SF Sheriff 1890 Wanted Poster

     A rare 1890 Wanted Poster issued by the San Francisco Sheriff is part of the Sheriff’s Department archives.


The poster was issued by Sheriff Charles S. Laumeister in January 1890 after six men escaped from the county jail located on Broadway.  While any mass escape is newsworthy, this one was particularly sensational because one of the escapees, John McNulty, was a convicted murderer who had already been sentenced to hang.


The Wanted poster offers a $100 dollar reward “For the arrest and detention” of any of five prisoners who were at large.  The sixth escapee, John Kenney, aka John Breslin, was recaptured by San Francisco deputy sheriffs a day after the escape. 


The poster is approximately eight by twelve inches and has four actual photographs glued onto the printed paper.  This particular poster also has handwritten notations under each of the photographs indicating when and where the fugitives were arrested.



 
The escaped was accomplished by breaking through the old brick cell walls using a “jimmy,” a steel rod about a foot and a half in length.
Prisoners in adjoining cells broke through the inside walls and moved from one cell to another without going into the main corridor.  When they were all gathered in the last cell, they broke into the next room, which was a common bathroom.  From there, they jimmied a back door lock and entered the exercise yard.  They then found an axe with which they broke through the brick and mortar perimeter wall.


N
o one working in the jail that night admitted hearing any suspicious noise and claimed that a heavy rain falling on the metal roof of the building may have masked the sounds.


Of course, the escape was applauded by prisoners remaining behind.  On the day after the escape, Chief Jailer Mike Smith toured a reporter from The Daily Alta California through the jail.


“As the jailer passed along the passage ways, the prisoners in the cells would give vent to triumphant crowing on account of the escape of some of their number.  This very much annoyed the jailer, who retorted, ‘If you fellows don’t stop that noise, I will put you on bread and water tomorrow.’

‘Yes, if there are any of us left by tomorrow,’ called back a long-timer from the upper corridor.’”  (Daily Alta California, 1-13-1890)


A
mong the six escapees, John McNulty was the most notorious.  He had been convicted of shooting to death a fellow longshoreman during a quarrel.  He was scheduled to be the last San Francisco criminal to be hanged in the county jail.  After 1890, executions were conducted in the State Prison. 


Of the other escapees, three of the men (John Sullivan, James Kenney & Joseph Reardon),  were charged with robbery; one with forgery (H.P. Edwards); and one was a federal prisoner charged with robbing a mail carrier in Trinity County (Erick Erickson).


The efforts to arrest the escapees involved many law enforcement agencies and took place over several counties.  John Kenney was arrested by deputy sheriffs almost immediately, hiding under a bed in a small hotel in San Francisco’s waterfront.  (San Francisco Examiner, 1-14-1890)


John McNulty and H.P. Edwards had secured a small boat a
nd traveled to Contra Costa County, hiding out and visiting taverns for a week before being recognized by the brother of a Walnut Creek Constable.  The two were arrested without resistance by the Constable and his brother.  (“How McNulty Was Captured,” San Francisco Examiner, 1-19-1890)


Jo
hn Sullivan, who was known by the nickname “The Ghost,” managed to elude authorities for two weeks and then slipped aboard a German ship headed for France.  The ship had cast off and had begun its voyage when a sailor discovered the stowaway when securing the tow lines.  The ship Captain determined to return the stowaway to land when a sailor on the pilot boat recognized Sullivan from a drawing in the newspaper.  He was back in the San Francisco jail on January 29th.  (“He Captured The Ghost,” San Francisco Examiner, 1-30-1890)


It
was almost two months before fugitive number five was discovered.  Joseph Reardon was arrested in Sacramento and returned to the San Francisco jail. (Sacramento Daily Record-Union, 3-4-1980)


The fate of the last of the escapees, the federal prisoner Eric Erickson, is unknown.  His co-defendant, Walter Flynn, went on trial on April 8th, but Erickson was noted as “still at large.”  (Sacramento Daily Record-Union, April 9, 1890) 


The saga of John McNulty was kept in the headlines for more than a decade.  He was scheduled to be hanged on five different occasions and managed to get temporary reprieves from both state and federal courts each time. During these legal proceedings McNulty remained in the county jail.

Almost four years to the date of his escape, California Governor Henry Markham commuted McNulty’s sentence to live imprisonment on the very morning the execution was to take place.  (The Morning Call, 1-26-1894)  By the time of the commutation McNulty had become somewhat of a cause celeb.  Upon news of the Governor’s action the street in front of the Broadway jail was filled with jubilant supporters.

Sheriff J.J. McDade had already distributed the printed invitations to the noontime  execution when the Governor’s proclamation was received.  “Cheer followed cheer until a   great crowd gathered in the street, and hearing the cause of the prisoners’ rejoicing, joined voices with those on the inside. They cheered the Governor and all those who had workedfor the condemned man.” (Morning Call, 1-26-1894.

McNulty was obviously relieved, but managed a joke with Chief Jailer Fitzpatrick:

“You can take the old coffee mill down again, Chief” the coffee mill referred to being the gallows which with the rope dangling from it was fixed at the ready at the further end of the jail corridor.”  Fitzgerald replied,  “I’ll take it down this time, Mac, to make kindling wood off.  It has fooled you often enough.”  (San Francisco Examiner, 1-26-1894).

McNulty was transferred to San Quentin where he stayed until January 1903.  In one of his last acts on his last day in office, Governor Henry Gage pardoned McNulty and several other prisoners serving life sentences, including a “Chinese highbinder whose salads and dainty dishes suited the epicurean taste of the Governor as a cook” while on parole) at the Governor’s ranch (San Francisco Call,  1-7-1903)  McNulty walked from the prison as a free man a few days later.

The Sheriff at the time of the escape was Charles S.  Laumeister.  Sheriff Laumeister served two terms (1888 - 1892) and did not seek reelection in 1892.  He came to California early in his childhood and as a young man opened a milling business near Livermore.  He moved to San Francisco in 1876 and opened another mill, Laumeister Mills. 
His election as Sheriff was his first foray into public life, but remained involved for the rest of his life.  After his time as Sheriff, he was elected to the post of State Railroad Commissioner and then was appointed to the San Francisco Board of Public Works. As a member of the Public Works Board, he helped initiate the first construction of the Municipal Railway.   He also served on the San Francisco Fire Commission and was twice the President of the Merchants’ Exchange.