Death in the Coffeyville Jail

  

  Note: This is "Death in the Coffeyville Jail," Part 1 of a two-part series, "Victorians' Greatest Fears."

It was a horrible case. A man described as an “aged wayfarer” dropped dead in a cell at the Coffeyville, Kansas jail one March night in 1898. The cause: Hydrophobia. Rabies. The man, James Brown, was accompanied by his 18-year old son, who told officials their home was in St. Paul, Minnesota. Soon after New Year’s they’d come to Pittsburg, Kansas, hoping to find work in the coal mines there. They did not, but Brown was bitten by a dog in Pittsburg. They headed on to Sapulpa in the “I.T.” (Indian Territory), where they wanted to try for  jobs on the Frisco extension - the Saint Louis-San Francisco Railway, which was building a route there. 

     They reached Claremore, still 42 miles away from Sapulpa, when Brown began complaining of his throat being dry and voiced fears of suffocating. If offered water, he became violently upset. Doctors in Claremore pronounced his case a very strange one and said he needed to head to Coffeyville as the town of Claremore did not have resources for the indigent sick.

     Father and son boarded the northbound train, but Brown soon became violent. At one point he jumped from the train but train crew and officers captured him and locked him in the baggage car. They wired Coffeyville authorities to be at the depot to meet Brown, who was now considered a prisoner. The train pulled into Coffeyville before authorities arrived, so the Browns took a hired hack into town, stopping outside Slosson’s Drug Store to wait for officers. Mr. Brown was promptly put in the city jail. 

     The five prisoners already there were afraid and asked to be locked in their cells. The Browns were left in the jail corridor where the son devotedly tended to his father until even his son became afraid of him. Then Brown was locked in a back cell where he raved and made terrifying inhuman noises; he staggered about the cell, eyes glassy, foam and blood matting his beard. 

     The Coffeyville Weekly Journal said there was nothing that could be done to alleviate his suffering, but one has to wonder why laudenum or morphine wasn’t administered. After hours of delirium, at last Brown collapsed on the floor and groaned softly. The other prisoners and the son were able to fall asleep. 

     At daybreak when officers returned, Brown was sitting on the floor in a corner of the cell, head resting on his shoulder. When the marshal touched his body - described as emaciated - he found the body stiff and already cold. The son broke down crying in a way that touched everyone present. Brown was taken to the Lang and Lape undertaking rooms at 6:00 a.m. and by 3:30 he was buried in the potter’s field at Elmwood Cemetery. “There were no religious services to comfort the single mourner,” the newspaper reported. 

     His son protested the pauper’s burial, saying his father fought with the 121st Illinois regiment in the Civil War. He could have had the graveside rituals of the G.A. R. - the Grand Army of the Republic, the nation’s largest veteran’s group. But there was no proof, and officials made no attempt to check.  

     The son’s situation – broke, homeless, jobless, alone and grieving, affected all the men who had seen him. He must have been raggedly dressed, too. The mayor bought him a new suit, a store owner bought him a set of underclothes, and Land and Lape bought shoes. The town marshal arranged temporary boarding at the Farmers’ Home hotel and said he would try to help the young man find work.

     There were those who scoffed at the idea that James Brown died of hydrophobia. It had to be drugs, or drinking. But then word was received that a little girl in Pittsburg died after being bitten by a dog. If so, it is curious that her suffering and death were not reported in the Pittsburg newspaper. However, a March 3rd article reminded readers of “the mad dog that bit so many people during a run of twenty miles and as a result of whose bite the little Durham boy died of hydrophobia at Girard.” Readers were also reminded of the “last man bitten. A mover, who was camping with his son near the Cow Creek bridge.” The dog ran at him as they were sitting by a fire, and bit him in the nose. The “mover” did not seek treatment from a moonstone, which was widely credited as a cure. James Brown’s age was estimated by this newspaper as about 50. He probably looked older due to what was obviously a hard life, but it was common for newspapers to describe people as “aged” when they were in their mid- to late 50s. 

     March 31st there was an article in the paper about a 12-year old boy, Charley Geier, dying of hydrophobia in Pittsburg. There were also articles on mad dogs in Pittsburg who had to be killed. 

     Regardless, the Coffeyville newspaper editor wrote that with the burial in the pauper’s grave, “so ended one of the saddest events ever witnessed in Coffeyville, and it will be many days before it grows dim and indistinct in the memory of men.”

The worst fear of Victorians wasn't rabies. It wasn't even dying. It was being buried the way James Brown was -- in a pauper's grave, with no ceremony, virtually no one to mourn, or mark that he ever walked the earth at all. Worse too, in his case, was that he was far from home, a "stranger in a strange land." Taken together, this was the worst, the most terrifying thing that could befall a man.

Sources:

     “The Mover Dies - The Mover Bitten By the Mad Dog Near Pittsburg Dies in Coffeyville Jail,” Pittsburg Daily Headlight (Pittsburg, Kansas), 3 March 1898, p. 4.

     “James Brown Died of Hydrophobia in a Cell of the Calaboose Last Night,” Coffeyville Daily Journal, 3 March 1898, p. 5.  

     “Death From Hydrophobia - James Brown Dies in the City Jail From Rabies,” Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 4 March 1898, p. 1. 

     “Mad Dog Killed - Large Saint Bernard Goes Mad,” Pittsburg Headlight (Pittsburg, Kansas), 31 March 1898, p. 3.

     “A Serious Case,” Pittsburg Headlight (Pittsburg, Kansas), 31 March 1898, p. 3.

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