Flight and return

Porter in his 30s

"Porter's father-in-law posted bail to keep him out of jail. He was due to stand trial on July 7,
1896, but the day before, as he was changing trains to get to the courthouse, an impulse hit him.
He fled, first to New Orleans and later to Honduras, with which the United States had no
extradition treaty at that time. In Honduras, William lived only six months, until January 1897.
There he became friends with Al Jennings, a notorious train robber, who later wrote a book about
their friendship.[3] He holed up in a Trujillo hotel, where he wrote Cabbages and Kings, in
which he coined the term "banana republic" to qualify the country, a phrase subsequently used
widely to describe a small, unstable tropical nation in Latin America with a narrowly focused,
agrarian economy.[4] Porter had sent Athol and Margaret back to Austin to live with Athol's
parents. Unfortunately, Athol became too ill to meet Porter in Honduras as he had planned. When
he learned that his wife was dying, Porter returned to Austin in February 1897 and surrendered to
the court, pending an appeal. Once again, Porter's father-in-law posted bail so that he could stay
with Athol and Margaret.
Athol Estes Porter died from tuberculosis (then known as consumption) on July 25, 1897. Porter
had little to say in his own defense, and was found guilty of embezzlement in February 1898,
sentenced to five years in prison, and imprisoned on March 25, 1898 at the Ohio Penitentiary in
Columbus, Ohio. Porter was a licensed pharmacist and was able to work in the prison hospital as
the night druggist. He was given his own room in the hospital wing, and there is no record that
he actually spent time in the cell block of the prison. He had fourteen stories published under
various pseudonyms while he was in prison, but was becoming best known as "O. Henry", a
pseudonym that first appeared over the story "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking" in the
December 1899 issue of McClure's Magazine. A friend of his in New Orleans would forward his
stories to publishers so that they had no idea that the writer was imprisoned.
Porter was released on July 24, 1901 for good behavior after serving three years. He reunited
with his daughter Margaret, now age 11, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Athol's parents had
moved after Porter's conviction. Margaret was never told that her father had been in prisonjust
that he had been away on business.