Part 22

The latter part of the Reed regime I was in the storeroom.

Jan. 25, 1884, when we had been in the prison something over seven years, the main prison building was destroyed by fire at night. George P. Dodd, who was then connected with the prison, while his wife was matron, and who still lives in Buffalo, Minn., said of our behavior that night:

“I was obliged to take the female convicts from their cells and place them in a small room that could not be locked. The Youngers were passing and Cole asked if they could be of any service. I said: ‘Yes, Cole. Will you three boys take care of Mrs. Dodd and the women?’ Cole answered: ‘Yes, we will, and if you ever had any confidence in us place it in us now.’ I told him I had the utmost confidence and I slipped a pistol to Cole as I had two. Jim, I think, had an ax handle and Bob a little pinch bar. The boys stood before the door of the little room for hours and even took the blankets they had brought with them from their cells and gave them to the women to try and keep them comfortable as it was very cold. When I could take charge of the women and the boys were relieved, Cole returned my revolver.”

Next morning Warden Reed was flooded with telegrams and newspaper sensations: “Keep close watch of the Youngers;” “Did the Youngers escape?” “Plot to free the Youngers,” and that sort of thing.

The warden came to his chief deputy, Abe Hall, and suggested that we be put in irons, not that he had any fear on our account, but for the effect on the public.

“I’ll not put irons on ’em,” replied Hall.

And that day Hall and Judge Butts took us in a sleigh down town to the county jail where we remained three or four weeks. That was the only time we were outside the prison enclosure from 1876 till 1901.

When H. G. Stordock became warden, I was made librarian, while Jim carried the mail and Bob was clerk to the steward where we remained during the administration of Wardens Randall and Garvin, except Bob, who wasted away from consumption and died in September, 1889.

When Warden Wolfer came to the prison, he put Jim in charge of the mail and the library, and I was set at work in the laundry temporarily while the new hospital building was being made ready. I was then made head nurse in the hospital, and remained there until the day we were paroled, Warden Reeve, who was there for two years under the administration of Gov. Lind, leaving us there.

Every one of these wardens was our friend, and the deputy wardens, too. Abe Hall, Will Reed, A. D. Westby, Sam A. Langum, T. W. Alexander, and Jack Glennon were all partisans of ours. If any reader misses one name from this list of deputy wardens, there is nothing I have to say for or against him.

Dr. Pratt, who was prison physician when we went to Stillwater, Dr. T. C. Clark, who was his assistant, and Dr. B. J. Merrill, who has been prison physician since, have been staunch partisans of the Younger boys in the efforts of our friends to secure our pardon. And the young doctors with whom I was thrown in close contact during their service as assistant prison physicians, Drs. Sidney Boleyn, Gustavus A. Newman, Dan Beebe, A. E. Hedbeck, Morrill Withrow, and Jenner Chance, have been most earnest in their championship of our cause.

The stewards, too, Benner, and during the Reeve regime, Smithton, which whom as head nurse I was thrown in direct contact, never had any difficulty with me, although Benner with a twinkle in his eye, would say to me:

“Cole, I believe you come and get peaches for your patients up there long after they are dead.”

The invalids in that hospital always got the delicacies they wanted, subject to the physician’s permission, if what they wanted was to be found anywhere in Stillwater or in St. Paul. The prison hospital building is not suitable for such use, and a new hospital building is needed, but no fault can be found with the way invalid prisoners are cared for at Stillwater.

When there is added a new hospital building, and the present hospital is transformed into an insane ward, Stillwater will indeed be a model prison.

Words fail me when I seek to express my gratitude to the host of friends who were glad to plead our cause during the later years of our confinement at Stillwater, and especially to Warden Henry Wolfer and his family, every one of whom was a true friend to Jim and myself.

33. THE STAR OF HOPE

In spite of the popular indignation our crime had justly caused, from the day the iron gates closed behind us in 1876, there were always friends who hoped and planned for our ultimate release. Some of these were misguided, and did us more harm than good.

Among these were two former guerrillas, who committed small crimes that they might be sent to prison and there plot with us for our escape. One of them was only sent to the county jail, and the other served a year in Stillwater prison without ever seeing us.

Well meaning, too, but unfortunate, was the declaration of Missouri friends in Minnesota that they could raise $100,000 to get us out of Stillwater.

But as the years went by, the popular feeling against us not only subsided, but our absolute submission to the minutest details of prison discipline won for us the consideration, I might even say the high esteem of the prison officials who came in contact with us, and as the Northfield tragedy became more and more remote, those who favored our pardon became more numerous, and yearly numbered in their ranks more and more of the influential people of the state, who believed that our crime had been avenged, and that Jim and I, the only survivors of the tragedy, would be worthy citizens if restored to freedom.

My Missouri friends are surprised to find that I prize friendships in Minnesota, a state where I found so much trouble, but in spite of Northfield, and all its tragic memories, I have in Minnesota some of the best friends a man ever had on earth.

Every governor of Minnesota from as early as 1889 down to 1899 was petitioned for our pardon, but not one of them was satisfied of the advisability of a full pardon, and the parole system provided by the enlightened humanitarianism of the state for other convicts did not apply to lifers.

Under this system a convict whose prison record is good may be paroled on his good behavior after serving half of the term for which he was sentenced.

The reiterated requests for our pardon, coming from men the governors had confidence in, urging them to a pardon they were reluctant to grant, led to a feeling, which found expression finally in official circles, that the responsibility of the pardoning power should be divided by the creation of a board of pardons as existed in some other states.

It was at first proposed that the board should consist of the governor, attorney general and the warden of the prison, but before the bill passed, Senator Allen J. Greer secured the substitution for the chief justice for the warden, boasting, when the amendment was made:

“That ties the Youngers up for as long as Chief Justice Start lives.”

A unanimous vote of the board was required to grant a pardon, and as Chief Justice Start had lived in the vicinity of Northfield at the time of the raid in 1876, many people believed that he would never consent to our pardon.