The early 1900s is filled with cases of children being chained up for various and dubious reasons. Parents were nearly always the ones who chained up their children, although there was one case of a grandmother chaining a child. Below is just a small sampling of child abuse that was reported in those early newspapers.
1. Chained in a Corn Crib
It was a case that would make the hardest of hearts feel sick. In 1906, Flushing, New York, neighbors of the Nelson farm contacted the police about the treatment of an “insane” child. The police showed up at the farm and could hardly bear what they saw.
Inside a corn crib, a six-year-old boy was chained to the floor and wore heavy manacles. Because of the weight of the chains, the boy could not stand up, but instead crouched inside the corn crib like an animal.
All the boy wore was a rag tied around his head. A woman’s skirt was drawn around his neck to cover his nakedness.
Detectives attempted to talk to the little boy, but he could not speak. He chattered like a monkey, they reported, and attempted to bite anyone who got too close to him.
His parents were arrested. According to them, they kept the boy chained up because he was demented. However, the town people noted that the family could have easily afforded proper care for the child and the boy could have been committed to a children’s asylum. [1]
2. Mistreated and Starved
Little Laura, six-years-old, of St. Antoine-Abbe, Quebec, never got a chance to live a normal life. Her mother, at trial, claimed that Laura had strange ideas and that the girl had a habit of tasting things around the house. In order to stop the little girl from eating, her parents chained her up at night and worked her during the day.
Laura, one of seven children, was so starved that she eventually got her hands on a bottle of kerosene and drank it. The little girl passed away and her parents, after it being discovered that they had chained and torture the child, were arrested and charged with murder. [2]
3. A Female Fiend
In 1881, the Crawford family of New York City decided to hire twenty-year-old Mary Dooley as a house servant. She was a quiet young woman and seemed to do her job well.
However, shortly after being hired, money and objects started going missing around the home. Everyone was questioned, including the family’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Annie.
Nothing could be found about about the missing items until one day a missing pocketbook was found hidden in little Annie’s clothing.
Annie was brought before her father who questioned her about the other missing items. The little girl denied taking anything, and this angered her parents even further. They punished Annie severely until the child finally confessed to the thefts.
Her parents then decided the child was of unsound mind and, with the confirmation of insanity from their physicians, her arms were kept tied to her sides at all times.
But things kept going missing and the parents had had enough. In a final act of anger, the parents “had a belt made, and procuring a chain, chained the child to the wall of the dining room during the day and at night to the post of her bed.”
The servant woman was in charge of the little girl and slept with her at night to prevent Annie from harming herself.
Things kept on going missing from the house, in spite of the parents turning their little daughter into a prisoner. Then, finally, the father got it into his head that maybe his little girl was not the thief. while the servant woman was out of the house, the father ordered a search of the servant’s bedroom. There they found a stash of missing items.
The police were called to the home and the servant confronted. Mary Dooley admitted to the thefts. She was arrested and little Annie was cleared of all false accusations.
The detective on the case said, “That woman is the most wicked being I ever saw. It brought tears to my eyes when I saw that child chained to the wall like a dog. I don’t see how she could have slept with the child and listened to the clank of her chain, knowing she was the cause of it.”
Of course, as it was a wealthy family, nothing was said of the parents who thought it was a good idea to chain their own child. [3]
4. Called a Human Monstrosity
The eight-year-old child was described as a “gorilla,” and the newspaper report said that “his voice is as low as an ordinary man’s, but has never spoken a word in his life. Instead of speaking as the ordinary human being, he growls like an animal.”
According to the child’s parents, the boy’s “skull had been severely injured by a fall when it was only 18 months old.” After the injury, the child became violent and had to be chained to the floor to prevent him from murdering his siblings and harming himself.
While no charges were brought against the parents for keeping the child chained, doctors from all over Gary, Indiana examined the child in 1908 and wondered if they could do some sort of brain surgery on the child to make him less violent. The mother, however, decided to have the child placed in a public institution because she could no longer care for him. [4]
5. Chained Up Inside a Coal Bin
After Chicago neighbors called the police and complained of hearing a child cry back in 1937, the police broke into a west side home and discovered a twelve-year-old girl chained up in the basement inside of a dark coal bin. Her parents were not home, so the police ripped the hook out of the wall and carried the girl to the police car. Sitting at the station, she was still in the dog chains that her father and older brother had used to keep her locked up.
According to the girl. Her father and brother chained her up because she had attempted to run away from home. She also admitted that her father had three of her other brothers in the past for misbehaving.
Unbelievably, the girl’s parents arrived at the police station and asked if they were being sought. The police arrested and charged the father for cruelty, but let the mother take the girl back home. [5]
6. Teeth Marks on her Cheek
In Orange, New Jersey, 1916, Dequinne was arrested for assault and battery on a minor. According to the newspaper report, the father claimed that his nine-year-old daughter liked to play on the railroad tracks. In order to stop her from doing this, he fastened a dog collar around her neck with a paddock. A chain was attached to the collar and was fastened to the wall to prevent the child from leaving.
When the girl was discovered, she also had a large, inflamed human bite on her face.
The child was taken from the home and placed in a “parental home,” which was similar to the foster care system of today. [6]
7. Two Chained and Two Locked in a Closet
Jess Cline and his wife had eight children together, but they certainly did not earn such a blessing. In 1939, it was discovered that two of the boys were kept chained to their beds and two of the girls were kept locked up in the closet.
According to the parents, things had gotten bad since the father lost his job. The mother could not control her children and the police had already warned her about letting them run around loose in the streets. Their only solution was to try and keep them either chained up or locked in the closet.
The father was arrested and charged with inhumane treatment of minor children. There was no word on whether charges were brought against the mother or if the children were removed from the home. [7]
