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Fire in the Big House. Mitchel P. Roth
Читать онлайн.Название Fire in the Big House
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780821446829
Автор произведения Mitchel P. Roth
Издательство Ingram
Two tiers up, Edward Saas was engrossed in a game of pinochle with his cell partner. He didn’t smell the smoke right away or become aware of the brewing disaster until he heard some hollering from tier two, just below him. He didn’t pay it much mind at first, thinking it was a joke: “they were hollering, but that whole bunch is mostly half-wits and always raising hell.”8 But the smoke “got bad quickly.” Saas and his cellmate were among the many convicts who took blankets and put them up on the cell bars to combat the smoke, but to little effect, as the smoke was now as low as their range on the third tier. Innovating moment by moment, they next soaked towels in water and wrapped them around their heads. It was only ten minutes since the first hint of fire.
George W. Johnson, better known by his hometown nickname “Cleveland,” was serving a five-to-ten-year bit for perjury. He had been paroled after five years but twenty-nine months later was back in stir for a parole violation to finish out his sentence. He was working in the chapel as a porter close to the G&H blocks, mopping up, dusting off erasers, and cleaning windows, when he first noticed some smoke between 5:20 and 5:25. Fellow Cleveland native Roy “Whitey” Steele was on the bottom tier when he heard some screams and saw a little smoke on the upper ranges. He didn’t think much of it at the moment, but curiosity got the better of him. He flashed the range with “a piece of mirror about an inch square” and “pushed it out in the block,” where he could see “flames and a lot of smoke and we got scared and tried to break down the cell, a one-armed man and myself.”9
Cincinnati-raised Edward J. Gallagher, a self-described “orphan asylum boy,” was housed on the fourth tier. Gallagher and his cellies had come back from the first mess about 4:10, “rolled a smoke,” and were waiting for the mailman. For Gallagher, the hand-rolled smoke was much more important; mail service didn’t mean much to him, since “I never get any mail, I ain’t got any family, but I like to see my partners get letters.” Gallagher dozed off, but woke up again between 5:20 and 5:30 to find that his cellmates had covered their faces with towels and handkerchiefs. In prison jargon he asked them, “What’s the come? What’s the kid?” They pointed to the outside, where he saw the smoke.10
Murray Wolfe, in the first cell on the first tier, had returned to his cell after the first mess sometime between 4 and 4:10. He proceeded to wash up and clean his teeth before hopping on his bunk to read the latest copy of the Saturday Evening Post. Following prison rules, which prohibited smoking in his bunk, Wolfe sat on the side of his bunk with his feet dangling over the side, “smoking and reading at the same time, making myself comfortable” until the evening papers were delivered: “just a procedure for myself in the evening. I try to keep my mind occupied while I am in here reading. That is the only way I can keep it occupied.” He later testified that he heard shouts of “Fire!” around 5:20. A former newspaper reporter, he had a good eye and ear for detail. He remembered that most of the inmates were talking, paying attention to each other, killing time, waiting for the papers. Like others, at first Wolfe thought it was typical mattress fire, having “no idea of the immensity” of the fire until “smoke began curling” up through the bottom ventilators.”11
Wolfe’s location in the first cell of the lowest tier placed him closest to the chief day guard’s desk, situated in front of the cell, so he was well tuned to the rhythms of the guards night and day. From his vantage point he could see fifty-five-year old head day guard Thomas Watkinson washing his face and hands in the guardroom basin just outside his cell. Known as “the Englishman” for his nativity, he would probably have had his coat and hat off as he prepped to go home. Although he should have been on duty until his shift ended at 6 p.m., following his usual routine he began getting ready to end his day shift at 5:15 and then headed down to the guard room, where by 5:45 he would meet with the incoming night-shift guards, who went on duty at 6 p.m. This transition rarely took place later than 6:15. The fact that the fire occurred between shifts contributed mightily to the chaos and confusion that followed.
It had been a rough patch of days for the Englishman. The inmates had been “pestering” him because he had locked up the cons on the second tier on Easter Sunday, forcing them to miss their Easter dinner and the opportunity to attend Easter church services. As Watkinson dried off his hands and face, inmate Wolfe noticed that his “face changed terribly. I think the man was stupefied. I think he was frightened to death.” Another inmate claimed, “He just stood there like a damned fool.”12
During the day Watkinson was partnered with guard Hubert Richardson, whose recollections somewhat contradicted Wolfe’s testimony. Richardson claimed the Englishman was actually in the process of getting a convict shoeshine in the guardroom when Richardson alerted him to the fire. Richardson was posted on the sixth range when he spotted the fire in the north end of the cellhouse. A former decorator by trade, he blamed current health issues on his prior profession, admitting, “I can’t hold my water”; that is, the paint-related lead in his system from his previous occupation necessitated his constant urination. He had just returned from another run to the bathroom and was walking his range to make sure all was well when he looked to the north and saw “blazes” about 5:40.
The cantankerous “Englishman,” Thomas Watkinson, would later explain to a Board of Inquiry that Richardson was “kind of new.” Since there was “no place to take a leak there,” the rookie guard walked down the stairs and up to the neighboring E&F dormitory, “where there is a toilet and leaked up there.” He came back about seven to eight minutes later, went into the block, and then reported to Watkinson, “There is a Fire.”13 Richardson’s version varied somewhat from Watkinson’s. Richardson claimed that he hollered to the elderly guard, whom he referred to as “Shorty,” on the first floor from his vantage point above the fifth tier.14 Getting no response, he rushed down to deliver the alarm in person. He estimated it took him no more than a minute to do so.
Ohio Penitentiary warden Preston Elmer Thomas usually ended his workday around 5 p.m., but just happened to stay another twenty minutes on Easter Monday, before heading upstairs from his offices to his living quarters. He would remember being on his porch around 5:35 when he was told of the fire.15 Thomas, “affectionately known as the Pig” by some inmates,16 had been appointed warden in 1913 and by 1930 had a well-deserved reputation as a hardliner. Having personally helped stop past escape attempts, he was always fretful about the next one, lest it blot his résumé. He would come under withering criticism for not overseeing the immediate release of trapped prisoners from their cells as well as for not being in the prison yard directing rescue efforts, choosing instead to wait for the National Guard.
Warden Thomas would later claim he had a touch of asthma and could not smell the smoke, unlike almost everyone else, who smelled the fire before they saw it. He told the subsequent fire inquiry, “I can’t smell. I lost my smeller several years ago…. I can’t smell a skunk—I am not kidding…. I have had a good many operations for olfactory trouble.”17 His handicap might have been overlooked in the subsequent investigations if he had not consistently refused to institute safety devices, drills, or regulations to prevent fires. His main concern was preventing escapes at any cost. In his defense, in 1930, on the heels of a series of bloody prison riots the previous year, the primary focus of any prison warden was on keeping inmates in their cells, not necessarily preparing to get them out safely in the event of an emergency.
Looking out into the prison courtyard for a moment, Thomas saw the intensifying smoke to the west. He exclaimed something to the effect of “My God what is going to happen