In 1924, Vernon Dalhart, a classically trained light opera singer, had some success recording a song, “The Wreck On The Southern Old 97,” for the Edison Company, but believed that he could get wider distribution if he recorded it with Victor. The recording executives at Victor agreed, but they needed a song for the flipside of the record.

The Flipside

Dalhart’s cousin, Guy Massey, put together some lyrics for Dalhart and called his song, “Prisoner’s Song.” Massey mainly got the lyrics from his brother, who had spent time in prison and had heard other prisoners sing the song. The lyrics are the laments of a narrator-singer who is about to head to prison. He reflects on his loneliness, and he fantasizes about the ability to fly away from prison and into the arms of the woman of his dreams.

Oh, I wish I had someone to love me
Someone to call me their own
Oh, I wish I had someone to live with
‘Cause I’m tired of livin’ alone.

Vernon Dalhart (Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress)

Oh, please meet me tonight in the moonlight
Please meet me tonight all alone
For I have a sad story to tell you
It’s a story that’s never been told.

I’ll be carried to the new jail tomorrow
Leavin’ my poor darlin’ alone
With the cold prison bars all around me
And my head on a pillow of stone.

Now I have a grand ship on the ocean
All mounted with silver and gold
And before my poor darlin’ would suffer
Oh, that ship would be anchored and sold.

Now if I had wings like an angel
Over these prison walls I would fly
And I’d fly to the arms of my poor darlin’
And there I’d be willin’ to die.

Altered Lyrics

For the most part, Massey’s lyrics closely reproduce a nineteenth-century English folksong called “Meet Me By the Moonlight.” The main difference between the two songs is that the Massey’s title announces that the singer is a prisoner, and the song says as much in the third stanza. “Meet Me By the Moonlight,” on the other hand, only reveals that the narrator-singer is a prisoner at the very end of the song.

Meet me by the moonlight, love, meet me,
Meet me by the moonlight alone, alone.
I have a sad story to tell you
All down by the moonlight alone.

I’ve always loved you my darling,
You said I’ve never been true.
I’d do anything just to please you
I’d die any day just for you

I have a ship on the ocean
All lined with silver and gold,
And before my little darling shall suffer,
I’ll have the ship anchored and sold

If I had wings like an angel,
Over these prison walls I would fly.
I’d fly to the arms of my darling
And there I’d be willing to die

More than likely, Massey’s brother had heard other prisoners singing “Meet Me By the Moonlight,” and the inmates over time altered the lyrics so that the song better reflected their own situation. Still, Guy Massey received credit for composing the song.

Copyright Issues

Nat Shilkret, the musical director at Victor records, took Massey’s lyrics and composed the tune for the song, although Carson Robison, who plays guitar on the Dalhart recording, claimed that he also helped compose the tune. Years later, Robison included the song in a songbook he put together. Perhaps in protest, he altered the title to “The New Prisoner’s Song” and attributed its composition to the public domain by using the fictional composer “E. V. Body” (read “Everybody”). Dalhart assigned the song’s copyright to his cousin, but ended up taking possession of it when Massey died.

Copyright issues also followed the song that provided the original impetus for Dalhart’s record. After the record’s release, more than fifty authorship claims and two lawsuits were filed for the rights to “The Wreck On The Southern Old 97.”

Dalhart’s record was released on October 3, 1924, and it was an instant hit. But its popularity was not due to “The Wreck On The Southern Old 97.” “Prisoner’s Song” turned out to be the reason why so many people bought the record.

“Prisoner’s Song” became the first country music record to sell over a million copies, and by 1926 it was the best-selling popular song in the United States. The song turned Vernon Dalhart into a hillbilly recording star, although you can certainly hear the operatic training of Dalhart in the recording. I had planned to play at least some of Dalhart’s performance of the song in the accompanying podcast to this post, but copyright restrictions prevent me from doing so. Nonetheless, you can listen to Dalhart’s version of “Prison Song” at the Library of Congress’s National Jukebox.

Ernest Helton

One year after Dalhart recorded “Prisoner’s Song,” Robert Winslow Gordon, the director of the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress, recorded Ernest Helton’s version of “Prisoner’s Song.” The tune of Helton’s version is similar to Dalhart’s, but the words more directly address the hardships of prison life.

Ernest Helton and his brother, Osey

Well, it’s hard to be locked up in prison
‘way from your friends and your home,
With the cold iron bars all around you
And a pillow that is made out of stone.

Chorus:
Lone and sad, sad and lone
Sitting in my cell all alone;
Thinking of the days that’s gone by me,
Of the days when I knew I had a home.

[False Start]

Lone and sad, sad and lone,
Sitting in my cell all alone;
Thinking of the days that’s gone by me,
Of the days when I knew I had a home.

Seven long years I been in prison,
Seven long years yesterday,
For knocking a man down in the alley

And taking his gold watch and chain.

Chorus

I once had a father and a mother,
I wonder if they ever think of me;
I once had a sister and a brother

Dwelled in a [?] cottage by the sea

Chorus

I am going to a new jail tomorrow,
I’m leaving the ones that I love.
I’m leaving my friends and relations,

And oh how lonely my home.

Chorus

Click on the podcast link connected to this post to listen to Helton’s version of “Prisoners Song” and to learn more about Robert Winslow Gordon and Ernest Helton.

