The Wooden Revolver That Sprung Tom Blanck

Thomas Blanck, held in the King County jail on a murder charge while his appeal was pending, escaped early yesterday with several other prisoners. The break was made with a wooden revolver so carefully carved that Night Jailer Yerbury took it for a real one. Blanck forced the jailer to open the cells, then led the men out into the city.

The first trace of the fugitives came near Black River Junction. A tall man walked up to Officer Burkman, who demanded to know where he had come from. "I came from the county jail," he answered. Asked who had been with him, he said, "It was Tom Blanck." "Hold this man!" cried Burkman to Kelley, and then he dashed into the brush where the other man had disappeared. The river ran close below, but not a dry twig snapped to betray the fugitive's whereabouts. The officers searched the darkness in vain. Blanck, the cold-blooded murderer, had escaped and was free to keep going until fortune should throw him in the path of other pursuers or he should get beyond the river.

The captured man was Servius Rutten. He was hurried back to Orillia, the next station, in the hope of keeping Blanck between that place and Black River Junction, and a telegram was sent to Sheriff Van de Vanter in Seattle. The sheriff arranged with C. A. Nadeau, general agent of the Northern Pacific Railroad, for a special train and began gathering a posse. Ex-Sheriff Woolery, who had been searching along the shores of Lake Washington, returned in time to join.

The party included Sergeant Willard, Detective Cudlihee, Captain Hoss, ex-Sheriff Woolery, Deputy Sheriff Tom McCory, ex-officer A. S. Stepler, Ed Winslow, Charles P. Love, ex-Night Jailer H. L. Smith, M. Brown, H. L. Emery, Julius Redelsheimer, Conductor H. Buckley and Engineer D. D. Dyer. They were armed with rifles and Colt revolvers; Sheriff Woolery rode in the engine with a Winchester. The special train pulled out at 3 a.m.

At Black River Junction all was quiet. Michael Kriss and Dick Burkman were on the platform with Rutten. Rutten, smiling in his usual simple manner, sat down in the car and lit his old clay pipe. He wore light trousers, a light gray coat and an old black slouch hat. "Well, I can't exactly say I went out with the gang," he told a reporter. "I guess I was rather dragged into it. I was the one to go, and Tom said: 'You are a fool if you don't go.' So I went. We went down Seventh Street to Yesler avenue, and from there by the electric lights to Grant Street. By that time the rest of the crowd had disappeared and I did not know where they had gone. We walked down several streets and finally struck the bridge, along which we walked for a while. When we got out to the brewery there were three men standing talking about the escape.

"We walked right past them. They did not pay any attention to us. When we got down near the railroad track a team came along from the city. We stopped to let it pass. I did not think we were noticed, but Tom began to talk about getting a horse. He said that all I had to do was say the word and we would have a horse from somewhere pretty quick. We had to steal one, so as to get to the mountains. We talked little during the night of the trip. Tom decided that we would either make for California or back to the East. I suggested the Rocky Mountains.

"The first thing I knew we were held up. I did not think anything of it; I thought we were held up by highwaymen who were going to rob us. I did not care, because I did not have a cent. Tom broke into the bushes and he had with him some railroad maps, one of which was that of the Northern Pacific and I think the other was the Canadian Pacific. Some people say he had two guns, but I did not see but one, and that was the one he took from Yerbury."

By the time this interview was closed the train had reached Kent. Marshal Miller told the sheriff that he had a prisoner in the lockup, captured by W. I. Staples, J. J. Crow and George Crow O'Brien. The man was brought out, and when Stepler saw him he laughed and said: "Well, here is one of the jail-breakers." The prisoner, who gave the names Cosgrove and Harris, jumped into the car without a word and took a seat beside Rutten. "Well, we're here, I see," he remarked. Asked about the escape, Cosgrove said:

"The whole was put through by Tom. That feller knows what he wants, and the way he made the boys stand 'round when he was doing the job was a caution. Old Knowlton was scared to death of him. I'm satisfied no one but himself knew anything about the play until he sprung it. He's a foxy guy, that feller, and tends to his own business. Why, I was playing cards with him only a few minutes before he made Jerry beg for his life, and I had no idea that he was going to do anything. He never took any one into his confidence, and nobody in the jail knew anything about him. He didn't like Knowlton because he thought he was a trouble maker and a stool.

"How he did make the old man get into that cell! Then he would say to this feller: 'Do that,' or 'do this,' 'bring me that,' or 'go get this,' and you bet your life they got a move on. I thought he had a gun, and I guess the whole gang was in the same boat. Well, when we got outside and the gang commenced to separate, Willie Holmes wanted to go with me; commenced to cry. I told him it was a case of every man for himself, and a short man and a tall white fellow would make too conspicuous a couple, so he had better go it alone. I would have taken him, he clung on so, but it was no use. He had a sore foot and I knew he could not stand the racket. I took him down south for a few blocks and then started him north. I wonder how he is getting along by this time.

"When I started out for myself I got lost and had a mean time getting down from that side hill on the road. I kept pegging along, however, and didn't have any trouble until I ran up against those fellers near Kent. If I could have got to Tacoma, I could have got under cover and would have beat the game sure."

Cosgrove had two months to serve.

The wooden gun was the talk of the city. It had a wooden barrel rifled at the muzzle, a cylinder with five chambers, and imitation bullets made to shine with tin foil. The trigger guard was attached with wooden pins, and the screw heads found on a Smith & Wesson revolver were carved into the counterfeit. Wood turners who saw it in Stewart Holmes' window thought the cylinder and handle had been turned on a lathe. A pasteboard model of a gun was found in Blanck's cell, hidden in a newspaper. Thomas McGee, the wife slasher, stood close to the bars when Blanck held up Yerbury and said Blanck kept the gun moving so the jailer could not see it was wooden. Yerbury insisted the weapon pointed at him was genuine. "You cannot fool me on that point," he said. "I am satisfied that Wilcox had the fake gun and that Blanck had the real one." Sheriff Van de Vanter said he would relieve Yerbury from duty; Yerbury lost a salary of $75 a month.

Rewards were posted for the fugitives. Blanck was wanted for murder; Rutten for killing Fletcher at Chico, Kitsap County; Willie Holmes for killing William Russell at Franklin about a year before; R. H. Ford for burglary; Frank J. Hart for grand larceny; Charles Williams for attempted burglary; C. W. Brown for counterfeiting. Reports came in from Puyallup, Sand Point, Yesler and Snohomish, but no certain trace of Blanck was found.

The escape also set the legal fraternity talking about a defect in the criminal law. Convicts sentenced to death or to the penitentiary could give notice of appeal and remain idle in the county jail while the Supreme Court disposed of the case. "That section of the law," said Prosecuting Attorney Hastie, "seems to have been framed in the interests of the rascal and not in the interests of the good people. There are very few states in the Union where such a thing is permitted, and a law should certainly be framed which would require a convict to be sent to the penitentiary while his appeal is pending."