Robert Jones

This essay might be of special interest to writers of detective and mystery stories who would like to enrich their stories by providing their readers with a gift of some extra bits of detail. It might also be of general interest to many other readers.

In keeping with a Storytellers Unplugged tradition during the Halloween month of October, the following essay includes a few words about hauntings.

Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary was known for many reasons. Unique among the reasons was that it became home to at least one ghost that was not that of a previous inmate. The ghost was that of another that an inmate brought with him.

At the time of its opening in 1829, Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, referred to by some as the Alcatraz of the East, was the largest public building in the United States; and, at a cost of some $800,000, was probably the most expensive. Its design had the unique feature of comprising a series of cellblocks extending outwardly like spokes from a central hub. Walls enclosing the entire structure were 12 feet thick at their bases, were 30 feet high and included castellations at their corners. Inmates were kept in constant isolation in individual cells that were eight feet wide and not much longer. A bit of light filtered down from a small skylight referred to as “the eye of God.”

The penitentiary’s popular design was copied some 300 times in Europe, Latin America and even Japan. When Charles Dickens visited the United States in 1842, there were two specific places he wanted to see. One was Niagara Falls, and the other was the Eastern State Penitentiary.

Eventually replacing extreme physical abuse in the prison, and for a large part of its use as a prison, was solitary confinement that forbade speaking, whistling, singing, humming and even mumbling. This allowed no verbal or even visual contact between prisoners or between prisoners and any visitors. Prisoners even wore hoods or masks when being moved to or from a cell. Meals were taken within the cells, and reading was limited to the Bible. The theory behind such isolation was to destroy the criminals’ stubborn spirits,” force prisoners’ thoughts constantly inwardly and thus make them penitent (hence the term penitentiary). The actual result was reportedly to drive a substantial number of prisoners insane and cause many others to have psychological problems. The penitentiary came to be one of the most feared by criminals.

The standard system of solitary confinement was finally abandoned in 1913. Thereafter, short periods of solitary confinement were used as a punishment for prisoner misbehavior.

A well-known resident who called the Eastern State Penitentiary home for a time was Chicago crime boss, Alphonse Gabriel Capone. Shortly after having reportedly ordered, or at least approved, the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of five rival gang members and two “citizens” in a Chicago garage, he had been arrested in Philadelphia for carrying a concealed, deadly weapon. He was sentenced to serve a year in prison. The Eastern State Penitentiary provided his first jail cell, and he stepped into it in 1929. Being located in what was referred to as Park Avenue, his cell was a bit different than those of other prisoners. A reporter described Capone’s cell by writing , “The whole room was suffused in the glow of a desk lamp, which stood on a polished desk. On the once-grim walls of the penal chamber hung tasteful paintings, and the strains of a waltz were being emitted by a powerful cabinet receiver of handsome design and fine finish.” A picture of the cell also shows carpets, a lounge chair, a secretary and a bed. The cell also differed just a bit from others in that, reportedly, the cell door was not always locked. Capone was reportedly also granted the use of the warden’s telephone so that he could tend to his outside interests.

In spite of his relatively comfy accommodations, Capone’s stay was not very pleasant. One of seven of the persons murdered during the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was James Clark (born Albert Kachellek), brother-in-law of George “Bugs” Moran. Supposedly, Clark’s ghost visited Capone in his cell. Other inmates reported hearing Capone screaming and begging Clark to leave him alone. Later, when Capone was living in Chicago’s Lexington Hotel, the number of ghostly visitations increased. His men often heard him, still begging Clark to leave him alone. He spent his last years at his home on Palm Island in Miami, slowly wasting away with syphilis. The Dade County Medical Examiner attributed his death in 1947 to ‘numerous complications including renal, hepatic, and congestive heart failure due to end-stage syphilitic complications. Capone had insisted that Clark’s ghost would follow him to his grave.

ADDITIONAL FACTS:

From his early days in New York, the nickname by which close friends and family referred to Capone was “Snorkey.”

