“Stafford jail having been without an inmate for the last eight or ten months, has been turned into a corn-house. How’s that for an orderly county?” (Fredericksburg Star, Feb. 21, 1880). Clerk of the Court Charles A. Bryan, who wrote amusing and informative little articles for the Free Lance newspaper, observed in 1909, “The jail of Stafford has been for rent for about six months. Your correspondent has known it to go seven years without a tenant” (Free Lance, Nov. 6, 1909). Stafford Jail Entered Thirty-Five Gallons of Liquor Stolen. No Clue Left. Unknown parties forced their way into the Stafford jail Wednesday night, making a successful haul of the 35-gallons of corn whiskey which were stored in the lock-up. There were no prisoners in the county bastile at the time and the jail-breakers had no trouble in prizing open the rear door and forcing their way into the jail, which is housed in the Court House building. Nothing was known to the authorities of the robbery until Thursday morning when the open door was noticed and an investigation showed that the contraband whiskey had vanished. The illicit product was captured recently by Special Officer Stewart, who was an uninvited guest at a “still party” held in the woods near Mount last week, where a crowd of some 30 persons, many of them women, were watching the process of dismantling and removing a still of 60 gallon capacity. As Officer Stewart came on the scene, the audience disappeared with the exception of four men who were arrested but were later dismissed at the magistrate’s hearing. Officer Stewart confiscated the 35-gallons of freshly run whiskey and placed it in the county jail for safe-keeping. County officers have no clue as to the identity of the “jail-breakers” (Free Lance, Nov. 22, 1924). screencast/t/Pog56s9h
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 23:41:58 +0000
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