genealogy NOTES

68,937
68,937 and counting
Searching Inmate Case Files
from the U.S. Penitentiary
at Leavenworth, Kansas
By Tim Rives and Steve Spence

A prison file is a two-edged sword. While it can offer

unsurpassed biographical details on the life of its
subject, it may also uncover more information than the
sensitive genealogical researcher wants to know.
Not every family historian, for example, is interested in
Uncle John’s morphine habit or his love life behind bars.
And the unkindest cut of all? It is a prison record, with
all that implies. Genealogists may discover friends and
relatives who once took great interest in their research
suddenly avoiding them at social and family gatherings.
Uneasiness with the subject is justified, for the
information cloaked in a prison file is a potentially
dangerous weapon and must be handled carefully to
avoid injuring others.
That’s the warning. Here’s the promise: those who
use prison records in their genealogical research will
be rewarded with information absolutely unavailable
anywhere else on earth.

Records of inmate 2443, John Morgan (left), and inmate

3656, Charles Smith (right), are among the thousands of
Leavenworth prison case files held at the National Archives
at Kansas City.

54 Prologue
Frank Grigware’s record sheet. Within a year of entering Leavenworth to serve a life sentence, he escaped.
The National Archives at Kansas City holds 68,937
inmate case files from the United States Penitentiary—
Leavenworth (Kansas). Contained in Record Group 129
(Records of the Bureau of Prisons) the files currently range
in date from 1895 to 1952. Additional five-year blocks of
records are scheduled to be accessioned every few years. Bar-
ring a radical change in human nature or the administration
of justice, this record series will only continue to grow.
Since opening its doors in July 1895, Leavenworth has
been home to some of the most famous and notorious federal
prisoners in history. These prisoners include Robert Stroud,
better known as the “Birdman of Alcatraz”; George “Machine
Gun” Kelly; polar explorer Dr. Frederick Cook; labor leader
“Big Bill” Haywood; boxing champion Jack
Johnson; gambler Nicky Arnstein;
and Native American activist
Leonard Peltier. Lesser known
are the tens of thousands of
ordinary men (and about a
dozen women) incarcerated for
periods from a few months to a
few decades.
What can an inmate case
file tell us about any of them,
the famous, the infamous,
the unsung, or your black
sheep ancestor? The inmate
case file is democratic in form.
The documents in the file of the
“Birdman of Alcatraz” will be largely
the same type as those found in the file
of John Doe. (This includes all three “John Does,” men too
stubborn or embarrassed to give Leavenworth officials their
true names.) Although there are many minor variations in
case file contents, the “typical” inmate case file generally
includes the following documents: inmate photograph,
record sheet, personal data sheet, fingerprints, individual
daily work record, hospital record, physician’s examination
of prisoner, correspondence log, personal correspondence,
trusty prisoner’s agreement, and sentence of court.
Inmate Photograph
Also referred to as the mug shot, the inmate photograph
captured front and side views. In photographs from
the early years, most subjects are wearing hats, as was
the custom of the day. The record clerk was forced to
re-shoot inmate George Rives, who ruined his “hat
negative on account of acting crazy.”
Record Sheet
This document includes the inmate’s name, alias, inmate
registration number, color or race, crime, sentence, fine, date
received, court received from, date of sentence, date sentence
began, maximum term date, minimum term date, good
time allowed, occupation, age, date of parole eligibility, and
the discharge date. Inmate occupations varied considerably.
Like death, prison is no respecter of persons. Leaven-
worth has been home to bankers, doctors, lawyers, con
men, spies, actors, writers, scientists, train robbers, Indian
chiefs, politicians, newspaper editors, Ku Klux Klan
leaders, soldiers, jockeys, boxers, racecar drivers, and
cowboys. More than 60 inmates gave their occupation as
Prologue 55
 “ballplayer.” Inmates Bill Wilson and Eul Eubanks played
in the major leagues. Inmates Omer Newsome and Lemuel
Hawkins once starred in the Negro Leagues.
The record sheet also describes an inmate’s disciplinary
violations. These violations range from the petty (say, talking
in the chow line) to the serious (say, killing your cellmate).
Most records sheets are full of charges like “smoking in cell”
or “loafing and shirking,” relatively mild infractions but of
momentous meaning in terms of prison discipline.
Prisons control an inmate by placing a barrier between the
Martin Ross
prisoner and his freedom of action. The right to make choices
Ross was convicted of assault in 1898. His stay at Leaven-
is an important part of what defines us as free individuals.
worth was short. He was found to be insane and was sent
Take away someone’s freedom of choice or action, and you
to the Government Hospital in Washington, D.C.
in effect take away their autonomous self. In exchange for
good behavior, prison officials return parts of the self to the
prisoner in increments, usually in the form of petty privileges
and choices of recreation: smoking cigarettes, watching Convicted train
movies, reading books, talking with co-workers, and the like. robber Jack
Shelton’s personal
Prisoners who take these privileges unearned threaten prison
data sheet includes
order because they are asserting their autonomy like free men. his Bertillon
Prisons cannot tolerate this. And that is why you will see page measurements, an
after page of seemingly petty disciplinary violations. early identification
system developed
before the
Personal Data Sheet widespread use of
This document provides additional information on the fingerprints.
Joseph S. Leach
Leach was the first federal prisoner sentenced to life in prison
when he was convicted of murder in 1900.While intoxicated,
he clubbed a man to death who had previously beaten him.
Leach was pardoned by President Coolidge in 1927.

