Intriguingly, if less attractively, Blanche may also have played another part in her stepbrother's life after her death. Descriptions of her striking dark looks resemble uncannily those of the girl in the photograph he carried and whom Amelia Haswell believed to be his dead sweetheart. Photographs and jewellery with locks of hair were popular mementos of dead relatives. It may have been a coincidence and Perry's sweetheart may have been real. But the similarity begs a probably unanswerable question. Faced with a struggle to win sympathy after his crimes had been discovered, and needing the support of his devout but romantic 'Mother', had the ever-resourceful Perry used his sister's image to spin a tale?
As ever, Perry is infuriatingly difficult to pin down, alternately crying out to be read, as he was by the Pinkertons, as a cynical manipulator of other people's naive or idealistic beliefs, or, as he was by his Christian and liberal supporters, as a damaged boy whose kinder, more thoughtful nature was crushed by his inability to cope with a brutal system. In truth, he was probably both, the product of a troubled childhood and a brutal adolescence that would turn him into a daring but volatile rebel, capable of sensitivity but also of ruthlessness. His was a personality that would both lead him to prison and make him particularly vulnerable to its impact.
Whether affected by a forbidden romance or a family tragedy, by 1890 he had decided to try conformity, working on the railroad, becoming part of a community. But disillusionment with the poor rewards and petty restrictions of his new life had swiftly driven him to prove his ability and his worth as an outlaw. For a few months he had experienced the intoxicating excitement, unprecedented luxury and strange, hunted freedom of his life as a wanted man. Finally, in Auburn, confined and isolated, his highly strung nature had been stretched to breaking-point.
CHAPTER 11
'Came to Hell'
THE MATTEAWAN Asylum for Insane Criminals, daunting as it sounds, offered Perry a glimmer of hope. Staying in Auburn would undoubtedly have doomed him to decline or possible suicide. In the asylum, much nearer Troy, it would be easier for Amelia Haswell and Perry's other old friends to visit him and offer some emotional support. Although breakdowns induced by the stress of isolation are traumatic, they are rarely permanent. In more stable and secure conditions, given a chance to build reliable relationships with other people, even those with extreme psychotic symptoms can recover and may never experience another episode.
On 28 December 1893, one day after he was declared insane, Perry, looking pale and thin, was escorted by three armed guards on the long train journey from Auburn to Matteawan. Word spread quickly among the passengers and soon the car he was in was crowded. But anyone expecting to see the famous showman put on an act, or to hear the ravings of a madman, was disappointed. Perry was unusually quiet as the journey took him back along the tracks of his robberies, through the landscape of his childhood, hugging the course of the Hudson River until, the following morning, the guards escorted him through the crowds and into a carriage and headed for the asylum.
An imposing building on a hill just outside the small community of Beacon, Matteawan was New York State's institution for prisoners who had been certified insane after sentencing. It had been open for just over a year. On 25 April 1892 crowds of villagers had watched the first sixty prisoners arrive in chains. Newspapers of the time noted that while some were in straitjackets, others carried personal possessions including birdcages. They had all been held in the previous State Asylum for Insane Criminals, near Auburn prison, whose location was far from ideal, with incessant noise from nearby factories. The State Commissioner in Lunacy, Dr Carlos F. MacDonald, argued that the insane should be put to farm work in the open air, and campaigned for the foundation of a more suitable asylum. Eventually, the state legislature voted to pay for a new institution at Matteawan, whose rural location offered peace and fresh air. To many people, the insane were still objects of fear and scorn, the criminal insane even worse, so at its inception Matteawan must have seemed liberal indeed.
Local feelings were mixed. The asylum offered much-needed employment, but the idea of insane criminals breaking loose filled many with dread. Despite reassurances about security, within three months of the opening several 'patients' had escaped and there were persistent rumours about would-be escapees feigning insanity in order to get into, then out of, the hospital. Now a man who had publicly declared his intention not to serve his sentence, who had repeatedly shown he had the initiative and nerve to break out, and who had nearly escaped from Auburn, was arriving. Even in the Certificate of Lunacy the physician Conant Sawyer had warned, 'he is a bad desperate man and you cannot be too careful, or he may well escape from your place'. The man in charge, Medical Superintendent Dr Henry Allison, knew he had something to prove.
