The Great Glasgow Jailbreak

The Great Glasgow Jailbreak

I first heard the story from Tom (T.H.) Markle sixty years ago. As a young man he had come West to seek his fortune. He got off the Great Northern passenger train in a little place called Glasgow Montana one morning in 1903. Glasgow had started off as a railroad siding in 1887, but had slowly grown as settlers, ranchers and railway workers poured in. In 1893 it became the County seat of Valley County. Much bigger than it is today, the county occupied all of Northeastern Montana from the Missouri Breaks to the North Dakota line. This meant it had a modern court house and a two-story county jail. Both of these institutions were badly needed as the area was rife with outlaws, rustlers, claim-jumpers and the occasional grifter who got off the train with a carpet bag full of nefarious schemes. In 1894 Kid Curry had killed Pike Landusky in the nearby Little Rockies. Then in 1901 Curry held up a train at Wagner Montana while the Valley County Sheriff was on it. A decade earlier the Sundance Kid had also tried to rob the train at Malta. Both outlaws would use their Montana resumes to one day join Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch.

After stepping off the train, Tom picked up his meager baggage and headed down 5th Street looking for lodging. Young Tom had a head for business and just enough cash to buy a wagon and team. He was going into the draying business, hauling cargo between the railroad and the scattered farms and ranches of the sparsely populated county.

As he approached Third Avenue, he could hear a commotion in the courthouse square. A crowd had gathered looking up at the second story of the courthouse. Tom stepped into the street to get a better look.

“My God!” he exclaimed to himself. “There’s a body hanging from the window! What in the hell have I gotten myself into?”

Turns out the body belonged to a petty criminal named Jack Brown. His chief crime was throwing his lot in with the wrong jailbird. I’ll get back to Brown later.

William Hardee was a drifting cowboy with a bad temper and an even worse opium habit. He had wandered into Northeastern Montana from Wyoming, looking for easy money to feed his addiction. In 1901 he partnered with a young man named Charles Snearley in a wild horse roundup operation. The frontier wasn’t quite closed and plenty of wild ponies still roamed the unfenced plains. It was easy pickin’s for a couple of enterprising cowboys. Just build a catch pen on the route to a water hole and drive them into it.

At first things went well for the pair. They managed to corral a small herd of the wild critters. But somehow on September 3rd, 1901 at the ranch of J.P. Smith near Culbertson, their little lot of horses managed to escape. All their hard work had come to naught. Hardee had desperately needed the cash to feed his opium habit. He blamed his young partner for the loss. They argued. Things got out of hand. Hardee threw his revolver down and dared Snearley to pick it up. Before Snearley could react, Hardee grabbed a shotgun and fired. Gravely wounded in the arm and lungs Snearley fell to the ground. A telegram summoned Dr. Belyea from Williston to treat the his wounds. It was hopeless. Snearley died in agony. Later, the Billings Gazette would quote Hardee as saying it was, “necessary to kill his man.”

The magnitude of his actions soon penetrated Hardee’s drug-fogged brain and he decided to make himself scarce. He jumped on a horse and lit out over the prairie. The North Dakota line was close. Hell, he even had a brother in the penitentiary there. Maybe he could hide out. Alas, it wouldn’t be long until the long arm of the law would catch up with him. He was captured when he sought refuge at a local ranch. Soon he would be residing in the formidable Valley County Jail.

Hardee was tried in Glasgow and sentenced to death by hanging for the Snearley murder in December of 1901. As he languished in jail his attorney, George E. Hurd, filed an appeal based on insanity. Hardee’s sister, Lottie, had provided an affidavit stating that their Grandmother in Iowa had become insane and committed suicide. She also stated that an uncle had died a lunatic. Dr. Mimmiminger of Glasgow asserted in his affidavit that, “Hardee was insane at the moment he committed the murder, and furthermore declares the man to be afflicted with homicidal mania. He further shows that Hardee has for years been a slave to morphine and liquor, a combination which has unhinged his mind and made him irresponsible for his acts.” The good Doctor also mentioned that since Hardee’s incarceration he had been prescribing him 12 grains of morphine daily to keep him alive. This was enough for Judge Tattan to delay the scheduled January 22nd execution date. More legal maneuvering kept the case active until the Montana Supreme Court upheld Hardee’s conviction in April of 1903.

