USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > East Granby > Newgate of Connecticut : its origin and early history : being a full description of the famous and wonderful Simsbury mines and caverns, and the prison build over them > Part 6
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Sam and I stood for halt a minute peering down into the dark, and said noth- ing. Sam tested the wooden ladder with his hand.
"I'll try it first, I'm the lighter," said 1, dropping down out of sight with a leap. "Stay here till I call."
After descending about fifty feet I found myself at the bottom of the shaft with Sam's face peering in at the top like a portrait set in a square frame.
"Solid ground," I shouted up the ladder. The light was shut out suddenly, and Sam began the descent. Lighting the candles and leaving one of them in a crevice at the foot of the shaft, at Sam's instance, I took the other and led the way down a series of stone steps, thirty or forty in number, dipping away to the east under the mountain. The roof was very low, and the candle gave so little light, that I was compelled to feel my way forward with my walking-stick. Here, after following several galleries till they ended in solid rock, I finally struck the right one, and groped forward twenty or thirty feet into the caverns -an irregular series of galleries, where the prisoners used to sleep, and where old Prince the negro who had once been servant to an officer under Gen. Washington, died shackled to the wall, and rotted where he died. The old man was too decrepit to work, and was hence not looked after by the prison officials .* A considerable excavation has taken place at this point, resulting in a central cavern bristling with nooks in the rock of somewhat irregular depth. These were used as sleeping-places by the prisoners, and still exhibited the re- mains of bunks.
Striking a gallery leading northeast, and still dipping under the mountain, I followed on, candle in hand, bumping my head against the roof, now and then, and feeling my way step by step with my walking-stick. The water dropped from the roof; the floor tipped on the east until the water was more than ankle- deep ; the candle burned dimly and spluttered. A single drop of water might at any moment have extinguished it.
By and by, gleamed in the distance something like water with the light falling upon it from above, and Sam and I staggered on, expecting at every step to get a ducking, and liable to it with the merest unlucky slip of the foot. A slimy ooze covered the floor on the west side of the gallery, and our feet squashed at every step and clung to the mud like plasters. After crawling about thirty feet in this way, our progress was barred by a sheet of water about twenty feet in breadth. Sounding it with my walking-stick, and finding it too deep to be
*Prince never was shackled, but was a harmless old negro, and during all the last years of his life enjoyed the freedom of the prison.
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waded, I took my bearings and retraced my steps, with a view to find the hun. dred-foot shaft, famous in traditions of the prison as the spot where the tory in revolutionary days, tried to escape by climbing out on a rope, and fell nearly a hundred feet from the top to the bottom. He had spent his last $50 in bribing a neighbor to unfasten the trap-there was no wall in those days-with what avail they tell you as an evidence that God strongly disapproved of tories.
Once more in the main cavern, after testing several galleries of from ten to thirty feet in length, I finally worked east and down until my walking-stick, with which I felt my way like a blind man with his staff, encountered no floor, and the faintest possible glimmer of light filtered in from above. Here was a perpendicular jump of ten feet, and a bar upon which the prisoners were in the habit of swinging themselves down into the gallery leading away to the southeast.
This shaft is round, and terminates at the top just within the gate by the east wall, twenty feet from the workshop. It is a trifle over a hundred feet deep, I should say, and was formerly furnished with a rope and windlass for lifting out the ore. The rope still dangles loosely from the top, but the remaining appur- tenances have been removed.
As it was impracticable to drop into the gallery at this point, Sam suggested that the exploration should be abandoned; but, having retraced twenty feet or more. I detected a gallery pushing to the southeast at an acute angle, and turned into it, Sam consenting to wait at the corner till I came back. This tunnel strikes the one out of which the main shaft opens about twenty feet to the south, by a gradual but exceedingly rapid and risky descent. So I found myself at last at the deepest point in the mine, in the tunnel terminating in that fatal drain, where still lie the bones of prisoners who tried to escape by that desperate route, and died at dead of night away under the mountain, self-buried, but coffined in solid rock .*
I followed this tunnel, which was a trifle higher in the roof than the rest, till the water was too deep to admit of penetrating further. Water dripped from the roof, from the walls. As I turned a drop struck the wick of the candle, and it spluttered and went out, leaving me in a perfect darkness such as a man never experiences above ground. A little nervous I groped back, feeling for the first gallery to the left with my walking-stick, and stricken with a sudden fear, that I might have passed others unconsciously on my route, and might turn into the wrong one on my way back. It did not occur to me to shout to Sam, who was waiting for me not twenty rods off, till a sharp "come on !" away to the south- west enabled me to take my bearings and calculate my distances.
