That the reader may know and perhaps become interested in the writer
of this sketch of the West Virginia prison, he herewith respectfully
and modestly submits to them a sketch of his life. I was born in St.
Louis, Mo., in 1844. My parents, possessed of more than the ordinary
education the poor people of Ireland were enabled to receive, journeyed
across the American desert to California, having their troubles with
the Indians and their Mormon allies. My father hoped to strike a gold
mine and become rich, and in the new Eldorado build a home and surround
his wife and children—a girl and boy—with all the good things of earth
that money could buy. Soon after our arrival at San Francisco, the
cholera made its appearance, the plague having been brought to the
golden shores of California by emigrants traveling from the east by way
of Central America. My father was stricken with it and died. In the
Lone Mountain cemetery, of the metropolis of the Pacific coast, he has
lain buried for years. The remainder of the family escaped the dread
fifty-one disease. Mother was left to struggle alone in a strange land
and among strangers to provide for her children. Not afraid of work,
she did her duty to her children nobly, faithfully, and well. She now
lies buried beside my father in Lone Mountain cemetery, twenty years
gone by.
The war-bugle of the Rebellion rang in my ears and woke me to the
realization that I had a country to protect and to save. I enlisted
in a California regiment of cavalry and served three years with some
merit. Upon my discharge from the army I entered an Illinois college
to perfect my neglected education, and after graduation I located in
Kansas City, Mo. I began at newspaper work, and have continued in that
line of work to the present time, with occasional lapses from it to
engage in other and more lucrative employment. A soldier of the civil
war, having been wounded, injured, and having contracted disease in
the line of duty, I was prompted upon McKinley’s election as President
to apply for a pension. I went to Washington, D. C., to press my claim
in person with the Commissioner of Pensions. He turned me down after I
had some words with him relative to his delay in granting to me that
which was mine by legal right and title, expressed by the American
people through their representative in Congress assembled, and in
fulfillment of promises made to the men who saved the nation. Somewhat
addicted to the drink habit, I became drunk at my disappointment and
the next day I found to my surprise that I was in the police station
charged with breaking into and entering a small grocery in Washington
City, two miles from my place of dwelling. The alleged damage inflicted
was small, but Justice Clabaugh, who had recently been appointed from
Maryland, said to me that five years was little enough for the alleged
crime.
Serial No. 378.
[Illustration: Penitentiary of the State of West Virginia]