The same day Hardee got the news about his death sentence being upheld by the Montana Supreme Court, he tried his first escape. At 7 O’clock in the evening on April 11, 1903, Hardee and two other prisoners, Albert Jackson and Jack Brown, broke out of the Valley County Jail. The prisoners had dug a hole through the brick wall at the back of the jail. They escaped while jailer John Dillard was away on a brief errand. Hardee and Brown made their way to the nearby Milk River and turned East. About 11 O’clock the next morning they were found hiding in a coulee about 15 miles from Glasgow by Under Sheriff Ritter and jailer Dillard. Weakened from his past bad habits, Hardee offered no resistance. Brown got an extra six months tacked onto his sentence for escaping jail.

Hardee spent the next six weeks getting himself in better shape. The gallows were about to go up for his scheduled execution on June 26, 1903. This highly anticipated event would be the first ever legal hanging in Valley County. To save his skin, he needed a plan. This time he would have new accomplices. He persuaded fellow inmates, James McKinney, and a man named Pierce to join his escape. Once again Jack Brown agreed to go along. They watched the guards and looked for their chance to escape.

On June 6, 1903 they saw their opportunity. At about 4 PM they sprang into action. Under Sheriff Harry Ritter was in the cell at the time. Jailer Dillard came in to get the dishes. The inmates grabbed and overpowered both men. One of the conspirators ran into the kitchen where he found a Winchester rifle. They also armed themselves with a Colt 45 revolver, probably taken from Ritter. Then they lay in wait for the other guard, Jack Williams, who had been on some errand in uptown Glasgow. As Williams opened the door, he saw the escapees. Turning to run, he was shot in the back with the Colt. The wound was mortal. Williams would linger until the next morning before expiring. Dillard and Ritter were badly beaten. The Great Glasgow Jailbreak had begun.

Armed and dangerous, they headed for the cover of the brush and Cottonwoods of the Milk River. They ditched a pair of shoes and some clothing before swimming across. An hour after the jailbreak three of the men were spotted by a ranch hand near the river. The quickly assembled posse was only 15 or 20 minutes behind.

Early on Pierce and the hapless Brown separated from the other two outlaws. Pierce apparently headed East toward North Dakota. Brown re-crossed the Milk River and headed West along the railroad tracks. Arriving late at night in Hinsdale, he sought help at a hotel claiming he had just been put off the train. He was fed and given a hat before going on his way. Brown was captured near Hinsdale on June 10, 1903 by Joe Miller and Under Sheriff Ritter. Having recovered from his beating, Ritter had been tipped off as to Brown’s whereabouts. Brown said he had lost his Winchester while swimming across the river and offered no resistance. He was returned to the Valley County Jail, this time facing far more serious charges.

Hardee and McKinney had taken two horses from a ranch near Glasgow. At first it was assumed that the pair were heading east toward the North Dakota line with Pierce. The Milk and Missouri River valleys were scoured carefully all the way to Wolf Point. Though rumors of their whereabouts persisted, the posse found nothing. On reaching the Missouri Hardee and McKinney had turned west and headed upstream. They were bound for the Missouri Breaks. The rough and barren Breaks had been a favorite hiding place for all manner of outlaws for decades. Hardee wad some familiarity with the country from his days as a cowboy.

A witness saw Hardee and McKinney skulking around the Missouri, thirty miles south of Glasgow. Hardee had a bandage wrapped around his head and was carrying a Winchester. McKinney was in his undershirt and trousers with rags tied around his shoeless feet. At Stevenson’s ranch near the river they abandoned their horses and stole a boat. They managed to row it across the river before Sheriff Harry Costner’s posse could catch up with them. Costner and the posse found their own transport and crossed the river in hot pursuit.

On June 20, 1903 Hardee and McKinney holed up in some brush on a hill as the posse approached. One of the posse members, Charles R. Hill, had been a schoolmate of Hardee’s from his days in Buffalo, Wyoming. Hill, who had a ranch nearby at Snow Creek, was reminiscing with the other posse members about Hardee. He even mentioned being a part of a Wyoming posse that had once pursued Hardee. He revealed that he hadn’t been too diligent in his earlier posse duties, not wanting to shoot his old acquaintance.

