prison's reputation was as fearsome as his was daring, but Oliver Perry was clearly determined to put on a show of defiance.
CHAPTER 8
Perry Dons the Stripes
THE PEOPLE of Lyons had one last chance to see Oliver Perry before he disappeared into prison. As he was taken to the station to catch the train to Auburn, he treated them to one last display of celebrity behaviour, giving mementos to a small group of people, including his lawyers and some newspaper correspondents. Each lucky man or woman was presented with a Mexican coin or piece of gold, a tiny share in Perry's exotic adventures and ill-gotten gains.
When they reached the station, the crowd was so big it was hard for the Sheriff and his men to get Perry through to the train. In it he bequeathed his personal effects, including $300 cash and a diamond ring to his father, and his pistols to Sheriff Thornton. Once they were in the car, the crowd surged forward to surround it. Perry seemed tense and muttered about not being able to breathe. Twenty minutes passed before the train finally pulled out to make the journey east to Auburn.
The party soon had to change, at nearby Geneva, and this time some of the crowd managed to get inside the train. One man, apparently very drunk, lunged at Perry, shouting that he was going to give him a good thrashing. Sheriff Thornton moved swiftly to protect his prisoner. He had the man removed from the car, then locked the door to prevent further incidents as the train moved on. Perry relaxed a little and started reading a newspaper, commenting on the speculation about his possible release in 1921 for good behaviour: 'Boys, come over when I'm discharged and we'll all have an oyster supper.'
At the next stop, Waterloo, the crowd stayed on the platform, but a young lady who was leaving the train approached the party. Ignoring her mother's protests, she handed Perry a small bunch of lilies of the valley. He thanked her and placed the flowers in his buttonhole. But, although he was clearly still trying to maintain, or live up to, his romantic image, the constant attention, both aggressive and solicitous, was wearing him down. So at the next stop, when people asked to see the famous Perry, they were pointed not to him but to a guard in plain clothes. It was a simple ruse, but effective. After all, which man was handcuffed to which? It even fooled a newspaper correspondent who 'snapped' the wrong man and left contentedly to the cheers and laughter of the passengers 'in the know'.
The mood was still light as they continued to Aurelius. The conductor, making his rounds, asked Perry for his ticket. But after it had been punched earlier in the journey, Perry had given it to a bystander as a souvenir. So he jokingly suggested the conductor put him off the train. At Cayuga the train stopped for ten minutes for refreshments and Perry asked for some luncheon. Sheriff Thornton told him he would eat at Auburn but some other passengers went to buy him oranges. He ate two while plans were made for the imminent arrival in Auburn. As he saw the prison through the window, he was heard to mutter, 'I now have a home.'
The crowds hoping to see him enter his new home had been gathering since the early morning. Auburn had seen some des- perate criminals but few as exciting as Perry. Men and women had rushed to the station to meet each New York Central train, hoping he would be aboard. Others waited outside the prison gate. By noon both places were teeming. Perry and his escorts finally arrived at the depot just before 1 o'clock. The crowd watched him climb down from the train, handcuffed to one guard, and escorted by another, then followed them out into the street. But the 'prisoner' they followed was really a young reporter from Lyons, and his 'guards' were other newsmen.
The real Perry and his party had waited for the decoys to draw the crowd, then walked undisturbed to the ironically named 'Home' restaurant, where a good dinner was ordered for everyone. Thornton meant to give Perry one last treat, but it was not a wise move. As word spread about his whereabouts, people rushed to stand outside the restaurant. When the time came to leave, the Sheriff had to call the police to clear a path through the crowd. Eventually they reached the imposing entrance to Auburn.
In its early days, reformers, government representatives and experts, including Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, travelled from across the world to visit Auburn. Built in 1816, it was the home of the 'Auburn system', a once-revolutionary penal regime at a time when the idea of reforming prisoners was still new. This involved convicts sleeping in individual cells, instead of shared rooms as they had hitherto, and working together in the day, but in total silence at all times. This double isolation was idealistically designed to encourage them to contemplate their own mistakes, without the corrupting influence of other criminals, and, pragmatically, to make them easier to manage by removing the possibility of plotting against the authorities. Although the men found ways of communicating,
Auburn Prison (Courtesy of Cayuga Museum).
a prisoner discovered talking at any time, unless responding to an officer's question, was subject to instant and severe punishment.
