Recollections of Windsor Prison; / Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline, with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious Reflection

by of Vermont John Reynolds

I do not, however, mean to deal too severely with this young and inexperienced guard; he was under authority, and he had orders to obey. But I mean to exhort those who gave him such orders to settle the case with their consciences, that they may die in peace. He has suffered much since that fatal morning, and for many years his countenance denoted that all was not peace within. I pity him, and most sincerely do I hope, that no other promising young man will ever listen to the voice of the aged, and do that which will bring the blood of a fellow being on his soul.

After the alarm was over, Plumley and the Higginses were committed to the solitary cells, and Fane was left weltering in his blood till afternoon, in full view of all the prisoners, and of the hundreds of citizens who came in to see him.

About this time, preparations began to be made to bury him. A principal officer in the place told the carpenter to make a box of rough boards not regarding the shape at all. "Don't," said he, "make a coffin, but a box, and bury him in his clothes, just as he is." The carpenter, however, took it upon himself to make a coffin, and to make a very good one.

During the afternoon, a very remarkable alteration was made in the funeral preparations. Instead of burying him in his clothes, as was directed, he was dragged on the ground like a dead dog, round to the other side of the chapel, and there stripped, laid on a board, and washed all over with brine; his head cleaned, and his hair combed, and then wrapped up in a clean sheet. This was paying his remains a degree of respect which was never paid to a prisoner before, and the inquiry was very naturally made—"What does it mean?" Some thought that the hearts of the keepers began to relent, and that this was a sign of a troubled conscience. Others thought differently, but it remained for time to explain the mystery.

The burying place is in the yard of the prison, and close by the building in which the prisoners sleep. There Fane was buried in the neat and clean style described above. Those who buried him, thought that his body might be taken up and given to the doctors for dissection, and to be certain, they marked the grave in such a way that it could not be disturbed without their knowing it.

The next morning the grave was examined, but no alteration had taken place; but the second morning, the grave was found to have been opened, and the news went through the prison like a flash of lightning. "What! is it not enough to murder him, must his body be disturbed and given to the doctors?" was the indignant and wrathful expression of every tongue. The whole prison was in a blaze, and the united demand of the prisoners for an explanation was not trifled with. At noon the principal officers came into the dining room, when all the prisoners were assembled for dinner, and each of them made a speech, touching the subject of the violated grave; and it is due to them both, to give the reader their speeches unaltered, that he may judge of their guilt or innocence from their own words.

The Warden said, that a suspicion appeared to exist, that Fane's body had been taken away, but he thought without foundation. The grave did not appear to him to have been touched. At any rate, if the body was gone, he knew nothing of it, and he did not think that any of the keepers or guard did. He could not see how it could be dug up, and the prisoners not hear it, as the grave was so near them. But if that could be done, he thought it could have been taken out of the yard but by one of two ways, and if it went through either of these, the noise of the great gates must have been heard. His opinion was, that his body was still in the grave; but if it had been taken away, he knew nothing about it, and he did not think that any of the rest of the keepers did.

This was the poorest speech I ever heard that man make, and his appearance told too plainly to be misunderstood, that from some cause or other, his mind was troubled. I do not mean to say that he removed the body himself, but when you hear the other speech, you will know that the prisoners had reason to suspect something.

The Superintendent said: "I clear nobody. That grave has been disturbed, and the body has evidently been removed. I did not once dream of such a thing; if I had had the least suspicion of it, I would have placed a guard there. It was his sacred bed till the morning of the resurrection, and no one had any right to disturb him. I don't know what to think, but I know that there is guilt somewhere, and, as the Superintendent of the prison, I will spend five hundred dollars but that I will find something about it."

This satisfied the prisoners of the innocence of the Superintendent, but not of the Warden. They retired to work fully convinced that the Warden knew about the removal of the body, and that conviction has not been worn off, but confirmed by after reflection. The reasons for supposing that the Warden was knowing to the disinterment of Fane's body, I shall now state, leaving the reader to judge of their force.