George Carr
Carr was convicted of murder in 1902. He claimed he
was jumped by two men and killed one in self-defense. He
wrote a letter asking for clemency and said, "It was God's
will and for my better that I was sent to prison." He was
released in 1908.

56 Prologue
 inmate’s family background and criminal conviction. It records
civil or military status; the name of the committing judge; the
name of the district attorney; place of arrest; length of pretrial
jail time; plea; nativity; date of birth; parental information;
marital status; number of children; wife’s address; permanent
address; next-of-kin notification; edu-cation; literacy; religion;
tobacco, alcohol, and drug use; age when leaving home; and
miscellaneous remarks. Ray Perry, also known as Willis
Armstrong, did not admit his drug addiction on his personal
data sheet but confessed it in his prison memoir, Philosophy
John Shetters
of the Dusk, seven years after he left Leavenworth. Perry/
Shetters was convicted of murder in 1905. He was sen-
Armstrong used the nom de plume “Kain O’Dare.”
tenced to four years and fined 10 dollars for shooting and
killing a man in Indian Territory
Fingerprints
The fingerprint card captures basic physically identifying
features such as fingerprints, height and weight, hair and
eye color, marks, scars, moles, and tattoos. One tattoo, its
deeper meaning now lost to time, is described as a “man
riding a hog inside of a pentagram.” Older files include
“Bertillon” measurements with the fingerprints. Alphonse
Bertillon was a French police officer who designed a
pre-fingerprint physical identification system using
measurements (“anthropometrics”), such as the length
and width of the head and the degree of forehead slope.
A set of identical twin inmates known as the “two Will
Wests” exposed the weakness of the Bertillon system at Dan colbert
Leavenworth when it declared them to be the same man. Colbert was convicted of manslaughter in 1904. When asked
about his crime he replied, "The man I killed I myself was both
Shelton’s inmate
drunk and while in that condition we got into trouble and I shot
file also includes
his fingerprints. and killed him. I was charged with murder, tried and convicted."
Inmates were
fingerprinted upon
arrival to the
prison.

ed gaines
Convicted of murder in 1904, Gaines claimed he was at his
boarding house when the victim came “without invitation"
and threatened him with a knife. According to Gaines, he
defended himself with his gun and had no intention of kill-
ing the victim, but only wanted to frighten him away.