Allison was an urbane New Englander, born in Concord, New Hampshire in 1851, who trained in medicine after reading classics at Dartmouth College.
He started his medical career at the Willard State Hospital in Seneca County, New York before taking up a position at Auburn and then at Matteawan. He had been warned by Auburn officials that Perry would be troublesome, but laughed, 'I guess he'll get on all right here.' Perry also seemed initially optimistic about the hospital and its Superintendent. On arrival, he held out his hand to Allison, saying, 'You are a man and a gentleman. I can tell it by looking at you. I am glad to come here if you are in charge, for I know you will treat me well. You have a kindly face; you have no idea how different it is from those I have left. My God, I hope I never have to go back there again, to be beaten and starved and poisoned.'
He repeated his hopes to a reporter who was allowed to interview him soon after his arrival. The newsman was shocked at the change in Perry's looks since his trial, describing him as pale and thin, with sunken cheeks and the hair at the back of his head worn thin. But he thought that apart from insisting on his persecution by Auburn officers, Perry seemed fairly rational as he spoke of how friends would see his situation: 'Yes, I have a great many friends outside, and I want them to hear that I'm all right. Tell them I'm glad to be just where I am, too. They'll wonder at that, won't they? Don't think for a moment that I don't know where I am, young man. I'm in a lunatic asylum, but better far to be in an asylum, than in that cursed prison. . . . Perry in a madhouse. It makes me laugh to think of it. And my laugh is a treat to me. I thought I should never laugh again after I had been at Auburn for a time.'
Once more Perry hoped to make a good impression on a figure of authority and a fresh start in a new place, but while it was a relief from Auburn, the regime in Matteawan would not be to his liking. After an interview with Dr Allison, he was immediately sent to a cell on an isolation ward. The ward was in a separate building, connected to the main block by a long corridor. There the most unruly and dangerous inmates were held in separate cells where a system of sliding doors allowed guards to watch them, unseen, at any time of day or night. This enabled them not only to check for signs of normality in prisoners faking insanity but also to guard those prisoners who, like Perry, were most likely to attempt to escape. It is not difficult to imagine his reaction. If this disheartened Perry, the Superintendent's views on insanity would have plunged him into total despair. Although the men and women in Matteawan were still convicts, they were called 'patients' in recognition of their illness. But these patients had little hope of being cured, even if their current condition was one that would today be judged temporary. Edward Meredith, committed two years earlier because of a 'delusion', like Perry's of being poisoned, had, exceptionally, been able to prove his sanity and won his freedom, but only after a lengthy court battle with the prison and hospital authorities. In practice few patients ever returned to complete their sentences in prison. As an alienist, a specialist in mental disorders, Henry Allison took his role in caring for individual patients seriously, but he recognized that his role was also to contain those who threatened the social order.
The closing decades of the nineteenth century may have seen great changes in the trea
tment of the insane generally, with increasingly professional psychiatric approaches adopted in purpose-built institutions, but insane criminals were, above all, a threat to be contained. Shortly after Perry arrived in Matteawan, Dr Allison addressed the American Medico-Psychological Association at its annual conference and his paper, 'Insanity among Criminals', was published in the Association's influential Journal of Insanity. In the article he described men with mental disturbance very much like Perry's and argued that even when they are 'no longer insane, in the strict meaning of the term', they are 'in a condition which is recognized as unsoundness of mind', 'not amenable to prison discipline and are incorrigible'. Such prisoners should, he argued, be kept in hospital for an 'indeterminate sentence'. He concluded that by committing the insane 'for life', the judiciary and medical professions would succeed in 'permanently ridding society of many dangerous and undesirable elements'.