As the posse combed the brush looking for the outlaws a shot rang out. Hill toppled from his horse, shot square through the eye. He died instantly. The pinned down posse returned fire, but with little effect. The outlaws had good cover behind the rocks and brush. They did catch a glimpse of one of the fugitives moving through the brush, but apparently failed to hit him.

Earlier, posse member Frank Loomis had separated from the group. Hearing the firing, he had hastened to make his way back. A shot rang out from behind a hill, narrowly missing his head. It was McKinney making his escape. Loomis took cover until it was safe to rejoin the rest of the posse. With nothing to shoot at, the posse hunkered down and waited. The hot afternoon faded into a long, anxious night.

At daybreak the posse crept forward to reconnoiter the hideout used by the fugitives. They found Hardee lying dead in a pool of his own blood, shot through the lungs. McKinney was gone. He was quickly burried near where he fell. There was no ceremony.

By now, word had spread throughout the scattered ranches and homesteads of the river country. One desperate outlaw remained. McKinney was armed, desperate and dangerous. No telling what he would do to save his own skin.

After 14 days of the chase, some posse members were worn out and had to return to their homes. The Sheriff recruited new posse members from the local ranches and more men arrived from Glasgow. That evening, he renewed his pursuit of McKinney. Everyone was on the alert, rifles and handguns always at the ready.

The Darnell Ranch was located on the South side of the Missouri some 80 miles southwest of Glasgow. Just about dark on June 24, one of the Darnell daughters was making a trip to fetch something from the icehouse. Sensing something was out of place in the darkened dirt-covered dugout, she summoned her father. As the two of them approached, McKinney appeared with a Winchester rifle. He raised the rifle and aimed at Darnell. The weapon jammed and McKinney struggled to chamber a round with the malfunctioning lever-action . As he fumbled with the weapon, Darnell’s daughter rushed to the house to get a rifle for her Dad. Thankfully she returned in time.

Aiming his rifle, Darnell commanded McKinney to put up his hands and surrender. McKinney refused and made a dash to escape. Darnell fired, striking the outlaw in the arm. McKinney fell, but got up and started to run again. Darnell demanded his surrender once more. The outlaw responded that he would rather die before he would quit. Darnell’s next shot hit him in the lower back tearing through the intestines. This time McKinney was down for good. He lingered for another 3 hours before expiring. As he lay in pain he lamented that Hardee had only lasted 3 or 4 minutes after being shot by the posse.

Meanwhile in Glasgow, the last chapter of the Great Glasgow Jailbreak played out. Word had reached the town about the shootout that had killed posse member Charles Hill. About 10:30 PM an angry mob assembled at the jail and demanded they be given Jack Brown. It didn’t take much persuading to get the still-shaken jailers to turn him over. The vigilantes drug Brown to the 2nd floor of the Court House and put a rope around his neck. They tied the other end to a radiator and threw him out of the window. He gagged and kicked for a few minutes as the crowd watched by lantern light. Then he was dead. The mob left him to hang all night. By morning he was as cold as the radiator he was tied to. The Great Glasgow Jailbreak was over.

Of the four escapees, only Pierce was never accounted for. Pierce is alleged to be the one who killed jailer Jack Williams during the escape. In Buford, North Dakota on June 22, 1903 a billiard hall operator named Kublick was killed by a 30-30 rifle at his establishment at 1:00 AM. It was believed that his killer was the fugitive Pierce.

Tom Markle, stayed on in Glasgow. He became one of the town’s leading citizens and his name still graces the businesses he started.

L.D. Thill

September2019

REFERENCES:

The Williston Graphic, Williston, ND, Sep 12, 1901.

The River Press, Ft Benton, MT, Dec 6, 1901.

The Dillon Tribune, Dillon, M.T Dec 6, 1901

The River Press, Ft Benton, MT Jan 22, 1902

The Billings Gazette, Billings, MT, Jan 24, 1902.

The River Press, Ft Benton, MT, Apr 15, 1903.