“Priswon Record Book Number One, Pacific County
Just when Oysterville is all agog and a-buzz with the County’s announcement of abandonment (see my August 22nd blog), I received a new book contract in the mail. There may be some irony in the fact that the book concerns our County Jail from 1886 to 1919.
According to the rather daunting language of the contract, the book is “provisionally entitled: Jailhouse Stories from Early Pacific County: Tales from the Jumping-Off Place.” Quite a mouthful and probably too wordy for the final book cover, so we shall see.
Some years ago I wrote a series of stories for our local paper with a similar (though shorter) title, and the book will be based on those articles. The stories (more than a dozen of them) are based upon an impressive leather-bound, eight-pound tome entitled “Prison Record Number One, Pacific County.”
“Register of Prisoners”
Contained within its pages are names and descriptions of the unfortunates who were incarcerated here in Pacific County as well as some particulars as to their offenses and their ultimate fate. The information is far from complete but it provided a beginning point for several years of research which, of course, is not complete either. Research is never-ending as historians and genealogists well know.
However, within its pages there were a number of familiar names – sheriffs and judges and prisoners “known” to me through stories told by their descendants and chroniclers. The names of the four men accused of the Frederiksen murders show up as does the name Lum You – the only person ever hanged in Pacific County. Great information with the potential for being a fascinating book.
There are also many unknown names in the Prison Record. They were people (mostly men) arrested for crimes that cover the gamut – larceny, vagrancy, running a bawdy house, operating a still. The entries in the book, in old-fashioned Copperplate handwriting, told part of the story. My goal is to tell the rest – or at least enough to convey a picture of yet another side of our County’s history. One thing for sure: it’s never dull here in Pacific County!
