USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > History of the Albany penitentiary. > Part 11
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before breakfast and remains until eight or nine in the evening. He stipulated for Thursday evenings that he might attend our weekly prayer meeting. At our last communion season, he remained and seemed deeply interested. I did not urge him to unite with the church, but I think he will be inclined to do so at the next opportunity.
"I cannot but hope that the great change has come upon him, and that he has in all respects begun a new life. My heart tells me that I am not grateful enough for so great a mercy, and yet I feel that I could not find words sufficient to express my gratitude and joy."
L. The following communication was received a few months since from a young woman whose misconduct led her to the Penitentiary, but whose course for some time past has encouraged the hope that she has experimentally found the Savior. "I feel to-day that I cannot any longer hide my feelings. I must speak of Jesus who died to save me. Although I have turned from him, and gone with the world, yet he has shown himself an infinitely kind and loving
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friend. I remember the loving counsel of my dear father and mother in regard to my soul, but I despised it, and left them, and went like the prodigal, far from them; but now I see the end of it. Instead of being to-day a comfort to them, I am a convict in the Albany Prison, a poor outcast. But, dear sir, I have one hope; it is that there is a friend in heaven who will not reject me, no matter how vile. On this friend I now lean for help and support, and I know he will hear my cry.
"The last letter I received from home, my sister begged me to think of my soul, and reminded me of the words of Jesus : 'Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Think of this beauti- ful invitation the Savior gave to a wretched sinner like me.
"I can never forget the last prayer my mother offered for me. At the time I made such fun of it that she had to rise from her knees and leave the room; but now I pray God in mercy, to forgive me. If it had not been for hearing you talk so about the Savior, I would have been lost forever ; but I hope that now I have found him. God
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grant I may continue so. I can say from my heart :
"'One there is above all others, Well deserves the name of friend; His is love beyond a brother's Costly, free and knows no end.'"
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LETTERS FROM DISCHARGED PRISONERS.
THE following letters addressed to the Superin- tendent by discharged prisoners, are selected from a large number of like character. They show the spirit and manner of the treatment received at the Penitentiary, and express a grate- ful remembrance of the care and attention experienced. They have been altered only in their orthography and grammatical expression.
Nov. 20, 1866.
General : As I was well aware my natural sensitiveness would not allow me to express to you personally how grateful I am for your many acts of kindness to me, during my confinement in your Institution, I take this method of return- ing you my sincere, my most heartfelt thanks, for each and every kind word and act that has been so overwhelmingly bestowed upon me by yourself and family. Words are inadequate to express but a small portion of the gratitude I feel; for my
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imprisonment, as far as yourself and family were concerned, was more like a residence among kind friends, than a compulsory confinement. The publicly expressed gratitude of my whole life will be but a poor recompense, but as you know it is all I have to give in exchange, I know your heart but too well when I say that I feel it will be accepted as a full return.
A regularly hired official might be proud to boast of the confidence you have reposed in me ; what then can I say in regard to your confidence towards me, both public and private ? Simply nothing, except to reiterate to you how justly proud I am to be the recipient of them.
That I am not insensible to the kind wishes expressed in my behalf by Lady P., I believe you are aware; pray convey to her the assurances of my deepest gratitude for the sympathy and advice so generously bestowed upon me, and of my deter- mination to endeavor with my whole strength to profit by them in the future. You will no doubt be glad to know that amid all my anxieties I have hitherto refrained from the "cup." In fact I have not touched a drop of whisky since I left you, and have refused innumerable invitations to imbibe.
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That the Almighty in his infinite mercy may ever bless and protect yourself and family will be the constant prayer of
Your most sincere and devoted servant,
Sept. 9, 1864.
General : Pardon me for this liberty I am tak- ing in thus addressing you, whom I have never seen ; but I have something I wish to say to you, and fearing I was never to have the privilege of looking into your face and telling you the great thankfulness I feel, I can not do otherwise than give expression to my thoughts in this way.