So while a public still in love with his romantic past wondered if Perry was shamming, he and his friends must have feared that he was now condemned to perpetual imprisonment. His escape attempts had lost him his remission, but while his sentence had a time limit, he had hope. If he recovered psychologically, he could, one day, be free. But would the Superintendent ever judge him eligible? There are no available records to reveal Henry Allison's original assessment of Perry. But the patient made his feelings plain on his cell wall. Below his name and the date, he wrote, 'CAME TO HELL'.
CHAPTER 12
Lunatics on a Rampage
IN APRIL 1895 Perry took everyone by surprise once more. In the eighteen months since his transfer from Auburn he had been regularly treated for unruly behaviour but his overall condition seemed to improve. Amelia Haswell had welcomed the chance to visit him in the more conveniently located institution but was often told he was too ill to see her. When she did get to see him, he complained about his cell in the isolation ward, the behaviour of the keepers and doctors, and of being prevented from taking any exercise in the fresh air. Amelia complained to Dr Allison, but Perry decided to take more direct action.
Just after 11 o'clock on the night of 10 April a watchman on his usual round walked towards the isolation ward. Checking here was really a formality. The isolation ward was a prison within a prison, designed to prevent escapes. So its outer walls had a lining of sheet-iron between two layers of brick, its windows were secured by iron bars and galvanized wire shutters, and the ceilings had even been secured with stone flagging. The cells had been constructed just as carefully. The doors were made of two-inch-thick oak and each had two locks, specially designed so that they could only be turned from the outside. As a final security measure, the keepers who held the keys were bound by the strictest orders never to take them outside the prison. Any man who did so was risking instant dismissal.
The watchman walked briskly along the corridor to the only door into the isolation ward. On either side, just before the door, were rooms used by the ward attendants. As he passed by, both were quiet, as he expected. At this time of night most of the prison attendants were asleep. He unlocked the door, entered the ward and was about to start checking the cell doors when he heard someone calling him from a cell at the far end. It was Perry. The train robber, who was housed in one of six cells that stood at a right angle to those along the length of the ward, was a demanding patient. Only the day before he had complained about being disturbed by noise from workmen in the nearby chapel and had asked when he could expect some peace. He was told the work would finish in a couple of days.
'What's the matter in there?' called the watchman. Perry asked for water. As the watchman started to turn away, three men pounced. One grabbed his keys while the others held him down. Before he could cry out, someone placed a hand over his mouth. He was bundled into Perry's cell, then tied to the bed-frame with strips of torn sheet. One of the men stuffed his mouth with rags and his attackers rushed out of the cell.
While he struggled in Perry's cell, its former occupant, together with the watchman's other assailants, Patrick Maguire and John Quigley, and two other men, Frank Davis and Michael O'Donnell, whom they released en route, unlocked the ward door, then locked it again behind them. They crept past the attendants' rooms and down the corridor. At the far end were stairs to the prison chapel, one of a very few parts of the prison, outside the ward, with which these 'isolation' prisoners were familiar. They unlocked the doors at the foot and top of the stairs with the watchman's keys. In the darkness they could just discern what they were looking for. At one end of the room was a step-ladder, left by workmen repairing the ceiling. Maguire had seen it at a service he attended - to his keepers' amazement-in preparation for some patients' confirmation by the Bishop of Albany. He had told Perry, who complained about the noise, to discover how long the ladder would be in place. Now Perry and his companions climbed twenty-five feet to the top of the ladder, pulled themselves up through a small hatch in the ceiling, and disappeared.
Matteawan State Hospital.
They crawled on hands and knees along the dusty attic floor until they reached a dormer window. No one had thought it necessary to secure an attic window above a double-locked chapel. The glass was easily broken and the men slipped through the window and out on to guttering along the eaves, forty feet above the ground. They edged along the guttering to the front of the building, then shinned down a pair of iron drainpipes. Someone shouted 'Halt!' and a shot rang out. A watchman stationed outside had spotted them and fired in their direction. The men kept on running and the watchman rushed inside to raise the alarm.