Note that the recording of Helton’s “Prisoner’s Song,” which is also available on the Library of Congress’s website, omits the last three choruses because of technical difficulties in copying the original cylinder.

Sources

• Carlin, Bob. “Whip the Devil ‘Round the Stump: More Stories from the Helton Brothers.” The Old-Time Herald 10:10. Website: The Old-Time Herald (Accessed on 10/5/2011): http://www.oldtimeherald.org/archive/back_issues/volume-10/10-10/heltons.html.
• Cohen, Norm. “Robert W. Gordon and the Second Wreck of ‘Old 97.’” The Journal of American Folklore 87: 343 (Jan. – Mar., 1974), pp. 12-38.
• “Folk-Songs of America: The Robert Winslow Gordon Collection, 1922-1932: Band 8.” Database: The American Folklife Center, Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/folklife/Gordon/sideAband8.html.
• “Meet Me By the Moonlight.” Website: Bluegrass Lyrics (Accessed on 10/5/2011): http://www.bluegrasslyrics.com/node/455.
• “Osey and Ernest Helton: String Band Musicians.” Website: Blueridge National Heritage Area (Accessed on 10/5/2011): http://www.blueridgeheritage.com/traditional-artist-directory/osey-and-ernest-helton.
• “The Prisoner’s Song.” Performed by Vernon Dalhart on August 13, 1924 in New York, NY. Victor 19427. Database: National Jukebox, Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov/jukebox/recordings/detail/id/10025/.
• “Vernon Dalhart Biography – 1924.” Website: Bluegrass Messengers (Accessed on 10/5/2011): http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/vernon-dalhart–carson-robison.aspx.
• “Vernon Dalhart, The Prisoner’s Song Tabs/Chords.” Website: Cowboy Lyrics (Accessed on 10/5/2011): http://www.cowboylyrics.com/tabs/dalhart-vernon/the-prisoners-song-6748.html.

In this podcast, I talk about how I came up with the idea of writing my new book, Bound with an Iron Chain, and about my experience writing it.

Book Update

My book is slowly beginning to populate the various booksellers across the Web. Here is a list of websites from around the world where you can find my book.

In Paperback:

• Amazon.com
• Barnes and Noble
• Amazon.co.uk (United Kingdom)
• Amazon.ca (Canada)

As an E-Book:

• Amazon.com – Kindle
• Barnes and Noble – Nook
• Smashwords – All e-book formats (including Kindle, Nook, Sony, etc.)
• Amazon.co.uk – Kindle (United Kingdom)
• Google Books (U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia)
• Also available in Apple iBooks

I was recently in London and had the good fortune to interview and enjoy afternoon tea with Lucy Inglis, who is the author/publisher of Georgian London.

Lucy and I met on Monday, April 18 at Blacks in Soho, London, and we talked about eighteenth-century London, crime, and the perception of Americans by Londoners during this time. Lucy is currently finishing up a book about Georgian London, so she also gave a sneak preview of what we will learn from the book when it is published by Penguin in the spring of 2012.

Click on the audio link associated with this post to hear my interview with Lucy, and then don’t forget to visit her website at www.georgianlondon.com.

“Take My Hammer” is a work song that possibly has roots going back to the time of slavery and was sung by convicts who were leased to dig tunnels through the Appalachian Mountains:

Take my hammer,
Carry it to the captain,
Tell him I’m gone,
Tell him I’m gone.
If he ask you was I running,
Tell him no,
Tell him no.
Tell him I was going across the Blue Ridge Mountains
Walking slow, yes, walking slow.

Legend has it that John Henry sang this song as he worked himself to death while competing against a steam engine to see which one of them could dig through a mountain faster. But John Henry would himself become legend, and his story became a popular song sung by convicts and folk singers alike.

“John Henry” on the Parchman Farm State Prison

In 1947-1948, Alan Lomax recorded a group of convicts singing the song “John Henry” in the Parchman Farm State Prison in Mississippi. The group was led by a prisoner known as “22,” and they sang the song as they used hoes to dig up the ground.

John Henry had a little baby,
Well, you could hold him in the palm of your hand,
And before that baby was a nine days old,
He was drivin’ down steel like a man.
MY LORD!
Well, he was drivin’ steel like a man.

John Henry told his driver,
Said you all got to know,
That you pay more money on that streamline train,
Than they do on that M&O – YES, LORD!
Than they do on that M&O.

Darlin’, who gonna buy your slippers?
Well, who gonna glove your hand?
Who gonna kiss your rosy cheeks?
Darlin’, who gonna be your man?
OH LORD!
Who gonna be your man?

Well, my brother gonna buy my slippers,
And my cousin gonna glove my hand,
And my mother gonna kiss my rosy cheeks,
Ain’t gonna have no man – MY LORD!
Ain’t gonna have no man.

John Henry went up on the mountain,
And the mountain was so tall,
Well, the mountain was so tall,
and John Henry was so small,
Well, he laid his hammer down and he cried
LORD, LORD!
Well, he laid his hammer down and he cried.

John Henry had a little woman,
Well, her name was Polly Ann.
Well, John Henry took sick and he had to go to bed,
Well, Polly droves steel like a man.
WELL, WELL, WELL!
And Polly drove steel like a man.

