Portraits From the Pen | El Palacio Magazine

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Related Article in El Palacio, Summer 2012
By Sibel Melik

The New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary was built in Santa Fe to receive prisoners sentenced by the Territorial District Courts. It opened in 1885, at the intersection of what are now St. Francis Drive and Cordova Road, where a complex of state government buildings now stands. Pen Road still exists as a short street parallel to and just west of St. Francis Drive.<br /><br />The New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary is shown here circa 1909, from a postcard by the Neuman Postcard Company. Courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), Neg. No. 040303.

These may be portraits of prison staff members or possibly self-portraits by the photographers. Various studio backdrops such as the one in the photograph on the left appear in some of the photographs of prisoners. <br /><br /><em>These images and all prisoner photographs are from the Department of Corrections Glass Negative Collection, which is part of the Department of Corrections Records at the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives. Additional related materials from the Territorial Penitentiary (which, after New Mexico gained statehood in 1912 became the State Penitentiary) include inmate intake forms, conduct records, parole records, and wardens's notebooks.

For most inmates two photographs survive: one of the prisoner as he arrived at the penitentiary and one in prison clothes, after being shorn. Prison records list each inmate's name, date received, term of sentence, crime, county where convicted, race, age, height, weight, place of birth, occupation, marital status, closest relative or friend with an address, date discharged, and whether convicted of violating federal or territorial laws.
Inmate No. 1402, George Stephenson, was a twenty-six-year-old laborer from Trinidad, Mexico, when he entered the penitentiary on January 23, 1901, with a five-year sentence for a murder committed in Grant County. After he was issued his prison uniform, Stephenson was apparently given, or allowed to retain, a bandana. Three months after his incarceration Stephenson was killed during an escape attempt in which he injured a guard.
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Inmate No. 1363, Thomas Drayton, entered the penitentiary from Grant County at the age of sixty-six on October 2, 1900, finely attired in a three-piece suit, lapel pin, and boutonniere. He was convicted of assault with intent to rape and sentenced to five years. He is listed as a 'Negro' from 'San Domingo, Puerto Prince, Spain,' occupation 'hostler.' (A hostler worked in a railyard, moving locomotives from one track to another. Drayton was likely the descendant of slaves in the Spanish colony that is now the Dominican Republic.) According to the intake form, Drayton had twenty-five children (nine boys, sixteen girls). He is listed as 'single (wife dead).' Drayton's contact person was Mrs. Lucy Anderson in Silver City, New Mexico. He was released on June 26, 1904, with an allowance for good time. Beyond these bare facts, his story remains untold.<br /><br /><em>

When digitized at very high resolution, large-format negatives can yield remarkable detail. Here Thomas Drayton's glasses reflect the bars on the Penitentiary's windows. <br /><br />The photograph of a cellblock reveals the bleakness of the New Mexico Territorial Penitentiary, circa 1893. Photograph by Thomas J. Curran, courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), Neg. No. 015206.

Inmate No. 1347, Fred Dean was a twenty-seven-year-old miner from Meadville, Pennsylvania, who entered the penitentiary on May 1, 1900, with a six-and-a-half month sentence for assault to kill. His contact was Hugh Dean of 'Delf, Colorado' (either a misspelling or a town that no longer exists). He was released on August 23, 1900, with good time allowed. While we do not know the photographer's name, we may have his fingerprints on the negative plate of Dean's 'before' photograph. (Acids in the oil in fingerprints eat away at the emulsion over time, leaving impressions.) <br /><br />

<b>Left:</b> Inmate No. 1349, Thomas Moore was a twenty-five-year-old cowboy when he entered the prison on May 7, 1900, with a two-year sentence for forgery. Convicted in Lincoln County, he was married, and his listed contact, presumably his wife, was Calonnie Moore of 'Anga, New Mexico' (perhaps that was a misspelling of La Manga). He was released on February 5, 1901, with good time allowed.<br /><br />

'Before' pictures do not survive for all of the prisoners. Calvin Mortimer and Robert Taylor are only shown after their transition to prison life. Inmate No. 1395, Mortimer, was a thirty-three-year-old picture framer when he entered the penitentiary on Christmas Day, 1900, with a five-year sentence for larceny committed in San Miguel County. He was released on June 1, 1905, with good time allowed. He had served an earlier sentence for larceny in 1890 under the alias 'Walter Place.' While the 1900 record lists him as 'English,' the 1890 record lists him as Scotch, from 'Nilmarnvok, Scotland.' Perhaps that was Kilmarnock, Kilmonivaig, or Kilmaluaig, Scotland.<br><br>
Inmate No. 1417, Robert Taylor was a twenty-three-year-old cowboy originally from 'Parkersburg, Pennsylvania' (perhaps that was either Parkesburg, Pennsylvania or Parkersburg, West Virginia). He was given a five-year sentence for assault and robbery in San Juan County, and his listed contact was Mrs. A. A. Davis of Verona, Pennsylvania. His sentence was commuted by Governor Otero to four years and he was released on Independence Day, 1904.
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Inmate No. 1344, Gil Padilla, was a thirty-one-year-old farmer, convicted in Doña Ana County of burglary and larceny, and sentenced to four years. He was married, and his contact, presumably his wife, was Francisca de Padilla, of Anthony, New Mexico. His listed nationality is 'Mexican.' He was released on June 19, 1903, with good time allowed. Many of these impoverished, rural prisoners were probably photographed just once in their lives, at this pivotal moment when they entered prison. Padilla does not present the formal, composed, impassive expression found in most Victorian photographs and probably had never been photographed before this surely distressing moment.<br /><br />

