All My Ancestors

This week at work I’ve been researching an Oklahoma family who had a family member imprisoned just prior to statehood. They said the family tradition was that he was at McAlester–site of the federal penitentiary here in Oklahoma.

However, a visit to the state’s Department of Corrections website about the establishment of “Big Mac” states it was not built until 1908. It goes on to say that inmates from Kansas were returned to Oklahoma to build the prison. I would have assumed that prisoners from that time period were sent to Fort Smith and maybe Muskogee–there was a federal court there, not sure about a prison. But this indicated to me that they were also sent to Kansas–guess that makes sense since it’s a neighbor and it did have federal prisons by then.

Materials I found on the family indicated that the man in question had served his time in Detroit prior to Oklahoma statehood in 1907. I wondered if this could be another Detroit besides Detroit, Michigan, but after a bit more digging, I believe it must have indeed been in the Motor City.

I decided to take a look at the 1900 federal census for Detroit. Sure enough, part of Ward 7 was a listing of the prisoners in the “House of Corrections.” There were probably about 350-400 male prisoners listed and 75 female–on separate pages, of course. But my estimate is that 15 or so of the male prisoners were from “Indian Territory” or Texas. I did not find the person I was seeking, but I believe he served his time a little later, about 1902 or so.

I used the “Ask a Librarian” function on the State of Michigan website and got a prompt response. Sure enough, even though the Detroit prison was not built as a federal prison, there had been a public law passed in 1899 that enabled them to contract for federal prisoners from other states.

Another lesson learned. A confirmation that there’s usually a grain of truth in family stories, but they must be confirmed. And who would have thought that persons from Indian Territory would serve time in Michigan? And, again, I’m reminded of how grateful I am to have such great access to this sort of info from the comfort of my computer chair.

One more bit of info for those of you who are interested in McAlester’s history, and we frequently get questions about ancestors who were imprisoned there–the listing for the cemetery at the prison is online. Over 300 of the graves have entries at FindAGrave. It’s listed as Department of Corrections Prison Cemetery in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. Just so you know.

1 Comment »