News: Neillsville, Wis. (Jail breaking - 31 Oct 1901)

Contact: Dolores Mohr Kenyon

Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Pickett, Payson, Campbell, Longton

----Source: The Neillsville Times (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI.) October 31, 1901

Neillsville (Jail breaking - 1901)

A Second Jail Breaking: The impenetrability of our county jail walls is in your eye, Horatio.  On Monday night two young men sawed off a window bar, bent it and departed, whither, nobody knows.  They were not noted desperadoes either, one being held for trial on a charge of absorbing somebody’s Waterbury watch; and the other is awaiting trial for trying to acquire wealth by acting as cats-paw with a check at a bank in a cheap effort at forgery.  Their names are Pickett and Payson, and they are the merest amateurs at jail breaking.

They had been left in the outer corridor, the cell door open, on account of an allege case of rheumatism in Pickett’s arm, which required frequent bathing with hot water.  During the day one of the men had been allowed to carry up wood, and it is suspected that he had picked up a screw saw belonging to Hugh Campbell, and that with this they sawed off the steel window bar. This balcony scene at the county coop is getting too frequent.  Longton and his expert pals set a bad example, that’s sure.