I am indeed living a lonely, desolate life, now that my husband is an inmate of your prison walls, but the thought that he is kindly treated and cared for by those in charge, makes the sorrow less crushing in its weight. Words are feeble, but I assure you that had I not felt that you all were so considerate of his extreme distress and situation, it would be the last drop in the cup, the last feather to weigh me down.
I thank you all; more, I bless you. That you will continue to cheer and encourage him in this
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awful suspense with which he is afflicted I am sure. Your mission is indeed a trying and respon- sible one; but that he whose eye is upon one and all, will make your crown brighter in that land of the dim unseen where we shall all meet one day I am certain.
Hoping God, our Father, will bless you in this, and in all things else, I am
Yours with deepest gratitude,
July 24th, 1866.
Sir : Having arrived in Concord agreeable to your request, I now write to you. After leaving you and going to West Troy, I found myself unable to travel until Monday, but liberty and change worked in my favor, and I now feel nearly as well as ever.
I am already tired of idleness, and wish to go to work as soon as possible : I think that my expe- rience with you will be a life-long lesson, and I shall do my best to follow the Rev. Mr. Dyer's precepts. I can trace in my past life faults that looked at the time trivial, but now assume a serious aspect. I feel deeply obliged to you, and to him, for your uniform kindness; I owe to it the good
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that is in me; the bad is in my own evil disposi- tion : although I suffered some, I shall ever look back with something of pleasure, though not unalloyed. If my future life ever makes any- thing of me, it will be owing to my confinement under your superintendence, and to the earnest labors of Mr. Dyer. In conclusion, allow me to thank you for your kindness, and that of your officers. I remain very respectfully
Your obedient servant,
July 6, 1865.
Respected sir: With pleasure I sit down to write you a few lines, letting you know how I got home. I arrived safely, and thank kind heaven I found all my family well. I acted as engineer from -, on account of an accident to the engi- neer, whom I knew : I made five dollars by it, which came very good at this time. General, I thank you for your kindness to me while in your power, and likewise when I was released. Give my respects to Mrs. Pilsbury, and thank her for the sympathy she showed me the afternoon I was released. Please answer if convenient; I want to hear from you : I hope you and all your family
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may live long and enjoy good health, and at last scale the mount of God, and enjoy the celestial city "where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." Give my love to Mr. Dyer, the chaplain; tell him I ask his prayers that I may grow in grace daily, and at last meet him in that heavenly place which the good Lord has prepared for all that love him.
August 10, 1864.
Honored sir: With the greatest pleasure and with feelings of the deepest gratitude I sit down to fulfill my promise to you. I arrived here safely last evening, after a rather tiresome journey : my coming was unexpected and took my mother by surprise; our meeting can be much better imagined than described. My father is not at home yet, and I hope to take him by surprise. My sisters are also away on a short visit, so that I shall have the pleasure of our meeting extended. As far as I can ascertain, the people here seem to feel very kindly towards me, and I have no doubt that I shall get employment in a day or two; as soon as I do, I will write to either yourself or sons, and give you the full particulars. Everything that I see and hear goes to strengthen my good resolu-
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tions, and I can already see the wisdom of your advice to me about coming home. My mother sends her warmest thanks and best wishes to you, Mrs. Pilsbury and your sons for your kindness to me, and for your influence in obtaining my pardon.
I have the honor to remain, Very respectfully yours,
June 15, 1866.
Dear sir : I saw Mr. - yesterday, for the first time since his liberation from your benevolent Institution. He has been at my office two or three times, but absence prevented my meeting him. He is in excellent health and spirits, and his expressions of gratitude and respect for you were so strong, that I deem it an act of justice to communicate his sentiments to you, especially as they are so entirely in accordance with my own. Mr. - says he cannot claim in a single instance that you relaxed the usual discipline in his favor, and of which he does not complain, but that your treatment of him was so tempered with gentleness and kind expressions of feeling and sympathy, evinced in manner rather than words; that he
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feels he owes you a debt of gratitude, and you will ever command his warmest respect.