The Auburn regime was a modification of the even more extreme 'Pennsylvania system', which isolated prisoners in individual cells twenty-four hours a day, even for work. Auburn tried this in 1821, locking eighty prisoners in individual cells. The effects were dramatic. By the summer of 1823, it was found that total isolation had driven many of the men insane. When one cell door was opened, its occupant ran out and threw himself off the fourth-floor landing; another banged his head against the wall until he lost an eye. So Auburn decided to allow prisoners to work together, but in silence. Apart from being less obviously inhumane, this was also more economically practical. Prisoners locked in cells could only be employed in handicraft rather than more lucrative industrial production. In the nineteenth century prisons, with a slave labour force, had real economic potential.
By allowing 'congregate' labour, Auburn thrived. In 1892 it had a foundry as well as workshops producing goods from pearl but
tons and furniture to brooms and boilers. It even, briefly, ran a silk factory. Commercial companies started to object to unfair competition from prison industries, and by 1895 New York's prisons would only be allowed to manufacture goods for their own use. But when Perry arrived, Auburn was, supposedly, an ideal blend of theory and practicality, a model society run according to the twin principles of industry and discipline.
Auburn created many of the features of prison life that swiftly became visual cliches, such as striped prison uniform and close-cropped hair to symbolize the convict's changed status. The prison also introduced a special walk, called 'lockstep', in which each prisoner shuffled along, holding the man in front, as they moved between cells and workshops or the dining hall. Lockstep, as the name suggests, turned men into a human chain. It also served as an abiding mark of their convict status. Years after they were released, when their hair had grown and uniform was a bad memory, ex-prisoners could be identified by the way they walked, pushing their feet along as if still in lockstep. Auburn had recently shown its pioneering spirit yet again, and acquired a new notoriety, when, in 1890, William Kemmler became the first man in America to die in the electric chair.
Prisoners in Lockstep (Courtesy of Cayuga Museum).
Today Auburn's fearsome reputation has been eclipsed by the violent riots in neighbouring Attica, and its ivy-covered entrance makes the maximum-security prison look almost cosy. Yet inside the tension is still palpable. There may be a gym and a garden, as well as work and education, to occupy bodies and minds, but the men, mainly young African-Americans from downstate, are still obliged to walk in silence in the corridors so that the officers can be heard and no fights can be masked by inmates talking. Conversation in the yard is no longer forbidden, but the strangeness and strain of this male society are immediately apparent to a visitor. A woman walking through the yard on a hot summer's day, unseasonably dressed in trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, is palpably aware of the now hidden violence of these men's constraints. Nothing is said, but hundreds of staring eyes speak clearly.
Perry walked through the gate into Auburn just after 2 o'clock. Inside his new 'home', Mr and Mrs Perry were waiting. But before anyone could speak, the Warden intervened: 'Bring that man this way; he's my prisoner now.' He had not taken kindly to waiting while his prisoner had been dining at leisure. Perry tried to speak to his father but was hurried away. In the keepers' hall his handcuffs were removed and then he was swiftly marched to the barber's shop where he was stripped, dressed in prison uniform, his hair clipped short and his moustache shaved.
When he was next seen by those who had escorted him from Lyons, the change was shocking. He had arrived in a suit and hat with the bunch of lilies of the valley still in his buttonhole, quite the gentleman, if only in appearance. In a worn, stained uniform he seemed to have been stripped of more than his smart clothing. The process, called 'dressing in', was designed, as it is today, to transform the criminal into a prisoner, to strip and shear away individuality. It remains one of the most dramatic and symbolic acts that marks the attempted reduction of a man to an inmate.
Although the Warden was keen to process him as quickly as possible, Perry managed to do one last thing before he was taken away. He turned to the Sheriff who had treated him with kindness and made a small presentation. Perry was reduced to wearing 'the stripes' but when he left Auburn, Walter Thornton was newly adorned with Perry's gold collar stud and a pearl scarf pin. He returned home to face accusations of 'bad taste' in giving Perry a last good dinner, and a few months later died suddenly in his sleep of a suspected heart attack. Deputy Collins fared much better, later becoming his county's best-known sheriff, remembered until his death for capturing Perry.
It was assumed that in Auburn Perry would disappear from public view. Reporters would find it less easy to interview the apparently ever-willing speaker in prison than in the County Jail, and he would have no easy way of addressing the public through them. But the mythologizing of Oliver Perry continued all the same. Just a day after he was sentenced, The NY Central Train Robbery, Or, the Nerviest Outlaw Alive, was published. Priced at 5 cents, it was Number 42 in the 'Nick Carter Library', subtitled 'The Best 5 Cent Library of Detective Stories'. The series was one of the most popular collections of pocket-sized 'dime novels' that offered easily concealed adventure to youngsters and their parents. The latest edition told the story of fictional detective Nick Carter's involvement in the downfall of the very real train robber. Framed by an imagined conversation between Nick Carter and Jerry Collins, totally inaccurate fantasies of Perry's outlaw life as a crack shot and hardened killer as well as debonair deceiver were interwoven with facts to create a character to match his western counterparts, Billy the Kid and Jesse James. In popular fiction, as well as public opinion, Perry had joined the outlaw elite.