Well some said he come from England,
Well, some said he come from Spain,
But I say he was a West Virginia man,
Cause he died with a hammer in his hand
MY LORD!
Well, he died with a hammer in his hand.

Statue of John Henry near Talcott, WV

The Evolution of “John Henry”

You will notice in the “John Henry” song that was sung on Parchman Farm that there is no mention of the celebrated competition between John Henry and the steam engine. The story of John Henry in song has evolved over time, and there are hundreds of versions of “John Henry” that have been recorded over the years with lots of variations in the story.

And in the same way that the John Henry story in some songs is sometimes unrecognizable from the one that we commonly know, many of the folksongs that recount his legend have little relationship musically to the work songs that inspired them. The later folksongs tend to be upbeat—Lead Belly even insisted that the song of “John Henry” is a dance number. The tempos of these later songs are quite different from the methodical and slow tempos of the convict work songs that originally told the story of John Henry. Yet another lineage traces “John Henry” to the group of songs that were among the first to be known as the blues.

Here is a mere sample of some of the “John Henry” songs that have been recorded over the years. All of these versions are available at the Internet Archive.

Paul Robeson

Lead Belly

Pink Anderson

John Lee Hooker

Mississippi Fred McDowell

Peg Leg Sam

Despite the many variations of John Henry in story and song, the one stanza that appears in the majority of songs about him captures the essence of his story’s appeal:

John Henry said to his captain,
“A man, he ain’t nothing but a man,
Before I’d let that steam drill beat me down,
I’d die with the hammer in my hand,
Oh, I’d die with the hammer in my hand.”

The Real John Henry?

John Henry, servant, at headquarters, 3d Army Corps, Army of the Potomac (Library of Congress).

The man in this photograph might be the real John Henry, although no direct evidence links him to this picture. Click on the podcast audio link associated with this post to learn more about the true story of John Henry.

I also highly recommend reading Scott Reynolds Nelson’s Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend.

Sources

• CD Notes. Prison Songs (Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947-48): Don’tcha Hear Poor Mother Calling?. Vol. II. The Alan Lomax Collection. Cambridge, MA: Rounder Records, 1997.
• Franklin, H. Bruce. “Songs of an Imprisoned People.” MELUS 6:1 (Spring, 1979), 6-22.
• Nelson, Scott Reynolds. Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
• [Various versions of “John Henry”]. Database: Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org.

From the 1870’s to the 1920’s, some Southern states contracted their convicts out to private landowners and companies to perform heavy labor, such as timbering, mining, railroad work, and farming. Little to no concern was given to the prisoners’ safety or health, and they received inadequate food, shelter, and clothing. Because the convicts belonged to the state, the landowners who leased their labor could essentially work the prisoners to death.

The contracting of prison labor created a need for prisoners. If the convict labor supply ever dipped below demand, local sheriffs would simply provide a new supply of convicts by framing and arresting African-Americans for loitering, idling, trespassing, or even failing to surrender the sidewalk to a white person. People who were big and strong were particularly vulnerable to arrest due to the increased value of their labor output.

The prison work song “Prettiest Train”–after recollecting some of the joys of life outside of prison–discusses the ease with which African-American men were arrested and sent to work on prison farms. Alan Lomax recorded a version of the song sung by a prisoner with the nickname “22” when he visited Parchman Farm in the 1940’s.

To learn more about the use of prison labor in the South and to hear “22” sing the prison work song “Prettiest Train,” click on the audio link associated with this post.

African American convicts working with shovels, possibly at Darrington State Farm, Texas, 1934 - Library of Congress

Prettiest train that I ever seen, man.
Prettiest train, my Lawd, I ever seen,
Prettiest train, Lawd, ever seen,
I ‘clare, she run down to Jackson, back to New Orleans,
New Orleans, a-New Orleans.
I swear she ran down to Jackson,
Back to New Orleans.

Mattie, when you marry, marry a railroad man, (3)
I declare, no ev’y day Sunday, dollar in your hand,
In your hand, in your hand!
I declare, no ev’y Sunday, dollar in your hand!

Mattie, when you marry,
don’t marry no convict man, (2)
I declare now, ev’y day Monday,
hoe handle in your hand,
In your hand, in your hand!

Prettiest woman that I ever seen, (3)
I declare now, Rampart Street-a,
down in New Orleans,
New Orleans, a-New Orleans,
I declare now, Rampart Street,
Down in New Orleans!

You go to Jackson just to show your clothes, (3)
I go to Jackson play them dicin’ holes,
Dicin’ holes, dicin’ holes,
I declare now, I go to Jackson, play them dicin’ holes.

You go to Memphis, don’t you hang around, (3)
I swear now, polic’ll catch and you’re
workhouse bound,’
Workhouse bound, workhouse bound,
I swear now, police’ll catch and you’re
workhouse bound.

"Lightnin'" Washington, an African American prisoner, singing with his group in the woodyard at Darrington State Farm, Texas - Library of Congress

Parchman Farm was located 90 miles south of Memphis in the Delta region of Mississippi and was created by James Kimble Vardaman after he became governor in 1904. The prison farm was divided into fifteen camps over 46 square miles, and cotton was planted on several thousand acres.

Prison farms were run much like antebellum plantations. Crops were grown in practically the same way as they were back in the nineteenth century, and the punishments and rewards given to convicts were similar to those handed out to slaves. By 1915, Parchman was turning a profit for the state. The system at Parchman did not end until 1972, when a lawsuit finally forced the farm to morph into a modern prison facility, although this change happened slowly.

