“The inexpressible Horrors of that Den of Death!”

At the end of February 1774, Connecticut’s New-Gate Prison was once again ready to house convicted criminals.

The first prisoner sent there had escaped after only a couple of weeks, but the colony paid to block off the shafts to the underground prison, a former copper mine.

On 3 March, the Norwich Packet newspaper reported:

We hear from Windham, that William Johnson Crawford, Zephaniah Ramsdale and John Roberts, all natives of this Country, were last week severally convicted of Horse-Stealing before the County Court then sitting, sentenced to four years confinement in New-Gate, and conducted thither accordingly.

N.B. Two of the above, it is said, are New-Hampshire men.

We hear that John Roberts, one of the above-mentioned unhappy Felons, destined to reside in the subterraneous New-Gate, at Simsbury; upon his Arrival at the Sink of that Infernal Mansion, dropped, or, as it is suspected, willfully plunged headlong into it: His Skull was so miserably fractured, that although those Men who conducted him there remained two Hours after the Accident happened, he was at their Departure unable to articulate a Word, and they imagine that his Peregrinations are completed.---FREEBOOTING HORSE JOCKIES beware, for a Gibbit is comparatively a Toy to the inexpressible Horrors of that Den of Death!

Shorter articles appeared in the 4 March Connecticut Gazette out of New London and the 11 March Connecticut Journal from New Haven. Those papers had nothing to say about John Roberts’s plunge.

On 7 April, the Norwich Packet added two more men to the roster of prisoners:

At the Session of the Superior Court of this Colony, which ended here on Friday last, Daniel Humphry, a Simsbury Man, convicted of breaking into the Cabin of a Vessel, in New-London Harbour, and stealing a Quantity of Coffee, was sentenced to six Years hard Labour and Confinement, in the Copper, Mine, at the Place of his Nativity.--

At the same time James Williams, a Ruffian, for assaulting Zachariah Whipple, on the Road between Norwich-Landing and Preston, and robbing him of a Bottle of Rum, received Sentence to be confined two years in the Newgate Prison at Simsbury.

In early April, therefore, the New-Gate Prison had at least five inmates, sentenced to serve from two to six years. (And apparently stealing a “Quantity of Coffee” was a worse crime than attacking someone for a “Bottle of Rum.”)  

On 12 April, Hartford’s Connecticut Courant told readers:

Last Saturday Night Daniel Humphrey and William Crawford, committed last Week to Newgate Prison, as mention’d in our last, broke out of said Prison and made their escape

It’s heart-warming how a horse thief from New Hampshire and a coffee fiend working a southern Connecticut waterfront were apparently able to run away together.

But that still left three men in New-Gate, right? Or maybe two and a half, if John Roberts was badly injured. 

TOMORROW: Escape methods. 

“Escaped from New Gate Prison at Simsbury, one John Hinson”

Exactly one month after a New Haven court sentenced John Ensign to ten years inside Connecticut’s new prison at Simsbury, as reported yesterday, he disappeared from his underground cell.

On 10 Jan 1774, John Viets, keeper of that New-Gate Prison, wrote out an advertisement for the New Haven newspaper. Here’s the text of the ad as it appeared in the 1 February Connecticut Courant, out of Hartford:

Ten Dollars Reward.

LAST Night escaped from New Gate Prison at Simsbury, one John Hinson, lately committed for Burglary, who is about 5 Feet 8 Inches high, has black Eyes, dark Hair, of a fair Complexion, and about twenty Years of Age—(he was helped out by some evil minded Persons from without).

Whoever will take up said Fellow, and return him to the Subscriber Master of said Prison, or shall discover those that aided him in his said Escape, so that they may be brought to conviction, shall have TEN DOLLARS reward, paid by
JOHN VIETS.

January 10, 1774.

Seven decades later, in 1845, Noah A. Phelps published A History of the Copper Mines and Newgate Prison, at Granby, Conn.. It was based on interviews with Viets’ descendants, so it used his spelling of the escapee’s name (Hinson) rather than what appeared in the newspaper reports of his trial (Ensign).