I have the honor to be, respectfully, Your obedient servant,
WASHINGTON, May 12th, 1865.
Dear sir : I have just received a telegram from Charlie, dated Jersey City, May 12th, by which it appears he left your hospitable roof yesterday the 11th, which I suppose was by virtue of an order mailed to you from the War department on the 19th. I have the honor to tender you my sincere regards and thanks for the fatherly care and con- sideration bestowed upon my son, under the unfortunate circumstances which placed him under your charge. Your son also has a place in my heart (the heart of a father) stamped in the most durable colors, he has my best wishes for a long and happy life. The Deputy Warden with whom I had no opportunity to become well ac- quainted, I have the authority of Charlie's testi- mony to hold in equal esteem. I shall ever hold in my memory the history of my son during the past three months as the most important of any portion of my life, for the effect upon me has been
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fully equal to his sufferings; I cannot estimate its true value. I hope that time will restore me much of the happiness I have lost.
My Sabbath in the chapel, the sermon of the Rev. D. Dyer, the appearance of the convicts, the personal appearance of my crippled son amongst them, and all the incidents connected with that interesting hour are indelibly impressed upon my memory. I must say that I could not, under the benign precepts of him who was then addressing us through his minister, feel that there was any difference between us, for according to the standard of Christian purity there was "none good among us, no, not one." May God justify us by faith, and make us all - convicts, officials, minister and myself- the willing subjects of his law, and the recipients of his saving grace.
I am happy to subscribe myself
Your much obliged and obedient servant,
Oct. 27, 1862.
Dear sir : My brother arrived safe yesterday morning. He desires me to write you and return his earnest thanks for your kindness and gentle- manly treatment while under your care. My
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mother requests me to state that she feels very grateful to you for the mild and humane usage bestowed upon her erring son; and that she will remember you with the kindest feelings all her life.
My brother speaks in the highest terms of the discipline and management of the Prison under your care.
Again returning you the thanks of a grateful family,
I am, very respectfully, Your obedient servant,
June 6th, 1866.
Dear sir: I reached home about seven o'clock the morning after I left you: about one hour after my family had learnt that an order for my release had been granted by the secretary of war. I have no language to describe the scene which followed my entrance once more among those who have always been so dear to me; you can under- stand better than I can tell it; God grant that you may never be called upon for a personal realization of a like scene. For twenty-eight months separated ignominously from all I held
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dear on earth, with a sentence hanging over me, which cut off all reasonable hope or expectation of ever again crossing the threshold of my home. I tell you, General, the transition from disgrace to the full realization of my most cherished hope, was almost too much for me. But enough of this; I am with my family once more, and feel that I am as much a man, as though I had not been stamped as infamous by a military tribunal of summary justice. Many of my friends have called on me, and all express sympathy, and all treat me with greater cordiality than ever before. As I told you General, when I left you, I am sincerely a better man than when I was placed under your charge, and for this I am greatly indebted to you and to your sons. I will tell you in what way. When I entered your prison, I was not only broken in health from the nature of the service in which I had been engaged, but smarting under a sense of the foulest ingratitude of the government, which had paid me for my money, time and health, with the ignominy of a ten years' sentence, which was ruin to me, and disgrace to those whose honor was dearer to me than life. I expected to have met from you and your subordinates, the same heart- less treatment I had met from other officials
