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Description
This circa-1900 photograph shows seven of eight participants in a June 27, 1893, jailbreak at Folsom State Prison. The eighth player was ex-Folsom convict Bill Fredericks, who vowed to break several of his prison mates out. He did so in the morning, smuggling rifles, pistols and knives onto prison grounds and to his waiting compatriots. The next day, the seven prisoners, minus Fredericks, took a guard hostage, and then attacked a guard tower in an effort to escape. Guards, located in several of the facility towers and on the prison grounds, returned a fusillade of gunfire, killing three and wounding the balance of the group. A total of 64 bullets hit the group. Clockwise and from the top are Frank Williams, Charles Abbott, Thomas Wilson, Henry Wilson, Thomas Schell, and George Sontag; in the middle is A. Dalton. Williams, Dalton and Thomas Wilson were killed during the break. The image is inscribed with the phrase “Seven Convicts Who Made the Break at Folsom Prison, June 27, 1893.”
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