OREGON, WASHINGTON, AND IDAHO. 431 workshops, devoted to carpentry, tannery, worked with the aid of water power. In 1874, 150 acres of garden and farm land were already under cultivation, and this, together with the brick-making department, helped considerably to sustain the establishment, so much so, that the earnings of the two years 1873-4 amounted to $65,260 and $65,269, while the expenses were but $78,047; but the average number of prisoners for the two years was a little over 100 with not a single female. The merit-book system worked well. When a prisoner had earned not less than four marks, and not over six, during the six months, he received a credit of one day for each mark. When such credit-marks were earned during the succeeding semesters, he received an additional day for each, until five days had been gained for each mark. This time was deducted from the sentence, while the allowance was lost by breaking rules or attempting to escape. At the expiration of his term he received fifty cents for each credit mark, less loss of tools, loss of material, and waste. In 1861 the Oregon state penitentiary received the convicts from Washington at $3 75 a week, the lessees having liberty to work them at times. In 1871 the Washington convicts were kept at Steilacoom jail, pending the futile attempts to obtain an appropriation for a territorial penitentiary upon the twenty-seven acres donated on McNeill island opposite Steilacoom. By act of February 22d, 1873, congress made an appropriation, and in November a wing with forty-two cells was completed at a cost of $37,800. In 1866, the Boise county jail served as territorial prison for the eleven convicts of Idaho. Miners would not employ them, and no work could be procured wherewith to make them contribute to the cost of maintenance. Deer Lodge City, as the pretty little village situated in the valley of that name is called, is the site of the Montana penitentiary. The Deer Lodge river is the principal tributary, or rather, the upper part of the Clark fork of the Columbia, which name it takes some 2,000 miles northwest from its source, after having received as tributaries the Blackfoot, Bitterroot, and Flathead rivers, and numerous smaller streams. The sum of $50,000 was appropriated by congress, in 1869, to build a prison at some place to be designated by the legislative assembly of Montana. Deer Lodge was the point chosen. Twelve acres of the public domain were marked off as the site, and the erection of a building was by law placed in charge of the United States marshal, William F. Wheeler, to whom I am indebted for these facts. The building was completed and accepted in the summer of 1871, the appropriation barely covering the cost of the stone walls, roof, floor, and fourteen brick cells, six by eight feet in size, and grating for the lower windows only. The building was eighty by forty feet; its walls were two feet thick, and twenty-two feet high. A mansard roof afforded room for a third tier of cells. The building has since been completed and furnished. A high board fence was also constructed, enclosing a space 300 feet square for a prison yard. The marshal still retained control of the building, and on the 2d of July, 1871, opened it for the reception of territorial and United States Twelve criminals were at that time re convicts. ceived. Then, and subsequently, besides furniture and fixtures of every kind furnished, the United States paid all prison expenses, the salaries of officers, superintendent, guards, and physician, who were supplied with rooms and subsistence, the clothing and food of prisoners, fuel and lights, and the territory of Montana paid the general government one dollar a day for the keeping of each of its convicts. Becoming impatient of govermental leading-strings the territory asked and obtained control from the 15th of May, 1873, to the 1st of August, 1874; by which time, concluding they did not know how to keep a prison, the legislature begged their guardian at Washington to take back his pretty present, as they found it somewhat expensive. They had not guests enough to make it profitable. At first the cost to the United States of each prisoner, per diem, was $1 86, while the territory paid $2 03. Back under the management of Marshal Wheeler again, and the 1st of August, 1874, for the first year the cost was $1 66 a day for each prisoner, for the second year $1 45, and for the third year $1 36. "The greatest misfortune to the prisoners," writes Marshal Wheeler to me the 23d of October, 1877, "is that they have no regular employment. The town being so small it does not find it profitable to hire prison labor, because the prisoners cannot go outside of the prison-yard, and there is no manufacturing done in the town. All work on the improvements done about the prison has been done by the prisoners, and only the material paid for by the government. The prisoners make all their own clothes, cook, saw wood, and do all that is done for the prison and themselves. They have a great deal of spare time, and would be glad to be employed. We have but few books, but get gratis many newspapers and magazines, which are eagerly read by the prisoners. All of them have improved in reading, writing, and the common branches." For cleanliness, order, and health, the Montana prison, though small, was a model. Religious ser- • vices were held on such Sundays as preaching could be secured. No severer punishment was administered than locking an offender in his cell, feeding him on bread and water, or if very refractory placing him in irons. During the first six years, out of eighty-three prisoners there were four escapes, and one recapture, leaving in fact three. The United States marshal was ex-officio superin CAL. INT. Poc. 28 tendent, with a salary of $1,200 a year, and having for his assistants four guards of his own appointing and removing, one of whom was called deputy superintendent, and acted as chief in the absence of the marshal. The salaries of the assistants were $1,000 a year each; the physician was paid by fees. All expenses were paid monthly on vouchers mailed to the attorney-general with an explanatory letter. Alaska has had few prison facilities to speak of. Under the Russian régime, malefactors were confined at the forts. For a time after American occupation the only civil rule was the local municipal government of Sitka, and that was maintained without authority of law. Under an act of congress in 1853, A. W. Babbitt, then secretary of the territory, was authorized to expend $20,000 in building a penitentiary for Utah. The building was placed in what was then known as the Big Field Survey, made under the provisional laws of the state of Deseret. The building was completed in 1854; Daniel Caru was elected warden, and Wilford Woodruff, Albert P. Rockwood, and Samuel R. Richards inspectors. There was in prison an average of nine prisoners for some time, many coming and going, and but few serving out their term. These new villains cost the new territory about five thousand dollars a year. They could have been hanged immediately after conviction for less money. As the years went by, and the general government failing in its appropriations, the buildings became somewhat dilapidated, and there were several escapes. Prior to July, 1875, Arizona had no prison. The judge in sentencing criminals named some county jail as their place of confinement, and of such prisoners the sheriffs of the respective counties had charge. No state convict up to this time had ever served his full term, but always escaped. In 1875 the legislature passed a law locating the prison at Yuma, and UTAH AND ARIZONA. 435 appropriating $25,000 for building purposes. Convicts were kept in the Yuma jail up to July 1876, when they were removed to the prison then ready. There were then seven only, and during the next six months three more were added, making ten prisoners in the Arizona penitentiary on the 1st of January 1877. |