Sources

• CD Notes. Prison Songs: Historical Recordings from Parchman Farm, 1947-48. Vol. I. The Alan Lomax Collection. Cambridge, MA: Rounder Records, 1997.
• Franklin, H. Bruce. “Songs of an Imprisoned People.” MELUS 6:1 (Spring, 1979), 6-22.
• “Negro Prison Songs from The Mississippi State Penitentiary; A Selection.
  Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947.” Database: Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/negroprisonsongs.

In 1933, John and Alan Lomax visited prison farms in the South in the hope of recording African-American songs that dated back to the time of slavery. Their visits were based on the theory that the best places to find songs of slavery preserved in their purest form were in prison camps, with their close resemblance to the conditions of antebellum plantations and their isolation from general society. What they found instead were original songs with themes that directly addressed contemporary prison life.

Here are the lyrics for two versions of the prison song “Jumpin’ Judy.” Both versions have different themes despite their shared name. To learn more about “Jumpin’ Judy,” click on the audio link at the beginning of this post to hear one of the versions of the song performed by the convicts at the Parchman Farm in the Delta region of Mississippi and to listen to me talk more about the song.

From American Ballads and Folk Songs.

This version of “Jumpin’ Judy” was recorded by the Lomaxes in the early 1930’s in Chattanooga, TN and was sung by Allen Prothro. The Lomaxes found similar versions of the song in both Tennessee and Mississippi. Judy or Julie was a common name used in song throughout Southern prisons, and “Jumpin’” refers to how the prisoners respond to an angry prison guard. The song is about the prisoner being continually pushed in his work and ends with his escape.

Jumpin’ Judy, jumpin’ Judy, hanh!
Jumpin’ Judy, jumpin’ Judy, hanh!
Jumpin’ Judy, jumpin’ Judy, hanh!
All over dis worl’, hanh, all over dis worl’, hanh!

Well you kick an’ stomp an’ beat me,
Well you kick an’ stomp an’ beat me,
Well you kick an’ stomp an’ beat me,
Da’s all I know, da’s all I know.

Yonder come my cap’n,
Yonder come my cap’n,
Yonder come my cap’n,
Who has been gone so long, who has been gone so long.

Gonna tell him how you treat me,
Gonna tell him how you treat me,
Gonna tell him how you treat me,
So you better git gone, so you better git gone.

He got a 44,
He got a 44,
He got a 44,
In-a his right han’, in-a his right han’.

Gonna take dis ol’ hammer,
Gonna take dis ol’ hammer,
Give it back to jumpin’ Judy,
An’ tell her I’m gone, suh, an’ tell her I’m gone.

Ef she asks you was I runnin’,
Ef she asks you was I runnin’,
Ef she asks you was I runnin’,
You can tell I’s flyin’, you can tell I’s flyin’.

Tell ‘er I crossed de St. John’s River,
Tell ‘er I crossed de St. John’s River,
Tell ‘er I crossed de St. John’s River,
Wid my head hung down, wid my head hung down.

From Prison Songs: Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947-48.

This version of the song was recorded by Alan Lomax on Parchman Farm in Mississippi in 1947-48 and is sung by Tangle Eye, Fuzzy Red, Hard Hair, and others. The names of these lead singers are nicknames that were given to the singers when they first entered the prison farm.

Parchman Farm - 1911

Here, Jumpin’ Judy has a baby and abandons the prisoner by leaving on the Illinois Central railroad for Kankakee. Rosie then enters the picture. She is a common figure in prison songs and generally lends comfort to the prisoners. In this case, she arrives with a pardon. You can listen to this version of the song in the audio clip.

O well, it’s jumpin’, jumpin’ Judy,
O well, it’s jumpin’, jumpin’ Judy,
O well, it’s jumpin’, jumpin’ Judy,
Boy, she was a mighty fine gal.

O well, she brought that jumpin’,
O well, she brought that jumpin’,
O well, she brought that jumpin’,
Baby, to this whole wide world.

O well, she brought it in the mornin’,
O well, she brought it in the mornin’,
O well, she brought it in the mornin’,
Baby, just a little ‘fore day.

You catch the Illinois Central,
You catch the Illinois Central,
You catch the Illinois Central,
Baby, go to Kankakee.

O Well, and yonder come old Rosie,
O Well, and yonder come old Rosie,
O Well, and yonder come old Rosie,
Baby, how in the world you know?

O well, I knowed her by her apron,
O well, I knowed her by her apron,
O well, I knowed her by her apron,
Baby, red’s the dress that she wore.

O well, she wore a Mother Hubbard,
O well, she wore a Mother Hubbard,
O well, she wore a Mother Hubbard,
Baby, like a morning gown.

O well, I heard her tell the sergeant,
O well, I heard her tell the sergeant,
O well, I heard her tell the sergeant,
“Sir, I’ve come for my man.

“Poor boy, he’s been here a-rollin’,
Poor boy, he’s been here a-rollin’,
Poor boy, he’s been here a-rollin’,
Baby, for the state so long.

“O well, I know he’s done got sorry,
O well, I know he’s done got sorry,
O well, I know he’s done got sorry,
Buddy, that he ever done wrong.”

