I was definitely hurt when my parents one night removed pigeons from the cote, killed them and made me hold their warm bodies. I feel that pain now...
Young’s memoir also indicates that his family lived in extreme poverty. It reveals that there were many mealtimes without enough food to go around the family table, that Henri only had one pair of trousers, and that he even had to wear his sister’s dresses while his mother washed his clothes. In one instance, he recalled spending time at an aunt’s impoverished home. He wrote that it was “filthy,” and that “hogs and chickens walked about inside the rooms.” To make matters worse, a war was raging within the walls of his family’s home. From his earliest childhood, his mother and father engaged into intense bouts of fighting. Henri recalled one fight so fierce that out of desperate fear he slept all night under the house. His aunt Amelia would later claim that Henri had learned his future trade of burglary through the encouragement of his father. His parents divorced when Henri was only fourteen, and during this period his school grades steadily declined until he ultimately failed nearly all of his courses. He later admitted to harboring deep resentment over his family’s breakup and his adult writings show that he was still troubled over the disintegration:
I loved mother, but then I hated her being so stately and elegant away from home to drop into a complacent attitude in our home. She had class, but would use it only on occasions, which threw her into painful blunders. Did she work to save that home? I know, know, know she did. But father, she did not know how to work. Neither did father. The marks of respect they should have observed were lacking. She hurt me often by denouncing my “false pride.”
When Henri was seventeen, his mother remarried. Her new husband, Ammie Payne, had six children from a previous marriage, two of whom Henri refers to as “blunted mentally.” This new marriage was extremely painful for Henri. He clearly adored his mother, and constantly referred to her kindness and immense beauty. But by his own admission, he carried a profound and unwarranted bitterness towards his new stepfather. There were ten children under one roof and Henri confessed that this caused him a feeling of shame and embarrassment. However, Ammie was in fact quite good to Henri. He taught him how to drive his car and worked hard at being a good role model – but Henri did not reciprocate. Instead, he began stealing Ammie’s tools and selling them cheaply for spending money. He also started spending more and more time away from home. He later would comment: “I seemed separated from my family.” He left home permanently at age nineteen.
After short stints of odd jobs, Henri and his friend Elmer Webb rode freight trains out west to California. Young toured the Pacific Corridor as a drifter, eventually joining a traveling carnival where he worked in an animal sideshow for a middle-aged English couple. He indicated that he liked the work, which consisted of helping with show preparations, setting up the tents and selling tickets. But after working for half a season, Henri lost interest in the carnival and started taking on odd jobs while continuing to rove westward. He worked for a brief stint cleaning fruit dying equipment and even spent time as a respected firefighter in Quincy, California.
On October 4, 1932, during an abrupt train stop in Miles City, Montana, Henri and his friend Elmer robbed a fellow drifter, leaving him tied and gagged in a boxcar. Two employees of the Pacific Railroad found the victim in a state of extreme hypothermia due to the near freezing weather. A 1935 police report describes how during his arrest, Young was asked if he had realized that the man could have frozen to death if the two workers hadn’t found him in time. He is quoted as stating: “He was a degenerate and I didn’t think it would have been any loss to humanity if he had...” Young was sentenced to serve a term of fifteen months at the Dear Lodge Penitentiary in Montana.
Henri was released from prison in June of 1933, only to be arrested again on October 9 th. This time he was convicted of burglary in the State of Washington, and was sentenced to the Walla Walla Penitentiary for one year. Young served his time and was paroled on October 12, 1934. Only days after leaving prison, he obtained a gun and held up a man in the parking lot of the Pacific Hotel in Spokane, Washington. Young demanded that the man drive him to Cheney, where police spotted the car careening recklessly and gave chase. Young would make his first escape from the police in a hail of gunfire.
Young would take part in another kidnapping on October 26, 1934, when he and his accomplice Sherman Baxter, who he had met while incarcerated at the Montana State Penitentiary, abducted a man in Spokane. They drove their victim to a remote location in or near the town of Medical Lake, Washington, and proceeded to rob him. A beating him, they wired him to a tree, where he remained undiscovered until the following day. The duo painted their stolen car and drove to Portland, Oregon, where they picked up Jack Baker, a friend of Henri’s from his carnival days in California.
On November 2, 1934, the twenty-three-year-old Henri Young and his two accomplices robbed the First National Bank of Lind, Washington. During the hold up, Young forced cashier J.F. Gibson onto the vault floor while they searched for cash. The three men made off with $405.00 and were captured only 40 minutes later. In the arrest report, Young was described as being arrogant and boastful of his crime. The three young men stood trial and Henri’s accomplices were sentenced to serve 15 years at McNeil Island, while Henri was sentenced to 20 years. Young’s days of freedom had now come to a halt...
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Prison life at McNeil was tough, and Young’s own accounts describe violent fistfights and forced sexual encounters. He quickly became known as a difficult inmate and on January 14, 1935, United States Attorney J.M. Simpson wrote to the Attorney General, pleading for Young’s transfer to Alcatraz. Simpson wrote:
I think Henry Young is the worst and most dangerous criminal with whom I’ve ever dealt, although I have prosecuted and hung two individuals on the charge of murder. Young’s record is bad. He served a term of 15 months in the penitentiary at Dear Lodge, Montana, for the crime of robbery. The circumstances were very brutal.
Four months later E.B. Swope, Warden of McNeil Island and future Warden of Alcatraz, wrote to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, also advocating Young’s transfer to The Rock. Swope wrote that Young was “fomenting as much trouble as he possibly can.” He went on to describe Henri further:
I am sure that we are going to have more or less trouble with him. He is vicious, unscrupulous, and is a fomenter of trouble, but still has enough ingenuity to keep undercover. I would very much appreciate that if a transfer is going to be made, that it be done at an early date.
Young Arrives at Alcatraz
Henri Young was considered one of the most incorrigible inmates ever to serve time at Alcatraz. His extensive conduct reports depict a volatile and hostile nature.
Henri Young arrived on Alcatraz on June 1, 1935, as inmate AZ-244. Just one month later, Young would receive his first write-up for misconduct. Young and inmate Francis L. Keating were reprimanded for talking loudly during mealtime, which was strictly forbidden. His menacing attitude would only intensify under the strict regulations at Alcatraz. Young’s first trip to solitary confinement began on July 17, 1935, when he refused to shake out clothes during a work assignment in the laundry. He was also put on a restricted diet, which usually consisted of one full meal a day with two additional servings of bread and water.