The Chicago garage where the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre took place was leveled in 1967, and some of the bullet-pocked bricks of its rear wall were sold. One of the bricks now resides in the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The Eastern State Penitentiary served as a prison for 142 years, during which it had been the home of nearly 80,000 men and women. Just as it had been a favorite attraction for many tourists during the 1830s and 1840s, it now serves as a tourist attraction and movie set. Tradition has it that not all the inmates have “left” and those that did not now haunt the prison. The location where most spooky sightings have been reported is in the showers of cell block 12, and they embody a female dressed in white. She is appropriately referred to as the “soap lady.”

Among the noteworthy prisoners of the Eastern State Penitentiary was one named Pep. He had reportedly been given a life sentence in 1924 by the governor of Pennsylvania, Clifford Pinchot, for having murdered his wife’s cat. Pep was imprisoned until he died during the 1930s. He was a black Labrador retriever.

That the Eastern State Penitentiary was a prime example of advanced form, and especially of advanced function, when it was opened in 1829 is dramatically evidenced by each cell having a small exercise yard attached to it and central heating, running water and a toilet in each cell. President Andrew Jackson was still trudging to and from an outhouse on the White House lawn.

December 7, 1971 was the day the Empire of Japan attacked the Pearl Harbor Naval Base in Hawaii. The following day was the day that, in a speech to Congress, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt referred to December 7 as “a date which will live in infamy.” He also asked Congress for a declaration of war against the Axis Powers, and it was delivered within an hour of the speech. The United States thus suddenly found itself in World War II.

Although a special limousine was available to transport FDR, now that the U.S. was at war, the Secret Service wanted an armored vehicle to transport him to give his speech to Congress at noon on December 8 and thereafter to prevent Japanese or German agents from assassinating him. Fortunately, just such a vehicle had been sitting for some time in a Treasury Department parking lot. Mechanics spent many hectic hours cleaning and checking all the features of the vehicle, and it was used to transport FDR until 1942. It was a 1928 Cadillac Town Sedan and was about as armored as a car could be. It weighed some 9,000 pounds. It also had the dark distinction of having been confiscated from none other than Alphonse Gabriel Capone. When told of the source of the car, FDR reportedly said, “I hope Mr. Capone won’t mind.”

Capone had his car outfitted with some 3,000 pounds of armor, bulletproof windows, a radio that scanned police frequencies, and flashing lights mounted behind its grill. It had also been painted black and green to emulate a Chicago police car. Pictures of the car can be found by Googling “Al Capone’s car.”

In 1942, the Ford Motor Co. bulletproofed a 1939 Lincoln convertible limousine for the president. To stay within stiff spending limits, the government leased the car for $500 per year. FDR nicknamed it the “Sunshine Special.”

Capone had a high-living lawyer named Edward Joseph O’Hare, known as “Easy Eddie.” In return for his keeping Capone out of jail and other rumored services, Eddie was well paid and given a mansion. He seemed oblivious to the horrific things being done by Capone and his underlings, but he always looked after his son, Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare, providing him with everything he ever needed. He also tried to keep him on the straight and narrow. In an attempt to lighten the dark load that would be borne by his son because of his reputation, or possibly to keep himself out of prison, Eddie decided to testify against Capone and the Capone gang. As a result, in 1932, Capone was sentenced to eleven years in prison for income tax evasion. Easy Edie was murdered in 1939.

During World War II, Butch became a fighter pilot stationed in the South Pacific on the aircraft carrier, USS Lexington. While returning alone from a mission he had to abort due to an insufficient amount of fuel, he observed a squadron of Japanese aircraft about to attack the Lexington. After he had fired all his ammunition at the planes, he dove at them, trying to clip their control surfaces, until they finally turned away from the carrier. Butch destroyed five enemy planes and disabled another. His actions won him the honor of being the Navy’s first ace and its first pilot to be awarded a Medal of Honor. Unfortunately, a year later, Butch was killed during combat.

You might pay Butch another honor by remembering his name the next time you pass through Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. It was renamed in his honor in 1949. A substitute for Butch’s Grumman F4F-3 Wildcat aircraft was put on display at the west end of Terminal 2.