The real Perry was in trouble just days after his arrival. It was not, this time, because of his attitude, arguing with his keepers or trying to escape, but it would still have a dramatic impact on his mood and on his future. He had been sent immediately to work in the foundry, but the heavy labour had caused the rupture that had only given him discomfort in Lyons to make him seriously ill. Unable to work, the man who hated confinement was locked up in his cell all day, except for mealtimes. It gave him plenty of time to think, to plot and also to brood.
Nick Carter Library
(Courtesy of Onondaga Historical Association Museum & Research Center, Syracuse, NY).
Just weeks later he was in real trouble after attacking a 'life man' called John Bender. The two men quarrelled at dinner and, to everyone's amazement, Perry produced two knives, threw one to Bender and challenged him to fight. When Principal Keeper James Shaw interfered, Perry surrendered. Whatever the ostensible reason for the fight, Perry had shown the other men what he was made of. Bender was an unpopular prisoner who regularly 'peached' on others, a good target for a new man who needed to show his mettle. All new prisoners have to prove themselves to avoid victimization. For a celebrity like Perry, as he was assessed by inmates and keepers, this was doubly important. His fame might easily make him a target for others. Also, as his time in Lyons had shown, he liked to win the support of those around him.
Perry paid a heavy price for his skirmish. His punishment, decided by Keeper Shaw, was nine nights in the dungeon. The dungeon cells were in the dimly lit basement, with bare stone walls and floors and no windows. When Perry was brought in, the first barred door would have clanged shut and then a second, solid oak door would have been locked, leaving him in total darkness. While he was effectively blinded, his other senses would, to make matters worse, have become more acute. The walls of the basement dungeons frequently ran with damp and crawled with vermin, although the bedbugs that plagued the normal cells would have been absent because there were no beds and no bedding. Prisoners sent to the dungeons were expected to sleep on the bare floor. They were also stripped of most of their clothing, supposedly to prevent suicide.
The cold would have been almost unbearable but any warmth would have intensified the stench rising from the uncovered bucket that served as a lavatory. And this dark, damp, cold and foul-smelling world was also silent. Regular cells in which prisoners were held in solitary confinement might allow precious whispered conversations when the guard was out of earshot, but in the dungeon the double doors sealed a man up as if he was in a tomb. The press frequently called any prison a 'living tomb', but the dungeon really merited the description. To the isolation that had driven men insane in the earlier experiment was added almost complete sensory deprivation. In the dungeon Perry would have been totally disoriented. The only way of telling day from night would have been when, once a day, the outer door opened and he would be given a piece of bread, weighing not more than two ounces. From a tin cup held by a guard he would have been able to drink two ounces of water. Then the door would shut and darkness would return for another twenty-four hours. Apart from occasional visits by a silent physician to check his pulse, this would
be his only human contact.
Few prisoners' memories of the dungeon were recorded, but two accounts suggest its horrors. Alexander Berkman was a Russian-born anarchist, sentenced to twenty-two years in prison, shortly after Perry, for the attempted assassination of an industrialist. On his release, he recollected a spell in a dungeon in another prison that was nearly identical to the one Perry occupied in Auburn.
'Utterly forsaken! Cast into the stony bowels of the underground, the world of man receding, leaving no trace behind . . . Eagerly I strain my ear - only the ceaseless, fearful gnawing [of rats]. I clutch the bars in desperation - a hollow echo mocks the clanking iron. My hands tear violently at the door - "Ho, there! Any one here?" All is silent. Nameless terrors quiver in my mind, weaving nightmares of mortal dread and despair. Fear shapes convulsive thoughts: they rage in wild tempest, then calm, and again rush through time and space in a rapid succession of strangely familiar scenes, wakened in my slumbering consciousness.
'Exhausted and weary I droop against the wall. A slimy creeping on my face startles me in horror, and again I pace the cell. I feel cold and hungry. Am I forgotten? Three days must have passed, and more. Have they forgotten me?'
Berkman, a man of courage and intelligence, had been in the cell for only one day. The effects of a single night in the Auburn dungeon would form the climax to the reformer Thomas Mott Osborne's searing 1912 indictment, Within Prison Walls, based on time spent undercover as a prisoner. His description of how he felt when about to be released from the dungeon suggested the profound psychological damage such isolation could also cause: 'I find myself wondering why I am not ready to shout with joy, and I discover it is because I feel as if all power of emotion has been crushed out of me. It is not merely utter and hopeless fatigue;
Wanted Man Page 7