"Yes, directly; but my candle's out," I shouted, groping forward for ten or fifteen minutes, till my walking-stick indicated a break in the wall at the left. Here I shouted again, and was answered almost at my ear, Sam having felt his way down the gallery almost to its junction with the tunnel.
It was impossible to sit down, so our council of war had to be held standing. There were still difficulties to be encountered, and not the least one of them was imaginary. The candle at the foot of the ladder could not last many min- utes longer, for an hour at least must have elapsed since our descent. To the left, then to the right, then to the left again, in the general direction of the gallery into which I had just turned, was agreed upon in council as the nearest
* Another fable, having a very slight foundation in the fact that several convicts did escape by that route ;- but they all took their own bones with them.
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way out, but in a route encumbered with abandoned galleries, there was no knowing how many might have to be tried before hitting the right one. How- ever, it was useless to dawdle over that question, when the candle at the foot of the ladder might be going out.
So, taking the front, I laid my walking-stick horizontally against the wall, faced myself by it at right angles so as to look straight ahead, and groped along, muttering to myself that this must have been a rare place for a state prison, and conjuring up German stories of cobolds ; or if, as the mining ballad runs,
" The ghosts of mining men Revisit earth again, And make old mines their den,"
imagining spectral miners, and converting the trickle of water from the roof into the click of invisible implements.
A thud of my shoulder against something hard shook me out of my reverie or my reverie out of me, and putting out my hand I found it to be a wooden prop supporting the roof. I had noticed three or four of them in the main cavern-or congeries of galleries terminating in a central space-and this re- assured me. Asking Sam to keep exactly in my tracks by putting his hands on my shoulders, I started due north as near as I could, waving my walking-stick to and fro in front of me, so as to develop any obstacle in the way before I bumped against it; for it was now impracticable to follow by the wall without doubling at least half a dozen abandoned galleries varying in length from ten to thirty feet, while, by stumbling directly across the central cavern the entrance to the gallery leading westward and upward to the foot of the ladder would be intercepted, and if the candle had gone out, it was possible that light enough might sift down through the fifty-foot shaft, though enclosed at the top, to furnish a clue to its position. So Sam and I stumbled on, hoping to get out in a few minutes, but a little nervous and shaky in our voices with the possibility of having to stay under ground. And I, for one, was growing a little drowsy for want of oxygen, and a trifle hungry besides.
I had nearly passed the entrance to the upward dipping tunnel, when Sam called attention to a kind of cloud of light at its end. The candle was out ; but now the route was direct, and if the kind of cloud indicated the bottom of the shaft, there was an end to all apprehension. I turned and blundered up an in- clined plane till my foot struck a stone step, succeeded by another, as I ascer- tained with my walking-stick. It grew momentarily a little lighter, and fancies of cobold and miner's ghost flitted from my brain as stealthily as they had come. It would be poetic perhaps, to say that they folded their tent like the Arabs in Mr. Longfellow's ballad, and silently stole away, were it not that ghosts and cobolds are not reputed to live in tents, though very nomadic in their habits.
"So this was the Connecticut state prison from 1774 to 1827," quoth I, as I scrambled up the ladder after Sam had disappeared above ground.
Among the accidents which have occured to visitors, was that of Mrs. Christia Griswold of Poquonock, who while standing at the mouth of the shaft leading down into the cavern, accidentally stepped off, and fell the whole depth, striking on the rocky bottom. The buoyancy of her clothes,
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or some other cause, saved her life, though she received inju- ries from which she never recovered. A prisoner afterwards fell at the same place, fetters and all, without appearing to injure him, it is said, in the least.
