THE REPUBLICAN

July29, 1881

 

Escape from Jail

 

            At about 6 o’clock last Saturday evening Frank Hoffman, a 19 years old kid from Waushara county, in jail here for burglary, managed to escape, but his freedom was of short duration. He had crawled through the “dinner hole” of the iron grating that encloses the cell corridor, slipped out into the hall and walked out of the front door and slid for the woods.  Sheriff Rowe was in the garden and Henry in the barn, and the absence of the prisoner was ascertained when the servant girl went to give him his supper. Henry Rowe accompanied by Will Ogden started in pursuit in about an hour after the escape, and Sheriff Rowe and Chief of Police Chesley an hour later.  In Dayton, Mr. Holman joined the Sheriff’s party, which was close on his track.  Their objective point was the residence of a widow in Belmont, where Hoffman worked at the time he was arrested, and if not there, the residence of an uncle in Springwater. Without any knowledge of the presence of each other, the pursuing parties came together near the widow’s place, about midnight.  The house was searched without finding the kid. While standing at the gate in consultation about what to do next, the officers heard a peculiar call and Henry Rowe started at once in the direction of the sound.  Cautiously approaching a hedgerow and fence, he heard a step, and a minute later his man climbed the fence within six feet of him.  A pistol in his face and command to halt had the desired effect and Henry marched his man down to the gate where the other officers were, and before morning he was in his old quarters.  He had made 15 miles barefooted through the woods before 11 o’clock and had laid down by the hedgerow and took a nap.  The call he made was to attract the attention of a female friend in the house.  He is not very communicative about his exploit, but says he did not expect the officers there until next day, when he would have been out of the way.  It was his expressed intention to plead guilty and take sentence, but now he has the additional penalty of a jail breaker hanging over him.