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under whose charge I had been placed : I felt it was to be a life of abject degradation or death. I preferred the latter to your frowns and the humiliation I felt you would force upon me - don't think I contemplated suicide, I mean under such treatment I had no courage to take care of myself- that I should have preferred death to a life such as I expected to have been forced to submit to. But thanks to your generous heart, the first sight I had of your face, and the first word you uttered to me, told me plainly you did not regard me as the miserable thing my sentence implied, and that so long as I observed, or mani- fested a disposition to comply with. the discipline of your Institution, I might expect kind treatment instead of harshness and contempt. This gave me courage and I at once determined to survive my imprisonment, if by cleanly and proper care of myself I might do it. Every facility to this end was given me, and this, together with the peculiar cleanliness which distinguishes the Peni- tentiary over all institutions of a like character in the United States, and its regularity and admira- ble discipline, enabled me to accomplish the reso- lution I had formed. During the twenty-two months I was confined under your charge, I was
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not sick one hour, always clean and entirely free from vermin. I have no recollection of ever meeting with a frown or an unkind word from either you or your sons. I am authorized by each member of my family to convey to you, your sons and Mr. Dyer their profound gratitude for the sympathy, kindness and consideration with which you treated me while a prisoner under your charge. General, I speak the senti- ments of my heart, when I tell you I feel under lasting obligations to you and them for the condi- tion I find myself in, after so long an imprison- ment. Please say to the Rev. Mr. Dyer that I also feel under great obligations to him for his instruction and for the sympathy he expressed for me and mine while there : I was greatly benefited by his teachings, and still feel, as I expressed to him, that although I protest entire innocence of the crime with which I was charged, yet I have no doubt, but what even that was all for the best. I look upon the position you occupy, General, as one involving responsibilities of no enviable character ; and from what I have seen of your management during the last two years - perhaps the most eventful of your life as a Warden, I am inclined to think you are eminently entitled to
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the enviable reputation you have secured with the people of the United States. I suppose this com- mendation from me is entirely uncalled for and out of place ; if you think so, please excuse it, and believe it arises only from a sense of gratitude for your kindness to me, and to the unfortunate men in the hospital, who have come under my observation; and from your efforts for the comfort of all under your charge. Please remember me kindly to your sons.
Respectfully, etc.,
August 16, 1866.
Dear sir : I was an inmate of your Institution for twenty months. I was pardoned out on the 4th of July, last, and, sir, I thank God that I was there; for it has made a man of me. I am a sailor ; I was in for deserting from the navy. I led a wild and reckless life. Before I went there, I had no respect for myself, nor any one else. O what a blessing it was I went there, for I experi- enced the great change there, which Christ spoke of when he said, "Ye must be born again !" O, sir, the joy I felt in that place, when Jesus washed my sins away ! O, if all found such a blessing as 30
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I did, that go there as prisoners, they would say with me that they never knew what happiness and joy was till they found it in prison ! Sir, I thank you with all my heart for your kindness to me and all others who are under your charge. I remember last Thanksgiving day the kind and encouraging words you used to us. You spoke to us as a friend and father. O, sir, my heart was full whilst you were addressing us; and may God bless you, sir, in this world and the world to come, is my prayer !
Dear sir, I find that religion is good out of pri- son as well as in prison. I find pleasure now in going to prayer meetings and to church, more so than I ever found in rum mills and other places which sailors resort to when they get on shore. I have been to sea on a short voyage since I got my liberty; and now I intend to go on a long voyage as soon as I can get a ship. I think I shall be able to go to sea again next week. Give my love to Mr. Dyer. Accept the love and thanks of your humble servant,
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A VIEW OF ITS PRESENT STATE.
[From the 22d report of the State Prison' Association of New York.]