A few years since a party of students were on a visit to the mines, when one of their number stepped into the shaft, and fell to the bottom, receiving injuries which caused his death in a few months. The descent upon the ladder is now accomplished by any one, and the trouble is well repaid by the interesting relics below. When Newgate was in full blast, it was a very popular place of resort for travellers and pleasure parties, as from a report of the overseers in 1810, it appears that about 5,400 persons visited the place annually.
The original manuscript of that report is now in possession of the author, written by Judge Samuel Woodruff, in 1810, he at that time being one of the overseers ; and the following are extracts from some of his replies to certain questions propounded by a legislative committee :
" Ans. to question 2nd .- Health generally good when committed. A few afflicted with chronic complaints and perhaps one in nine or ten sorely afflicted with the veneral disease. One-third or more of the latter class have been cured. * * * With respect to cleanliness ; when committed, the greater part come dirty, and at least one-fifth part covered with vermin. Much pains is taken to clean them of the vermin which could and would be effected were it not for the frequent recruits from the county prisons.
Ans. to question 3rd .- The price of a ration is 9cts. 5m. The component parts of a ration, 1lb. of beef or 3-41b. of pork at 4cts 5m .; 1lb. of bread or flour, at 3cts .; 3 gills of peas or beans, or 2lbs. of potatoes, and 3 pints of cider at 2cts. In the summer the prisoners are supplied occasionally with greens, collected by the guard without expense to the State. The prisoners for two or three years past were fed with soup as often as one day in four, but on account of their universal dislike to it, they have been fed on soup for the last year, but one day in seven. This soup is composed of a ration made of 3-41b. of beef 2 lbs. potatoes with a suitable quantity of Indian meal to thicken it.
Ans. to question 4th .- The winter clothing for prisoners consists of 2 check flannel shirts, a short coat, 1 pair pants of homemade cloth, 2 pairs of woolen stockings and one pair shoes. Their summer clothing consists of a change of tow-cloth frocks and trousers, with stockings and shoes. Their shirts, summer frocks, trousers, and stockings, are shifted and washed once a week, and are boiled in strong lye made of ashes which effectually destroys the vermin.
Ans. to question 5th .- The prisoners are lodged in huts or cabins made in the cavern. They are built on a floor elevated three feet above the ground, and are ranged on each side of a space which lies between them. The roofs and outer sides of these cabins are made close and tight with boards. The berths in these
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cabins are plentifully supplied with blankets, and generally with straw when the prisoners wish it. The straw is shifted as often as is necessary.
Ans. to question 6th .- The prisoners are secured by iron fetters round their unkles. While at work a chain fastened to a block is locked into these fetters, or round the ankle. For the more daring and refractory, heavier chains are occasionally used.
Ans. to question 9th .- No allowance is made to those prisoners who do more than their daily task. Formerly an allowance, of one penny on each pound of nails over the daily task, was allowed. But this practice for several years past has been discontinued ; it was found this allowance induced them to slight their work, and to steal nails from each other at the forges."
It further appears by the above report, that the number of prisoners at that time was forty-six. The description of the rations as given would not indicate a very high state of cul- inary art ; but however unsavory the qualities of that " soup," the cider was probably deemed a sufficient compensation for both that and the vermin.
By some, this place has been compared to the ancient Bastile of France, but the comparison is far from being cor- rect, except in the frightful emotions which this dungeon is calculated to inspire. The floors and the roof of the Bastile were made of iron plates riveted upon iron bars. The walls were of stone and iron several feet in thickness; the whole being surrounded by walls, and a ditch twenty-five feet deep. The entrance to each cell was through three consecutive doors, secured by double locks. The scanty food, and the silent, unavailing grief, endured by the wretched victims of that dreadful abode, often reduced them to idiocy ; besides, they were taken from those deathlike cells each year, and sub- jected to the horrible torture of the rack, which often dislo- cated their joints or crushed their bones, and all this perhaps for merely uttering a sentiment averse to some political party in power! The soldiers and officers also of the Bastile, except the governor, were prisoners in everything but in name. When they entered the walls of that prison, it was for the term of their lives, and a wish expressed even to go out, was instant death. Newgate would not in any respect, bear a similtude to the Bastile. Indeed, the treatment of the prisoners and discipline of the guard was often too
5
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lenient, although for disobedience, punishment was some- times inflicted in the severest manner. The criminals confined here after the year 1800, varied in number from forty-five to sixty, but in 1827, upon their removal to Weth- ersfield, they numbered one hundred and twenty-seven.
