The Burglar Who Found Religion—and Then Turned Himself In
Elijah Brown, an escaped Kansas convict who had been converted at a Salvation Army meeting in Seattle, walked into police headquarters and surrendered to Chief Rogers.
Elijah Brown, or J. W. Howard, the burglar who was converted at the meetings of the Salvation Army, and whose history was printed in the Post-Intelligencer recently, walked into police headquarters yesterday afternoon and surrendered himself to Chief Rogers. The chief immediately wired Warden George H. Case, of the Lansing, Kan., penitentiary, that Brown was waiting for the officers to come after him. It will be recalled that Brown had been sentenced in 1887 to twelve years on a charge of burglary. He escaped in 1892.
“The chief immediately wired Warden George H. Case, of the Lansing, Kan., penitentiary, that Brown was waiting for the officers to come after him.”
A jailhouse conversion story is an old newspaper staple, but this one has a Seattle setting and a paper trail: a fugitive chose to surrender rather than keep running. It raises the era's questions about punishment, redemption and whether a converted man could ever be trusted with freedom.
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