Sources

• CD Notes. Prison Songs: Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947-48, Vol. 1: Murderous Home. The Alan Lomax Collection. Cambridge, MA: Rounder Records, 1997.
• Lomax, John A. and Alan Lomax. “Jumpin’ Judy.” American Ballads and Folk Songs. New York: Dover Publications, 1994. Originally published by Macmillan, 1934.
• “Negro Prison Songs from The Mississippi State Penitentiary; A Selection.
  Historical Recordings From Parchman Farm 1947.” Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/negroprisonsongs.

In the 1930’s, John A. Lomax and his son, Alan Lomax, traveled around the United States collecting and recording ballads and songs sung by cowboys, lumberjacks, slaves, creoles, and railway men. They also recorded work songs sung by convicts in Southern prison farms.

The following song, “Black Betty,” appears in their 1934 compilation, American Ballads and Folk Songs, and it was sung to the Lomaxes by a convict doing time at the Darrington State Farm in Texas. “Black Betty” refers to “the whip that was and is used in some Southern prisons.”

Oh, Lawd, Black Betty,
Bam-ba-lamb,
Oh, Lawd, Black Betty,
Bambalamb,
Black Betty had a baby,
Bambalamb,
Black Betty had a baby,
Bambalamb.

Oh, Lawd, Black Betty,
Bam-ba-lamb,
Oh, Lawd, Black Betty,
Bam-ba-lamb,
It de cap’n’s baby,
Bam-ba-lamb
It de cap’n’s baby,
Bam-ba-lamb.

Oh, Lawd, Black Betty,
Bambalamb,
Oh, Lawd, Black Betty,
Bambalamb,
But she didn’ feed de baby,
Bambalamb,
But she didn’ feed de baby,
Bambalamb.

Oh, Lawd, Black Betty,
Bambalamb,
Oh, Lawd, Black Betty,
Bambalamb,
Black Betty, where’d you come from?
Bambalamb,
Black Betty, where’d you come from?
Bambalamb.

Click the audio link at the beginning of this post to hear the song performed by Lead Belly and to listen to me talk more about “Black Betty.”

John A. Lomax

African American prisoners at compound no. 1, Angola, Louisiana ( Leadbelly in foreground) - Library of Congress

Two unidentified convicts, one of whom is playing the guitar and looks like Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter) - Library of Congress

Lead Belly

Sources

• Lomax, John A. and Alan Lomax. “Black Betty.” American Ballads and Folk Songs. New York: Dover Publications, 1994. Originally published by Macmillan, 1934.
• “Black Betty” as performed by Lead Belly: Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/details/BlackBetty.
• “Black Betty.” Random House Historical Dictionary of Slang. Ed. J. E. Lighter. Random House, 1994.
• Gioia, Ted. Delta Blues: The Life and Times of the Mississippi Masters Who Revolutionized American Music. W. W. Norton, 2008.
• Jackson, Bruce. Wake Up Dead Man: Hard Labor and Southern Blues. University of Georgia Press, 1999.
• “Lead Belly.” Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_Belly.
• Porterfield, Nolan. Last Cavalier: The Life and Times of John A. Lomax, 1867-1948 (Folklore and Society). University of Illinois Press, 1996.

Click the image to go to Early American Crimes

Over the past year or so I have been writing about burglars and burglary in early America. To conclude this informal series I am going to try something a little different.

Please click on the audio media file attached to this post to hear me talk about my reflections and conclusions about burglary in early America. I am including my notes below to help you follow along as I talk.

The Burglars

• Backgrounds
  • Some had neglectful parents, and some even learned their criminal skills from their parents or guardians.
  • Others came from well-off families and had kind, generous, and God-fearing parents.
  • Some were educated, but others received little to no education at all.
  • Some of the burglars served in the army, where they picked up skills and behaviors that led them into a life of crime.
• A movement from isolated incidents of burglary–perhaps carried out during irrational moments–to more calculated, organized, and professional acts of burglary.
  • The Harvard-educated burglars, James Ward and Joseph Welde (1644): a couple of college kids who made poor judgment in burglarizing the house of one of their uncles.
  • Mathew Cushing (1734): his crimes appear to be less the acts of a professional criminal than of a rebellious young man who tried to take advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves to him.
  • The Morrison Gang (1744): an organized, professional gang of criminals living in Philadelphia, who carried out a string of calculated burglaries.
  • Henry Tufts (1793): planted burglary tools around the area he targeted, so that he had immediate access to them.
• Personal progression.
  • Burglars often started out committing acts of petty crime as youths and then became more daring and attempted more sophisticated crimes as they got older.
  • Many of the burglars talked about a specific moment when they decided to become a professional criminal, almost like a conversion.

Burglary Methods

• Many of the burglars took advantage of opportunities as they saw them, such as an open window.
• More professional burglars employed advanced planning to carry out their burglaries and usually gained knowledge of the shop or building they were about to burglarize from a friend or acquaintance.
• Some burglars returned over and over again to the same towns and stores.
• Of all the burglars profiled, not one of them employed violence in carrying out a burglary.