DAILY ROUTINE.
A description of the daily management at Newgate, will at this day be found both interesting and amusing. The hatches were opened and the prisoners called out of their dungeon each morning at daylight, and three were ordered to "heave up" at a time; a guard followed the three to their shops, placing them at their work, and chaining those to the block whose tempers were thought to require it. All were brought out likewise in squads of three, and each followed by a guard. To those who never saw the operation, their appearance cannot be truly conceived, as they vaulted forth from the dungeon in their blackness, their chains clanking at every step, and their eyes flashing fire upon the bystanders. It resembled, perhaps more than anything, the belching from the bottomless pit. After a while their rations for the day were carried to them in their several shops. They consisted for each day of one pound of beef or three-fourths of a pound of pork, one pound of bread, one bushel of potatoes for each fifty rations, and one pint of cider to every man. Each one divided his own rations to suit himself-some cooked over their own mess in a small kettle at their leisure, while others disregarding ceremonies, seized their allowance and ate it on an anvil or block. The scene was really graphic, and might remind one of a motley company of foreign emigrants on the deck of a canal-boat, during their visit to the Far West. They were allowed to swap rations, exchange commodities, barter, buy, and sell, at their pleasure. Some would swap their rations for cider, and often would get so tipsy that they could not work, and would "reel to and fro like a drunken man." " Old Guinea," an aged convict, was frequently com- missioned by them to go abroad and purchase the good
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creature for them, and would often return laden with two or three gallons. Sometimes, by taking his pay out of the cargo on the road rather freely, his ship would get becalmed, when he would cast anchor by the wayside for the night, making the consignees doubly glad upon his safe arrival "in the beautiful morning." Lieutenant Viet's tavern, a few rods from the prison, was an especial accommodation, not only for travellers, but for the better sort of convicts. He who could muster the needful change, would prevail on some one of the guard to escort him over the way to the inn of the merry old gentleman, where his necessities and those of his escort were amply supplied at the bar. Many an un- fortunate fellow, after his release from bondage, has "cast a longing look behind" to the old temple of Bacchus, and appreciated the sentiment of the poet :
"Of joys departed never to return, How painful the remembrance."
All were allowed to work for themselves or others after their daily tasks were finished, and in that way some of them actu- ally laid up considerable sums of money. A little cash, or some choice bits of food from people in the neighborhood, procured many a nice article of cabinet ware, a good basket, a gun repaired by the males, or a knit pair of stockings by the female convicts. The writer, when a boy, was often re- warded for a pocketful of fruit with miniature ships, boxes, brass rings, bow and arrows, and the like; all being more valuable for having been made at Newgate, and all showing the particular branch or handicraft to which each had been accustomed. During the day the guard was changed once in two hours, at the sound of a horn, and in the night a guard entered the caverns every hour and a half, and counted the prisoners. The punishments inflicted for offences and neglect of duty were severe flogging, confinement in stocks in the dungeon, being fed on bread and water during the time, double or treble sets of irons, hanging by the heels, &c., all tending to inflame their revenge and hatred, and seldom
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were appeals made to their reason or better feelings. Most of them were placed together in the night; solitary lodging, as practiced at this day, being regarded as a punishment, rather than a blessing to them.
Their employment consisted in making nails, barrels, shoes, wagons, doing job-work, farming, and working on the tread mill. A building for a tread-mill was erected, about the year 1824, for the purpose of grinding grain for prison use, and occasionally for the neighboring inhabitants. A large wheel, between twenty and thirty feet long, was fur- nished with horizontal flanges as steps, upon which the prisoners trod, and their weight causing the wheel to revolve, furnished the motive power to propel the machinery. Of all labor required of the prisoners, the tread-mill was dreaded the most, and the most stubborn were put to this employ- ment. In extreme cases, one of the lady birds was put on the wheel among the men as a punishment, and that was generally sufficient to subdue the most refractory in a very short space of time .* The tread-mill proved however, to be an unprofitable investment for the State.
