The Great Jailbreak of 1878
Five inmates, including a man held for attempted murder, escaped a Seattle jail using a key hand-crafted over six weeks.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Last evening about six o'clock, William Davidson, turnkey in the county jail, went to supper, leaving the outside door unlocked. Both corridor doors were secured, as were the doors to the yard. As soon as the jailer was gone, five prisoners—Kelly and Lynch, confined for robbery; Murray, assault with intent to murder; and also a Siwash and a Chinaman who were confined in the southward of the jail—unlocked the corridor door with a key which a prisoner who refused to accompany them says was made and fitted at odd spells during the last six weeks. Passing into the yard, they climbed a ladder which reached nearly to the top of the fence and escaped. Evidence goes to show that they used garments torn into strips to muffle the sounds of their irons. After escaping they proceeded up Mill Street. This morning a man came in from Lake Washington and reported seeing them near the shore of the lake. The Chinaman and the Indian were still with them. Sheriff Wyckoff is making every effort for their recapture.
“Evidence goes to show that they used garments torn into strips to muffle the sounds of their irons.”
Public safety and the physical integrity of the justice system were as much of a concern in the 1870s as they are today. The escape, fueled by an internal security lapse, highlights the perennial tension in Seattle regarding the adequacy of its infrastructure, a conversation that persists in modern debates over jail staffing and regional detention centers.
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