Inmate No. 1619, J. H. Green, entered the Penitentiary on December 14, 1902, sentenced to three years for burglary. He was an eighteen-year-old cook from Las Vegas, New Mexico, and his closest kin was a G. H. Green in Kansas City, Missouri. He was released on Independence Day, 1905.<br /><br />

Inmate No. 1640, William Sweeney, and Inmate No. 1644, Fred Eshenoui, entered the Penitentiary on April 4, 1903 sentenced to three years for a burglary committed in Colfax County. Sweeney, with a listed age of seventeen, was from Kansas City, Missouri, and his contact was James Sweeney of Raton, New Mexico. He was released on February 25, 1904, pardoned by Governor Otero. He looks much younger than seventeen and perhaps is. Many of the prison records are questionable or incorrect, as can be all kinds of records--Ellis Island records, newspapers, probably anything and everything that could be recorded would sometimes be recorded incorrectly. Sometimes prisoners' names change, shift, or mutate. Often they use aliases. They might have had motivations for giving the wrong name or town or age.
Note how the photographer framed the young prisoners between an urn and a vine on the painted backdrop.
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The collection does not contain William Sweeney's 'after' picture, only Fred Eshenoui's. At age thirteen, Eshenoui was the youngest inmate yet discovered among the Territorial prisoners in this archive. He was from Minneapolis, Kansas, and his contact was Miss Anna Coal of Pueblo, Colorado. He was released from prison on August 3, 1904, after serving a year and four months, with good time allowed. Childhood in the late nineteenth century was not the special, protected time that it is now, and this young boy was fending for himself in the New Mexico Territory.
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Inmate No. 1814, Yen Li was a thirty-year-old Chinese laundryman, convicted in Doña Ana County and sentenced to six months in 1904 for 'uttering a false certificate.' He was single and had no listed contact. Note the elaborate studio backdrop in his 'before' picture. He was allowed, humanely, to retain his traditional queue. And what does he have, folded in the pocket of his striped jacket, in his 'after' picture? <br /><br />

Robert Tórrez devotes a fascinating chapter of his book, <i>The Myth of the Hanging Tree: Stories of Crime and Punishment in Territorial New Mexico</i>, to the story of Alma Lyons (Inmate No. 2157, left) and Valentina Madrid (Inmate No. 2158, right), two of the very few women pictured in this collection. Childhood friends in Hillsborough, New Mexico, they were teenagers when convicted of conspiring to poison Valentina's husband in 1907 at the urging of her lover. Days before their scheduled execution, their death sentences were commuted to life in prison. In 1920 their sentences were commuted to time served, and the women were released. The collection holds only these two pictures of them, presumably in prison-issued dresses.<br><br>

Some of the prisoners show up more than once in the collection. Jose Albillar first appears as Inmate No. 755, convicted of adultery and imprisoned for six months. Albillar, a barber from Doña Ana County, was one of a surprisingly large number of Territorial-era prisoners sentenced for the new federal crimes of adultery and bigamy. The Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act of 1882 may have been intended to target Mormons in the western territories, but many New Mexicans, married in the church but not in civil ceremonies, found themselves ensnared by the new law. In his book <i>United States Marshals</i>, Larry D. Ball writes that New Mexicans considered illegal cohabitants under US law were vigorously prosecuted in San Miguel, Doña Ana, Santa Fe, and Socorro counties. According to Ball, this aggressive law enforcement was an attempt by the authorities to clean up the morality of the territory during the push for statehood. <br /><br />

Albillar returned to the penitentiary again as Inmate No. 1141, and then again as Inmate No. 1262, each time serving a longer sentence. He was twenty-eight years old in September 1894, when he entered the Pen for the first time, and thirty-seven when he was released in 1902, having served a one-year sentence for murder and assault with intent to kill, followed by three years for larceny from a dwelling. He does not show up in the penitentiary records again.<br><br>
Jose Albillar's prison garb varies with the seasons. When he was admitted for the last time, in November 1899, he was issued a warm, layered outfit: a striped shirt with matching vest and jacket.

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