1895 Farmerville Jailbreak, Union Parish Louisiana

Submitted for the Union Parish Louisiana USGenWeb Archives by T. D. Hudson, 12/2004


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1895 Farmerville Jailbreak, Union Parish Louisiana
Farmerville "Gazette" issue of 13 March 1895, page 3
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     Tuesday morning the people of town were surprised to learn that the prisoners 
confined in the steelcages in the parish jail had broken out Monday night and made 
their escape. There were four men in prison - W. L. Tisdale, charged with murder, 
Dock Carter and Ingram Wallace, convicted and sentenced to jail for disturbing a 
peaceable assembly and "captain" Cullins (colored) who was lodged in jail Saturday 
charged with several minor offenses.

     For the past several days workmen have been engaged in the jail putting up 
the two new iron cages recently purchased by the parish. In doing this work they 
necessarily have in the building many hammers and strong wooden prizes. But extra 
precautions have been taken by the sheriff, and his deputies to keep these materials 
far from the reach of the prisoners, all of whom were confined in the iron cells. 
Monday evening after the workmen had finished work for the day, deputy sheriff 
Taylor went to the jail and moved all the hammers, iron and wooden prizes far out 
of the reach of the prisoners, and even laid those things behind some large iron 
pieces which were so heavy that it would take two or three men to lift them, and 
securely locked the jail. How those very pieces which Mr. Taylor moved got into 
the cells is now the question. Evidently they were put there by some party who had 
entered the jail during the night. An investigation of the building shows that the 
iron bars in one of the window, on the ground floor were prized in from the outside 
for, there was lying on the outside of the jail Tuesday morning a heavy piece of 
oak timber which had every mark upon it to show that it had been used as a prize. 
After entering upon the ground floor, access to the iron cages on the second floor 
of the jail was easy as the wooden door separating the two departments is easily 
opened. The prisoners effected their escape from the steel cages by breaking a large 
hold in the iron door about the place through  which their meals are pushed to them 
from the outside. The iron hammers which deputy sheriff Taylor had put out of their 
reach about sundown Monday evening were found on the inside of the cages and lying 
near them Tuesday morning. The heavy thick steel of the door to the cage was broken 
off either by prizing or hammering. The old negro, Wilson Jones, who lives near the 
jail, says he heard hammering about the building Monday night between midnight and 
day, but as the prisoners usually make a good deal of noise and as there has for 
the last several days been a continual hammering about the building, he says he 
paid no attention to it and did not suspect anything wrong was being done. There 
are many circumstances about the jail to lead one to the conclusion that the 
prisoners were assisted in breaking jail by parties who entered the building from 
the outside during the night. It is the general opinion of nearly all parties who 
have been to the jail that help was given the prisoners from the outside.


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