Punishments

• Burglary had to be punished harshly, because it was easy to carry out at this time.
  • Easy to break into houses and stores.
  • Dwellings were more isolated from one another, which made for easy targets.
  • Problem of the Bible never singling out burglary as a crime, so early American communities that based their social organization on the Word of God did not have guidance in punishing burglary.
• Trends:
  • The Harvard-educated burglars, James Ward and Joseph Welde (1644): a whipping and expulsion from school.
  • Arthur Nottool (1664): successfully pleaded Benefit of Clergy after being found guilty of burglary in Maryland, thus avoiding a death sentence.
  • Mathew Cushing (1734): who was executed and was the first American criminal celebrity.
  • Henry Tufts (1793): despite committing multiple burglaries, which should have earned him a death sentence, Tufts received a reprieve from the governor and was instead committed to life in prison.
• Branding as a punishment seemed to go away in the 1770’s, and it never seemed to stop the criminal from committing further acts of burglary, as in the case of Isaac Frasier.
• Escapes from jail and prison:
  • The fluid walls of the jails: most of the burglars held in prison seemed to be able to find their way out, and often did.
  • Makes sense: experts at breaking into houses and stores can use those same skills to break out of prison.
  • Burglars were adroit at identifying weaknesses in building construction and could use the vulnerabilities of prison walls to escape.
  • Their escapes indicate how primitive some of these prisons must have been, since their inhabitants could so easily escape out of them.
• As in England, there was a struggle over the bodies of the executed to keep them away from surgeons, who wanted to use them for dissection.
  • Mathew Cushing was dissected.
  • Levi Ames’s body was successfully buried in an undisclosed location, despite the surgeons’s determination to take possession of it.
• Many of the burglars asked people to use their fate as a warning not to follow in their footsteps.

In the end, I never grew tired of these stories of burglars. I originally thought that by focusing on burglary, at some point I would find myself repeating the same story over and over again. But that never happened.

As I read about and explored these criminal figures, each burglar exhibited some twist in their behavior or circumstance or criminal act that called out and compelled me to write about him or her. I hope these stories of early American burglars have captured your imagination as much as they have mine.

Note: This post follows “Henry Tufts’s Partners in Crime.”

While living in Massachusetts in 1793, Henry Tufts purchased a silver tablespoon and five teaspoons from John Stewart, who said he found them while clearing out a cellar. Tufts used the spoons until a neighbor recognized them as stolen and reported Tufts to the authorities.

When Tufts told the court how he had acquired the spoons, Stewart was brought in for questioning as well. But before Stewart could fully disclose how he had acquired the spoons, he ran out of the courtroom and escaped, possibly with the assistance of the sheriff, who apparently had it out for Tufts. Now that Tufts lacked a witness to back up his story, he was committed to the Salem jail to await trial by the Supreme Court.

Tufts’s trial did not go well. The loss of Stewart as a witness hampered the spirited defense put up by Tufts’s lawyers, and the jury found Tufts guilty of burglary, although one skeptical juror forced the jury to take several votes before joining the others. Judge Paine condemned Tufts to death by proclaiming that he “must be carried from thence to the place of execution, and there hanged by the neck until dead.” Paine set the day of execution for Thursday, August 14, 1793, which gave Tufts six weeks to prepare for his final exit.

Death Row

While Tufts sat in prison in heavy chains to prevent his escape, the lone holdout juror began to have second thoughts about how he went along with the other jurors and switched his vote from not guilty to guilty. He went before the Governor and Council to express his regret and asked them to show Tufts mercy. In the meantime, Tufts petitioned the Governor to ask for a pardon in exchange for a lifetime prison sentence and urged other influential people to speak with the Governor on his behalf. But Tufts’s efforts did not produce any results.

With less than two weeks to go before his execution, Tufts was visited by a physician, “who accosted me with an affability and good nature, not always to be expected from a stranger.” After sweet-talking Tufts for some time, the doctor finally got to the point of his visit: he was interested in Tufts’s skeleton and offered Tufts a couple guineas and other favors in exchange for his dead body. The proposal horrified Tufts, who sent the doctor away.

Yet another gentleman visited Tufts and offered him seventy dollars for a license to publish Tufts’s life story. Tufts told the man that he was not in any condition to provide a full account of his life, but the man assured him that he knew enough about Tufts to piece together a fine narrative. Since Tufts had no use for money, he told the man that he would consider the offer and get back to him. After consulting with another friend, Tufts turned down the proposal and kept ownership over his life’s story just in case he was able to earn a reprieve.

On the morning of his scheduled execution, Tufts felt chills run down his spine when he looked out the window and saw the sexton carrying tools to dig a grave beneath the gallows where Tufts was to be executed. A schoolmistress visited Tufts and added to his “unutterable consternation” when she told him that she had just seen the coffin that was to hold his dead body. Tufts then heard the gathering of a large numbers of spectators for his execution, and the sound of every footstep outside his jail cell made him shudder with the expectation that it could be the angel of death.

But by three o’clock in the afternoon, the warrant for Tufts’s execution had yet to arrive. The deputy sheriffs continued to wait with Tufts until four o’clock, when it became clear that the warrant would not appear that day. The execution was postponed indefinitely, and the crowd of three thousand dispersed. Every night, Tufts went to bed wondering what was to become of him. He remained in this liminal state for a month, until an order finally arrived to transfer him to the Castle in the Boston Harbor where he was to be confined for life.

