The Wooden Revolver That Freed Ten Prisoners

At about 7:30 o'clock each evening it was Night Jailer Jerry Yerbury's duty to lock the prisoners into their cells by means of a lever worked from the space between the first and second doors. Five minutes before that time last night, Thomas Blanck quietly walked up to a half-inch rope used by the men as a clothesline and took it down. None of the men asked what he meant to do with it, but he made it into a running noose. In a few minutes the night jailer's key turned in the lock. Blanck kept well up to the bars at the west end of the hallway, his grey eyes glittering.

Soon Yerbury walked up to the bars carrying a bottle of medicine for Wilcox. No sooner had the jailer got in front of the little hole through which he intended to pass the medicine than Blanck covered him with a long black revolver and said in a low but determined voice: 'Throw up your hands! Jerry, throw up your hands and don't move! If you disobey my order I will kill you. I do not want to kill you, Jerry, on account of your family, but it is a case of life or death to you or me.'

As the jailer stood with uplifted hands, Blanck turned slightly and cried to the prisoners coming toward his end of the cage: 'Stand back, all of you. If any one moves I will kill him on sight.' Then he made the jailer come close to the bars and turn his back to him. 'Here,' continued the murderer, getting his noosed rope ready and throwing it over his prisoner's head, 'slip that around your left arm.' 'My God,' said Yerbury, 'what good will it do you, Tom, to kill me? If you do that you can't get out at all.' 'I don't want to kill you,' replied Blanck, 'but you must do just as I tell you.' He slipped the rope around Yerbury's left arm and tied it securely so he could hold him where he desired.

'Here, there!' Blanck yelled to Wilcox, 'go and get me a looking glass,' at the same time asking Yerbury if any one was looking through the peep hole from the jailer's office. Yerbury, according to the story told by some of the prisoners, replied that there was no one looking. Then Blanck, as soon as he got the looking glass, kept his gun pointed at Yerbury's head, watched him move by looking glass, and compelled him to open the first door. 'Now open the next one,' said Blanck, and Yerbury complied.

As soon as the desperado got the jailer in his clutches he gave him a turn around and in the twinkling of an eye took away his .45-caliber Colt revolver, his bunch of keys and all the money the poor man had, 50 cents. As he took out his victim's watch he turned it over in his hands and said in that same cold, hard manner which characterizes him: 'Well, I don't want your watch, anyway.' Then he put the timepiece back in Yerbury's pocket.

With the rope tied to the left arm he completed the binding, and when the job was done poor Jerry could not have gotten free for a long time no matter how hard he tried. Not satisfied with despoiling his victim of his cash capital, Blanck took off his civet-colored fedora hat and perched it on his own tough brick-colored hair.

By this time Blanck's ferocious nature was fully aroused. 'Here, there,' he cried out to Frank Hart, the brake man, 'go and get me Knowles's coat.' Hart fairly flew to the cell and came back to Blanck. Blanck put on the coat and with cool deliberation looked around for more work to do before he broke for freedom. He did not like Yerbury, so he ordered him into a cell and pushed him in after him, gave the iron door a slam and proceeded to pull the lever that effectually locked the cell.

The work was all finished. The two doors to the west were open. A moment's work with key and combination and the door leading to the jailer's office would turn on its hinges. Blanck was in his element. He felt that wild glee which must have come over him during the past three years whenever he held up some easy wayfarer and took his hard-earned money.

There stood the bloody villain, a real though un genuine murderer, and a thing that certainly looked like a revolver in his hands, and a mob of prisoners at his back ready to follow his bidding. Then Blanck, with all the confidence such a man possesses when armed with the deadly Colt's revolver, opened the first door that stood between him and the jailer's office and cried out: 'All of you who want to come, follow me.'

Hardly had the words left his lips when there was a rush, a scurry of feet, and a body of fully ten men ran through the narrow cage door and poured out into the jailer's office. Everything favored the desperate men, for not a person was in sight. Only a few nights ago this rabble would have met a second night jailer, but the county commissioners had done away with the office.

When the little crowd of fugitives were in the jailer's office Thomas Blanck quickly saw that the best escape was by the door that led out at the east side of the office, so he went that way over the same plot of ground where ex-Sheriff Woolery had planned to hang him. Instead of going to the gallows this time, he went to freedom. The band went to Alder Street along the path at the back of the courthouse, and with a few hurried whispers separated in as many directions as the streets would allow.

One murderer, James Murphy, did not flee to the country. He went directly to Yesler Avenue and made his way to police headquarters. Almost breathless he rushed in on Sergeant Willard and cried out: 'There has been a jailbreak at the county jail, and Thomas Blanck is free with a Colt's revolver.' Overcome with excitement Murphy sank into a chair while Sergeant Willard called Detectives Cudihee and Phillips and informed them that some prisoners had escaped from the county jail.

The two detectives rushed out of the office and fairly flew up the hill. Just as they turned up on Seventh Street they met Wilcox coming down. 'Hello there, Wilcox,' said Phillips, 'where are you going?' 'I was just coming down to the station,' he replied, as he crossed the road and walked up to the detectives, 'to let you know what had happened.' Then he held up a black wooden revolver and passed it over to Cudihee, remarking as he did so: 'The job was done with this, and I think you deserve it.' Cudihee took the imitation revolver, which would fool a good man, and pocketed it with a laugh.

The three men then walked back to the county jail and after considerable trouble got the cell door open and released Night Jailer Yerbury. Within a few moments the news of the unexpected and wholesale jailbreak was conveyed to Sheriff Van de Venter, who came in post haste to the courthouse. Soon ex-Sheriff J. H. Woolery appeared, and within a few moments a list of the escaped convicts was made out ready to be flashed over the wires to every sheriff in the state. The telephone wire was kept jingling, and before midnight every town between this city and Tacoma was guarded.

Mayor Phelps came in at this time and told Sheriff Van de Venter that the police were at his command to do anything that would assist in the recapture. 'I am satisfied,' replied the sheriff, 'that if we can keep the waterway points of exit covered we can run these men down in the woods tomorrow or within a few days.'

Jailer Yerbury insisted that Blanck had a real steel revolver when he held him up. 'Don't you suppose I know the difference between that fake gun, as you call it, and the real gun Blanck had?' he said. 'It's no use talking, Blanck may have had that piece of wood, but he also had a real shooting iron.'

Day Jailer Monroe said he was satisfied that Blanck had made the fake gun in the cage. 'I am positive,' he continued, 'that this whole business was put up by Blanck alone. There was no one else in it. You can rest assured of that.'

Senator Van de Venter last night sent out notices offering rewards for the return of the prisoners: $500 for Thomas Blanck, $300 for William Holmes, $250 for Servius Rutten, and $100 for each of the remainder.

About 1 o'clock Rutten was recaptured near Orillia by Mike Kelly and Dick Berkman. Blanck was supposed to have been with Rutten, and the sheriff prepared to leave Seattle at 3 o'clock on an engine with a strong posse in pursuit. Another party would go on a Lake Shore engine to search for the escaped prisoners.