The following is from Kendall's Travels in the Northern Parts of the United States. He visited Newgate prison in 1807, and says :
"On being admitted into the gaol yard, I found a sentry under arms within the gate, and eight soldiers drawn up in a line in front of the gaoler's house. A bell summoning the prisoners to work had already rung; and in a few moments they began to make their appearance. They came in irregular num- bers, sometimes two or three together, and sometimes a single one alone ; but whenever one or more were about to cross the yard to the smithery, the soldiers were ordered to present, in readiness to fire. The prisoners were heavily ironed, and secured both by handcuffs and fetters ; and being therefore unable to walk, could only make their way by a sort of jump or a hop. On entering the smithery, some went to the sides of the forges, where collars, dependent by iron chains from the roof, were fastened round their necks, and others were chained in pairs to wheelbarrows.t The number of prisoners was about forty ; and when they were all disposed of in the manner described, sentries were placed within the buildings which contained them. After viewing thus far the economy of this prison, I left it, proposing to visit the cells at a later hour.
*Female convicts were formerly sent to the county jails, but a law was after- wards passed authorizing their commitment to Newgate.
t Only the most dangerous and refractory were thus heavily ironed.
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" This establishment, as I have said, is designed to be, from all its arrange- ments, an object of terror; and everything is accordingly contrived to make the fife endured in it as burdensome and miserable as possible. In conformity with this idea, the place chosen for the prison is no other than the mouth of a for- saken copper-mine, of which the excavations are employed as cells. They are descended by a shaft, which is secured by a trap-door, within the prison-house, or gaoler's house, which stands upon the mine.
" The trap-door being lifted up, I went down an iron ladder, perpendicularly fixed to the depth of about fifty feet. From the foot of the ladder a rough, narrow, and low passage descends still deeper, till it terminates at a well of clear water, over which is an air-shaft, seventy feet in height, and guarded at its mouth, which is within the gaol yard, by a hatch of iron. The cells are near the well, but at different depths beneath the surface, none perhaps exceeding sixty feet. They are small, rugged, and accommodated with wooden berths, and some straw. The straw was wet, and there was much humidity in every part of this obscure region ; but I was assured I ought to attribute this only to the remarkable wetness of the season; that the cells were in general dry, and that they were not found unfavorable to the health of the prisoners.
"Into these cells the prisoners are dismissed at four o'clock in the afternoon, every day without exception, and at all seasons of the year. They descend in their fetters and handcuffs, and at four o'clock in the morning they ascend the iron ladder, climbing it as well as they can by the aid of their fettered limbs. It is to be observed that no women are confined here; the law providing that female convicts, guilty of crimes of which men are to be confined in Newgate prison, are to be sent only to the county gaols.
"Going again into the workshop or smithery, I found the attendants of the prison delivering pickled pork for dinner of the prisoners. Pieces were given separately to the parties at each forge. They were thrown upon the floor, and left to be washed and boiled in the water used for cooling the iron wrought at the forges. Meat had been distributed in like manner for breakfast. The food of the prison is regulated for each day in the week; and consists in an alterna- tion of pork, beef, and peas, with which last no flesh-meat is allowed. Besides the caverns or excavations below, and the gaoler's house above, there are other apartments prepared for the prisoners, and particularly a hospital, of which the neatness and airiness afford a strong contrast to the other parts of the prison. It was also satisfactory to find that in this hospital there were no sick.
"Such is the seat and the scene of punishment provided by Connecticut for criminals not guilty of murder, treason, or either of a few other capital offences. What judgment the reader will pass upon it I do not venture to anticipate ; but for myself, I cannot get rid of the impression, that without any extraordinary cruelty in its actual operation, there is something very like cruelty in the device and design."
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