Augustus Tyrannus Wright, brother of Stephen S. Wright, and
son of Tyrannus Augustus Wright, and my first cousin four times removed, was
the first prison employee killed in the line of duty in the State of New York.
He was a farmer in the town of Denmark, Lewis county, New York, and a prison
guard at the Clinton State Prison in Dannemora. His wife’s name was Louisa, but
I do not know her maiden name, and they apparently had no children at the time
of Augustus’s murder. They had had a boy, Frank, who “died early”.
As I have mentioned previously, the first reference I
encountered to Augustus was in Hough’s History
of Lewis County, New York, with no reference to his parentage. His name
made me suspect that he was likely a son of Tyrannus Augustus Wright. The
following newspaper article in The New
York Daily Reformer dated July 10,
1861 offered a clue:
MURDER OF A PRISON KEEPER—Augustus
T. Wright, Esq., late of Lewis County, brother-in-law of Addison M. Farwell of
this village, and recently appointed keeper in the Clinton State Prison, was
murdered yesterday by a convict. The full particulars of this horrid deed have
not been received. Mr. Wright was most estimable man, and will be mourned by a
large circle of friends and acquaintances.
When I looked into Addison M. Farwell, I discovered that he
was married to a Mary Irene Wright. I found a reference in The Farwell Family: a history of Henry Falwell and his wife Olive
(Welby) Farwell, which stated that Addison M. Farwell was married to Mary
Irene Wright, who was “the daughter of Tyrannus
and Mary (Fitch) Wright”. It also states that Mr. Farwell built the “public
waterworks in Brooklyn, N.Y.” It appears that he was also a railroad contractor
and bank president during his life. These two clues helped me to establish that
Augustus was therefore the son of Tyrannus, and then later had this confirmed
when I received a genealogy of the Wright family.
The complete story was told July 17, 1861 in the New York Herald:
The Convicts Escaped from Clinton State Prison. Murder of One of the
Keepers. (From the Albany State Journal July 15.) On Friday last we received
and published a dispatch from Plattsburg announcing the escape of six prisoners
from Clinton Prison and the killing of Mr. Wright, one of the keepers. It
appears that a few days previous to this an attempt to break out of prison by
several of the inmates was frustrated by the repentance of one of the gang,
divulged the secret. The discovery of the plot does not seem to have
intimidated some of the desperate characters engaged in it, among them James
Sewall, a convict sentenced from Troy for larceny and highway robbery; and on
Thursday evening last they had so far reorganized to make a decided stand
against the keepers, and by murdering one of them and knocking down a guard
succeeded in escaping from the prison. The outbreak occurred at midnight--the
men in the rolling mill working during the summer nights, instead of days. The
keeper, Mr. Augustus S. Wright, of Watertown, Jefferson County, was struck a
blow upon the head by a bar of iron, supposed to be in hands of Sewell, and was
instantly killed. the guard, at the same time, was knocked down by another
convict, and as he attempted to rise, a third was preparing to give him a fatal
blow, but was prevented by a fourth convict, who told the keeper outside to go
and give the alarm while he guarded the door to prevent escape. In a few
minutes the officers of the prison arrived, and found that six had escaped and
seven remained with the trusty convict, who had raised the dead body of Mr.
Wright. The murderer of Mr. W. took his gold watch and revolver and escaped.
The party consisted of Alexander Payouette, convicted in St. Lawrence county,
April 3, 1861, of the crime of burglary and petit larceny, second offence;
William Judd, convicted in Renssalaer county, January 13, 1860, of the crime of
grand larceny; George Pettit, convicted in Albany county, June 24, 1861, of the
crime of forgery, in passing counterfeit notes; James Sewall, convicted of
robbery in Renssalaer county, June 2, 1859, and sentenced to Clinton Prison for
the term of fifteen years; Patrick Brady, convicted of burglary in the third
degree in Albany, September 28, 1859, and sentenced to Clinton Prison for the term
of two years; Daniel L. Baker, convicted in Essex county, December 20, 1860, of
the crime of burglary, and sentenced to Clinton Prison for the term of four
years and six months. Pursuit was immediately given to the convicts who had
escaped, and we learn that all of them have been recaptured. Sewall is a
desperate character, and previous to his incarceration in Clinton, had been
engaged in many outrageous proceedings in Troy. Mr. Wright, the murdered man,
was about thirty-five years of age. He leaves a widow to mourn his untimely
death. He was greatly esteemed in all the relations of life.
Sewall and two
others were sentenced to death by hanging, but their sentences were commuted to
life in prison due to New York repealing capital punishment. Sewall died in
prison. Brady was set free nearly thirty years later due to executive clemency
as it was argued that he had not directly participated in the killing of
Wright.
Augustus T. Wright
continues to be honoured on pages of corrections-oriented websites for his
service and loss of life in the line of duty.
No comments:
Post a Comment