68,937 and Counting Prologue 57


Stephen Hardin
Hardin, a private in the 13th Cavalry, was sentenced to
15 years for assault to kill in 1916. He shot two fellow
soldiers with his service rifle.
Young Graham
Graham was sentenced to 30 months for illicit distilling (mak-
ing whiskey without a license) in 1899. The doctor who ex-
amined Graham on his arrival assessed his temperament as
“nervous." He was 52 years old, a farmer, and married with
eight children.
Dan Tso-se
A Navajo boy convicted of manslaughter in 1909 for
shooting four relatives. "I killed four men whose names I
don't remember. I was only 13 at the time and these men
were continually mistreating and whipping me. I had no
one to look after me, being an orphan. I plead guilty."
58 Prologue
Individual Daily Work Record The physician’s
examination report
This record allows the researcher to discover what an inmate
for convicted
did every day of his or her confinement. It is difficult to murderer Robert
imagine another record as comprehensive as a prison work Gilland showed
record. There were up to 50 different jobs inmates could him to be in good
health at the time
be assigned to at Leavenworth. These included work on of his arrival at
the crusher gang, at the machine shop, and in the mail Leavenworth.
department. Some of the more unusual assignments listed
on the sheet were the broom shop and band. Jack Johnson
served as an orderly during his incarceration. Inmates
worked every day of the week except Sunday.
Hospital Record
Not every genealogist will want to know the facts documented
in an inmate’s medical records. Venereal diseases and alcohol
and drug addictions are noted here. Although it is popularly
believed that bootleggers caused prison overcrowding in the
1920s, it was actually the large number of drug or “dope”
offenders that filled the federal corrections system beyond
its capacity. In 1925, for example, narcotics offenders
outnumbered alcohol offenders by 10 to 1. Leavenworth had
so many drug violators that they formed their own baseball
teams. The “Morphines” and the “Cocaines” squared off in
an annual contest to determine the best baseball-playing
dope violators in the institution.
With all these patients, Leavenworth doctors had no
choice but to pioneer the treatment of narcotics addicts.
They injected prisoners with the alkaloid hyoscine to take
the edge off withdrawal pains. This was fine for opiate
addicts, but a little rough on cocaine users, who suffer
no physical withdrawal. A powerful drug, hyoscine was
used by Soviet intelligence agents as a truth serum.
Physician’s Examination of Prisoner
This is a single sheet that lists basic physical information
on a prisoner at the time of his arrival. The exam noted the
height and weight of each prisoner and whether they used
tobacco, liquor, or drugs. The prison physician examined
each inmate for evidence of previous or present diseases
and checked to see if the prisoner had a hereditary risk for
tuberculosis, insanity, cancer, or epilepsy.
Correspondence Log
This document recorded the prisoner’s incoming and
outgoing letters. It reveals kin, work, legal, and friendship
networks. It tells us, for instance, that Industrial Worker
of the World radical Ralph Chaplin used the offices and
influence of his Republican politician cousin to win his
Summer 2010
 freedom. Blood is thicker than water and politics.

Personal Correspondence
This was considered a prisoner’s private property if
he followed institutional rules, a big IF in the prison
world. Inmate Theodore Handy discovered the limits
of this policy when he developed a crush on a Woman’s
Christian Temperance Union volunteer. She intended to
inspire Handy to sobriety by sending him the antialcohol
tract The Life of John Gough. She instead inspired his
w.p. mclester
heart and pen to flights of romantic fancy. “If the man
McLester was sentenced to a pair of six-year concurrent sen-
is insane,” she complained to the prison’s chaplain,
tences for conspiracy in 1918. He worked six days a week on the
“such letters can be excused. If he is rational, they are
"Crusher gang" for an entire year with only Sundays off.
an insult.” Handy lost his pen pal and his letters.

Harry l. jarrell
Jarrell was sentenced to one year at hard labor and a $100
fine for counterfeiting a silver dollar "for gain" in 1903. He
was paroled for good conduct approximately six months
before his sentence expired. He was a carriage painter and
23 years of age.

Sometimes further details about an inmate’s life can be found in

correspondence kept in his case file.

Trusty Prisoner’s Agreement

Overworked prison officials appointed “trustworthy”
inmates to positions of petty authority and
responsibility, leading work crews in the completion of
washington curtis
institution maintenance jobs. Since some of the men
worked outside the prison walls without supervision, Curtis was sentenced to one year and six months at hard
labor and a $100 fine (nearly $2,500 today) for counter-
they were required to sign a contract, or “trusty
feiting in 1902. He claimed he received the counterfeit bills
prisoner’s agreement.” The agreement is valuable to
as payment for a horse he sold. He was a farmer and 73
researchers because it asked the inmate to state his
years of age.
offense in his own words. It also required the inmate to