Dr Allison ordered men to surround the building to prevent any further escapes. Inside, the whole asylum was in uproar, as keepers and prisoners woke to cries of 'Escape!' Keepers still half-asleep emerged from their rooms and ran along the corridors, but nobody knew who had escaped. Eventually, men ran to the isolation ward and discovered the truth.
Soon police officers, detectives and local inhabitants were on the lookout for the fugitive lunatics. The moon, appropriately enough, was full, and the bright light made the searchers optimistic. The men were all wearing the asylum uniform of grey pants and vests, grey coats and blue and white striped hickory shirts. While their uniform would be an obvious give-away, they had another, more immediate problem. The men held in the isolation ward of the asylum were judged too dangerous to be allowed to wear shoes. They were on the run in felt slippers or barefoot. Surely they could not get far? But despite an all-night search, no trace was found of the five men.
The following morning Allison took stock of the situation and prepared a statement for the press. Any escape was embarrassing, but this was particularly humiliating. Most of what had happened was pieced together easily enough. The men had obviously planned the escape after seeing the workmen's ladder in the chapel when attending Sunday service, and had used the watchman's keys to free their companions and then unlock the ward door. But one question remained unanswered. How had Perry and the others got out of their cells in the first place? Their fellow inmates were being interrogated, but if any were sane enough to give answers that made sense, they were not doing so.
The Superintendent candidly announced that the only explanation was that an asylum employee must have colluded in the escape.
Although he refused to speculate, the newspapers all reported that the watchman had been suspended from duty and was being questioned. To help in the hunt, Allison's Deputy, Dr Robert Lamb, supplied the police with recent photographs of the escapees. Lamb was a keen amateur photographer and had jumped at the chance of testing his skills by developing pictures from negatives in his own darkroom. The pictures were sent to the police in all major cities and to American Express, whose representative rushed to Matteawan. Perry may have been paranoid about the company persecuting him but he was not wrong about their continued interest. They still wanted their missing money and they were still determined he should suffer the full penalty for his crimes.
Little is known about Perry's fellow fugitives. Three were burglars who
se 'insanity' had evidently not prevented them from joining Perry in planning and executing a very complicated escape: Davis, the oldest at forty-two, was serving twenty-five years for burglary; Maguire, known as 'Ugly Mac', was a forty-year-old housebreaker who had made several escape attempts in the past; O'Donnell was the youngest at twenty-five and had eleven years of a sentence for burglary left to serve. John Quigley was a rather different case. He had been in trouble since childhood and seems to have had a life of extraordinary misfortune that left him seriously disturbed. After a series of petty crimes, he shot and killed his mother in what the Coroner's jury decided was an accident. Soon afterwards, he was shot through the ear while being arrested for breaking into a woman's house and criminally assaulting her and was sentenced to fifteen years in Sing-Sing. There his behaviour resulted in a move to Matteawan where, like the others, he met the persuasive Perry and became involved in the escape.
While the hunt spread out across the surrounding countryside, everyone tried to work out where Perry would head. Most agreed he would make his way to a city and possibly seek out one of the wealthy and influential friends of whom he sometimes boasted.
Two days after the escape, on Good Friday, the first fugitive was caught: the pathetic and confused John Quigley who had been utterly unable to cope with life on the run. He was found by local men near an empty freight car, still in uniform, begging for food, and returned to Matteawan without a struggle.
His account of the escape, when interrogated, answered some questions. It also had many echoes of Perry's past escape plans, in Lyons and even Rochester. The keys the convicts used to open the cell doors had, he said, been made from prison spoons. In the isolation ward men judged too dangerous to go to the dining room ate with an iron spoon, as knives or forks could be used as weapons. Patrick Maguire, one of these men, had not only managed to hide two spoons but also, Quigley claimed, used his past experience as a jeweller to turn a thin strip of tempered steel inside the sole of his prison slipper into a saw. Then he transformed the malleable spoons into keys to fit the cell doors; although each cell had two locks, top and bottom, the same two keys would unlock any of the cells on the corridor. Quigley could not explain how Maguire had got the impressions of the locks but it was assumed that a prisoner allowed in the corridor had helped.
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