Great Theater

The episode of Tufts being falsely accused of stealing a set of spoons and his subsequent experience in prison makes for great theater, but critics have pointed out that it is yet another example of how Tufts’s narrated account does not match the historical record. Leading up to the spoon episode, Tufts boasts in his narrative about the extensive cache of burglary tools he had amassed, although from that point on, he only reports times when he claims to have been falsely accused of burglary. But Tufts was indeed putting his burglary tools to good use. Throughout this period Tufts was breaking into shops and houses and was accused several times of passing counterfeit coins. In fact, even though Tufts denied ever stealing the spoons in court, he faced multiple counts of thefts and burglaries, and dozens of witnesses showed up to testify against him.

The jury that supposedly deliberated his case for so long in actuality delivered a swift guilty verdict, and the attorney general recommended the death penalty without hesitation. Even though burglary was technically a capital crime in Massachusetts in 1793, it was only reserved for repeat offenders who were clearly beyond reformation. So Tufts was not sentenced to death simply for stealing a set of silver spoons, he was sentenced to execution for continually breaking into shops and houses over the past twenty years.

And finally, Tufts could not possibly have witnessed the preparations for his execution, nor heard the throngs of people who showed up for it, because he received a reprieve from the Governor and the Council a full month before his execution was to take place. He clearly made up this entire episode for dramatic effect.

The Castle in Boston Harbor

After receiving his reprieve, Tufts was committed to the Castle in Boston Harbor, and he describes in detail his new setting:

The castle, so called, is a fortress of some strength and commands the entrance into the harbor’s mouth. About thirty pieces of artillery were then mounted on its battlements, the whole being occupied by a company of soldiers, stationed there, to superintend the works and guard the criminals. At the time of my arrival, fifty or more persons, of that description, were under confinement, and doomed to hard service. They were a motley crew, consisting of different kinds of people, as well black as white, as of divers nations and languages; to wit, some French, English, Dutch, Spanish, Irish and American convicts; the latter, however, were the more numerous order. On further acquaintance, I found them a heterogeneous mixture of as vile miscreants and execrable wretches, as human conception could have framed ideas of; there had been no impropriety in pronouncing them the mere dregs of human nature; the refuse and offscouring of the whole globe.

The convicts were mainly employed in making nails, and at the slightest appearance of idleness or insubordination, the soldiers would “beat them like dogs.” When they weren’t making nails, the convicts engaged in “every species of villainy, which they could possibly perpetrate with impunity, such as cursing, swearing, cheating, lying, quarrelling and stealing from one another.”

Life was hard at the Castle. At the end of the workday, Tufts slept on the prison floor with just a tattered rug or blanket for warmth. The coarse bread and tainted “bullock’s heads” served to him evoked such nausea that it was difficult for him to swallow enough of the food to sustain him. When Tufts broke his arm, no doctor attended him, so he had to let it heal on his own. And the frost and snow on his bare feet in winter caused his skin and nails to drop off.

As the summer of 1794 rolled around, Tufts heard preparations for the Fourth of July, but since prisoners were denied participating in this celebration of American freedom, the holiday only heightened awareness of his confinement. Tufts realized that he had yet to try escaping from the island. By this time, Tufts had earned the trust of one of the officers, who gave him full license to move around the twenty-acre island. Tufts casually wandered to the edge of the isle, covered his head with some tufts of tall grass, and went out into the ocean in an attempt to swim to freedom. Unfortunately, a soldier spotted him from the watch tower, and Tufts’s escape attempt ended in failure when a group of soldiers pulled Tufts out of the water and onto their boat in a state as “sleek as a half drowned rat, and shivering with the cold.”

Tufts’s confinement at the Castle continued until 1798, when a transfer of ownership over the island from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to the U.S. Government necessitated the removal of the convicts. Tufts was put in the Salem jail, and it was not long before he discovered a fault in the wall of his cell and escaped.

Retirement

Tufts returned to his hometown of Lee, NH only to discover that his family had moved to Maine. But Tufts tracked them down and resolved never to steal again, a vow he claims in his narrative to have followed ever since.

While in retirement from his criminal life, Tufts learned that his old associate, James Dennis, with whom he had broken into Mr. Pickard’s shop, had died. Dennis had been picked up for house breaking, and while the sheriff and keepers were escorting him to prison, Dennis attempted an escape. He jumped into a raging river, but the manacles around his wrists prevented him from swimming, and he drowned.

At the end of his narrative, Tufts thanks those who treated him well at the Castle, forgives those who did not treat him well, and expresses hope that those he wronged will forgive him. But he not so convincingly ends his book, “Heaven grant, I may do no more wickedly.”

Sources

• Tufts, Henry. A Narrative of the Life, Adventures, Travels, and Sufferings of Henry Tufts. Dover, NH: Samuel Bragg, 1807. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• Williams, Daniel E. “Doctor, Preacher, Soldier, Thief: A New World of Possibilities in the Rogue Narrative of Henry Tufts.” Early American Literature 19.1 (Spring, 1984): 3-20.

Note: This post follows “Henry Tufts’s Thanksgiving.”

Henry Tufts returned to his family in Lee, NH after slipping away from Mr. Pickard, who in good faith had released him from the Old York jail. When Tufts arrived in his home town, though, he discovered that his reputation was as bad as ever, especially when word of his recent exploits reached the gossip circles. To make matters worse, a group of drunken soldiers who were returning from training passed by Tufts’s property and decided to pull his house apart. Tufts threatened the ruffians with a musket, and even though the gun “snapt in the pan” when he took aim at the ringleader, it was enough to scare the group away.