68,937 and Counting Prologue 59


Bob Crawford
Crawford was a convicted horse thief sent to Leavenworth
in 1902. He was married and the father of five children.
Jasper Brown
Brown was sentenced to three years for larceny in 1903
by the Central District of the Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
He served until his "Good Time" sentence expired, ap-
proximately two years and five months.
Francisco Salinas
Salinas was sentenced to one year and one day for con-
cealing smuggled property in 1900—"forty gallons of
foreign distilled spirits commonly called mescal; four gal-
lons of brandy; one hundred and sixty two pounds of leaf
tobacco; three horses and saddles; and two Winchester
carbines."
60 Prologue
list two character references, potentially valuable leads
for further researching an individual’s life.
Sentence of Court
More important for the clues it provides than its actual
content, the sentence of the court tells the researcher
where the prisoner’s conviction occurred. The docket
number can be used to find the court case, which will
provide more information on the inmate’s criminal
history and open new research leads.
||| ||| |||
Leavenworth inmate case file contents vary according
to the era in which they were created. Early inmate files,
those created between 1895 and 1905, are thin with a few
exceptions. They usually contain the photograph, record
sheet, sentence of court, and correspondence log only. As
the 20th century progressed and institutions grew larger
and more bureaucratic, inmate files expanded accordingly.
Files created in the mid-20th century can amount to
hundreds of pages. Of particular interest in the later
files is the social interview, which the Bureau of Prisons
began conducting with prisoners who entered the system
in the 1930s. The social interview appeared at a time of
high confidence in the ability of sociology to account
for the root causes of criminal behavior. Every possible
environmental influence was duly noted and weighed in
A portion of William
the social worker’s evaluation of the subject. The social
Mathews’s Trusty
interview offers a wealth of personal information, some of Prisoner’s Agreement
which may be restricted. shows the multiple
Federal prison records less than 72 years old are
exempt from the Freedom of Information Act under
subsection (b)(6). To quote from National Archives
guidelines, “this type of record might include medical
information, personal financial data, Social Security
numbers, intimate details of an individual’s personal or
family life, or similar data.”
In practical research terms, this means researchers
can still obtain significant portions of case files that are
less than 72 years old if the inmate was born more than
100 years go or if he is deceased and a copy of the death
certificate is provided with the request. The medical,
financial, or intimate personal information of other
individuals—particularly children—will be deleted
from copies made of records less than 72 years old. That
said, other persons appearing in the file are entitled to
information about themselves and may obtain relevant
portions of those records.
Summer 2010
 Although this article has relied on the masculine
pronoun, there were a few women sentenced to
Leavenworth. But it is misleading to label them
Leavenworth inmates since they averaged only two days
of confinement at the federal facility before being moved
a few miles south to the Kansas State Penitentiary at
Lansing, Kansas. Unlike the federal penitentiary, the
state prison had a women’s wing. (Since 1927 federal
female inmates have been sent to Alderson, West
Virginia.) A dozen female inmate files still survive in
becky cook
Leavenworth holdings, including that of Becky Cook.
Cook was sentenced to two years for robbing a post of-
She was sent to Leavenworth for having her toddler
fice and was transferred to the Kansas State Penitentiary
daughter slip her tiny arm through mailbox slots to
two days after arriving at Leavenworth.
remove things that did not belong to her.
Requests for the files of Cook and other inmates
have made the Inmate Case File series the most popular
records series in the holdings of the Central Plains
Region. Kansas City archivists receive requests daily
from historians, journalists, and genealogists looking to
document the history of American justice, follow the
career of a famous outlaw, or solve a family mystery.
These researchers have found in inmate case files a fine
blade for cutting through the thickets of the past to
reveal facts both illuminating and disconcerting.
For information on Leavenworth inmates, or to order a
copy of a case file, please write to the National Archives at Ezra Owen
Kansas City, 400 West Pershing Road, Kansas City, MO, Sentenced one year and one day for larceny in 1904,
endorsements necessary
64108, or send e-mail to kansascity.archives@nara.gov. Owen had various violations, including being caught with
for a trustworthy
prisoner to work without onions in his possession, laughing and talking, and having a
close supervision. hacksaw in his cell.
For more information about
genealogy research go to
www.archives.gov/genealogy

Author
Tim Rives is the deputy director of the
Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum
in Abilene, Kansas. He was with the National
Archives at Kansas City from 1998 to 2008,
where he specialized in prison records. He is
the author of several Prologue articles.

Steve Spence is an archives specialist at the
National Archives at Kansas City. He works
extensively in the Leavenworth prison records
and in 2007 was the curator of the Leavenworth Penitentiary photo
exhibit “Mugged.”
John g. daulton
Dalton was sentenced five years for violating the 62nd Ar-
ticles of War in 1903. Daulton was constantly quarrelling
with other inmates, and he received three days in solitary
for fighting with another inmate and threatening to hit him
with a wash pan.

68,937 and Counting Prologue 61