IT is now something over twenty-one years since the buildings of this Institution were commenced, under the superintendence of General Amos Pils- bury, as agent of the building committee. This was in the year 1845. In the following year, 1846, a few prisoners were received; but the Institution was not regularly organized and opened as a Penitentiary until 1848, when General Pils- bury was unanimously elected by the city and county authorities of Albany, Superintendent of the same; a position which he has held ever since,1 by successive elections every three years. Under his able and vigorous administration, the Albany Penitentiary has attained a celebrity, which has made it a point of attraction and study for the whole country. Within the last six years, its character and objects have undergone a mate- rial change. On the breaking out of the great
1 With the exception of a brief period .- D.
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rebellion, in 1861, the building which had been previously used for a Penitentiary in the city of Washington, was required for military purposes. Under the pressure of this necessity, the United States government entered into an arrangement with the Albany Penitentiary, by which the latter engaged to receive all the prisoners sentenced for crimes and misdemeanors in the District of Colum- bia, on condition of receiving the avails of their labor and a certain stipulated amount per week for the board of each. This arrangement has been found mutually advantageous. The authorities at Washington are at considerably less expense for their convicts than when their own Penitentiary was in operation, and the convicts themselves are under a far better régime; while the county of Albany enjoys the benefit of their labor, and has a very considerable money revenue from their board. During the progress of the rebellion, this Penitentiary was, also, the receptacle of large numbers of prisoners of state. It is through the events and negotiations above recited, that a mere local Institution has risen, in effect, to the dignity and consideration of a United States Prison.
General Pilsbury, who presides over its admin-
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istration, and has done so during its entire history, commenced his career as a prison officer forty-two years ago, and, with the exception of two brief intervals, each less than a year in duration, his service in that capacity has been uninterrupted to the present time, and there is good hope that he may complete a full half century in this im- portant department of public labor. He was first appointed in 1824, at the age of nineteen, as a guard in the New Hampshire State Prison, under his father, Moses C. Pilsbury, the Warden of that Institution, and the most eminent prison officer of that day. Here he immediately developed such rare ability in the care and management of pri- soners, that on the following year, he was raised to the position of Deputy Warden, the second office in the Prison, and scarcely inferior in responsibility to the first. In this position he served acceptably and successfully till the close of 1826, a period of two years. In 1827, the father and son were invited to take charge of the new State Prison then just erected at Wethersfield, Conn., the former as Warden, and the latter as Deputy Warden.
Mr. Pilsbury, senior, already advanced in years, had consented to accept the Wardenship for only
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two years, for the purpose of starting the new Prison, and getting it properly and effectively organized. Having continued his service for a year beyond the stipulated period, he retired in April, 1830, and the son, then only twenty-five years old, was unanimously chosen by the board of directors to succeed the father as chief officer of the Institution. This appointment, with some misgivings on account of the youth of the candi- date, was made chiefly on the ground of his familiarity with the discipline of the Prison, and his success in administering it, although at that time he was unacquainted with its financial con- cerns. Very soon, however, by his energy, his industry, his rare judgment, his courage, and his unremitted personal attention to all the duties of his office, he demonstrated to the directors, the legislature and the public, that his youth was no disqualification for the responsible position to which he had been called. His administration not only sustained, but advanced the reputation which had been won for the Prison by that of his father. The discipline maintained by him, though strict, and even rigid beyond what, in the present advanced stage of prison reform, would wholly meet our approbation, was nevertheless, there
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can be no doubt, in point of mildness, humanity, and the moral elements introduced into it, a great advance upon that practiced at the time of which we speak, in all prisons established on the Auburn plan. The distinguished commissioners from France. De Beaumont and De Tocqueville, who visited the Wethersfield Prison about that time, did not hesitate, in their report to the French government, to assign to it the first place among American Prisons, commending it in terms warmer than those used in reference to any other similar Institution in the United States.
A difficulty occurring with one of the directors soon after his appointment, resulted in Mr. Pils- bury's removal from office in September, 1832. Charges, to the number of a half dozen or more, were preferred against him to the legislature. The allegations were, on his own demand, thoroughly investigated by a joint committee of the body, and the investigation resulted not only in a complete acquittal of the accused, but in furnishing additional evidence of his fitness and capacity for the office. So well satisfied were the legislature of Mr. Pils- bury's innocence of the charges brought against him, that they voted to defray all the expenses of the defense, and appropriated $400 to reimburse
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