This experience convinced Tufts that he once again needed to leave his family.

Back on the Road

While back on the road Tufts met James Smith, and the two became partners in crime by stealing hens, turkeys, sheep, and other food from farmers for their subsistence. Their carefree lifestyle lasted long enough, until they eventually needed new clothes and other necessities that were not as easy to acquire. A gentleman, who was an acquaintance of Smith, suggested that the two could easily break into a store owned by Smith Gilman and Levi Chapman in Newmarket, NH and even offered them help in doing so. The two partners decided to give it a try.

Using the knowledge they gained from the gentleman, Tufts and Smith forced their way through a window of the store and took clothes, money, pieces of silver, and other goods. They returned to Smith’s friend, gave him some of the booty in compensation for his help, and hit the highway towards Massachusetts, where they proceeded to sell the illicit goods. Unbeknownst to the two burglars, Gilman and Chapman were pursuing them. The two shopkeepers caught Tufts and Smith by surprise and had them arrested. As it happened, the gentleman who aided the burglary and enjoyed some of the spoils from it had turned informant and tipped off Gilman and Chapman about the burglars’ probable route of escape.

Tufts and Smith landed in jail in Exeter. Smith was held in the common prison ward, but Tufts’s reputation earned him solitary confinement in the dungeon with heavy shackles and chains attached to his feet and to a huge iron staple in the floor.

Total Darkness

Tufts remained in total darkness with almost no human interaction while waiting for the Superior Court to meet and hear their case. The effluvia that built up in the chamber, the nipping of vermin, and a lack of adequate food and clothing kept Tufts from sleeping well. After three months of enduring these conditions, Tufts and Smith were finally brought to trial and found guilty. As punishment, they received thirty-five lashes, which were administered by one of the other prisoners. They were also ordered to pay costs and damages for what they stole, and if they could not meet the sum, they were to be sold into servitude to help make up the difference. In addition, they were sentenced to thirty-one more days in prison. This time, though, Tufts was placed in a regular jail cell.

While the two were being held, some friends smuggled a few instruments into the prison, and Tufts used them to drill a hole through the wall. Smith was held in a cell immediately above Tufts, and when he learned of his partner’s plan, he asked Tufts to help him escape as well. Tufts agreed to do so. That night, Tufts called up to Smith and told him that the first thing they needed to do to escape was strip off their clothes, turn them inside out, and throw them out the window. After the two accomplished this act, Tufts crawled out of his cell, gathered up the clothes, and sped away. Tufts figured that Smith’s clothes could come in handy after his escape and left his poor partner to his own devices in a naked state.

The Root Cellar

At one point Tufts traveled to Portsmouth in the hope that he would stumble into some kind of windfall, but not meeting with any success he left the city and headed toward Stratham in the darkness of night. Along the way, he grew hungry and remembered that he knew of a horde of apples and pears stored on a nearby property. He stumbled through the darkness, found the entrance to the root cellar, and broke into it with little effort.

Tufts could not immediately locate the cache of fruit in the pitch black, so he felt around and fell upon a box that gave a hollow sounding noise when he hit it. He continued fumbling about until he hit yet another box, which he came to realize was a great coffin. He had inadvertently broken into a crypt that held a grandmother and her daughter. The shock of his discovery froze him and stood his hair on end, but he eventually recovered and fled the grisly space.

Another Partnership

Tufts formed another criminal partnership with someone he met on the road named Ebenezer Hubbard. The two agreed to split the spoils of their larcenies, but they did not meet with much success. Tufts wanted out of the relationship, but Hubbard convinced him to join a plan to break into a fulling mill and steal a quantity of milled cloth. Suspicion immediately fell on the two rogues, and when they were brought in for questioning about the burglary, Hubbard broke down and confessed everything. Tufts found himself back at the Exeter jail, where he received twenty lashes, was held for twenty days in prison, and even though he was ordered to compensate the victim, he was let go after no one stepped forward to purchase his servitude.

Burglar's Tools

Despite the punishments he received during his stints in the Exeter jail, Tufts decided to throw himself into the burglary profession. He systematically collected a number of burglary tools—including augers, saws, and false keys—and then deposited them in several places, so that he could have easy access to them. Tufts was especially proud of his false keys:

I imagine my keys must have been viewed, as a curiosity, by such as were unused to the sight of such rarities; the construction of them, however, is so simple, as to easily be imitated or made by any smith of common ingenuity; and when judiciously fashioned, are of such extensive application, that one key will fit a great variety of locks. I am positive, that, with this assortment of keys, I could have opened, without violence, almost any lock I ever saw; this I am assured by experience, which is indeed the touchstone of truth.

Tufts also began carrying vitriol, aqua fortis, and other corrosive liquids that could soften or eat through iron.

Even though Tufts provides a detailed account of his preparations for becoming a professional burglar, his narrative from this point forward is filled with claims of false accusations of burglary against him. One of these apparent false accusations eventually landed him on the notorious Castle Island in Boston Harbor.

Note: The story of Henry Tufts concludes with “Henry Tufts in the Castle.”

Sources

• Tufts, Henry. A Narrative of the Life, Adventures, Travels, and Sufferings of Henry Tufts. Dover, NH: Samuel Bragg, 1807. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.