Phelps wrote:

The first convict received into the prison was John Hinson. He was committed Dec, 22, 1773, and escaped on the 9th of January following, by being drawn up through the eastern shaft by a rope, assisted, it is said, by a woman, to whom he was paying his addresses.

How did the Viets family know this? How confident was Phelps about this information, which he qualified by adding “it is said”?

Despite reasons for less than full certainty, subsequent histories of the Old New-Gate Prison repeat that 1845 account in a definite tone. And it may even be accurate. But in this Boston 1775 series, I’ll emphasize contemporaneous accounts.

Whether or not Viets was right in guessing the escape method, the Connecticut legislature acted quickly to prevent future departures through that shaft. By the end of the month it voted:

Upon the representation of the overseers of Newgate Prison: It is resolved by this Assembly, that said overseers be and they are hereby directed and impowered to cause the east shaft of said prison to be effectually secured with stone or iron, at their discretion, and to cause a log-house to be built and to consist of two or three rooms, one of which to be directly over the west shaft of said prison; taking care to preserve a free communication of air.

Young Ensign was gone, those officeholders might have told themselves, but he’d benefited the colony by providing a useful test of the New-Gate Prison. Now they were making that place stronger. Soon it was ready to receive more convicts.

TOMORROW: Two sets of arrivals.

John Ensign Sent to the New-Gate Prison

On 26 Nov 1773, the Connecticut Gazette of New London reported this legal news:

NEW HAVEN, Nov. 19

A few days since, a young fellow, who says his name is John Ensign, was committed to our goal, for breaking open and robbing Mr. Thompson’s Tavern in East Haven, he being taken in the house, before he had time to get off with his booty.

Brothers named Thompson helped to found East Haven, and I haven’t been able to narrow down which of their descendants ran this particular tavern. One candidate for the scene of the crime is the Stephen Thompson House, shown above in 1939. 

On the last day of the year, the New-Hampshire Gazette ran an item presumably picked up from a Connecticut newspaper, but I haven’t found the original:

One John Ensign was convicted, at the Superior Court at New-Haven, the 9th Inst. for robbing the House of Mr. Thomson of that Place, and sentenced to TEN YEARS Imprisonment in Simsbury Mines, now called New-Gate-Prison, agreeable to a late Act of the Colony of Connecticut.

A long term of imprisonment, as opposed to corporal punishment or execution, was a novelty, warranting coverage even two colonies away.

The 7 Jan 1774 Connecticut Gazette kept up the story:

NEW HAVEN, Dec. 24

The beginning of this Week, John Ensign, was conveyed from the Prison in this Town, to Newgate Prison, in Symsbury.

John Ensign thus became the first prisoner in the colony’s new prison.

Two weeks later, the Connecticut Gazette told readers:

NEW HAVEN, Jan. 14

A few Nights since, John Ensign, made his Escape from Newgate Prison.

TOMORROW: The jailer’s tale.

The New New-Gate Prison

Last month I broke off a series of postings about three men Gen. George Washington sent to Simsbury, Connecticut, to be locked up in the New-Gate Prison.

Now I’m returning to that topic, but first I’m going back to fill in the background of that prison.

In the eighteenth-century British Empire, convicted criminals didn’t usually get sentenced to extended prison terms, with the perpetrator housed and fed by the state.

Instead, the most serious offenses, from murder down to major or repeated property crimes, were deemed worthy of death. Lesser infractions might bring corporal punishment like whipping or public exposure. (For assaults, it was often up to the victim to sue for damages.)

In October 1773 the Connecticut legislature voted to convert an unprofitable copper mine into a prison to house criminals for long periods. Henceforth, men convicted of burglary, robbery, and counterfeiting would be confined underground for up to ten years, or for life if they had already been convicted once. They were expected to work the mine. By modern standards that was harsh, but in this era it was an almost experimental reform.

The colony paid to build a blockhouse over the vertical entrance to the mine and to dig out living quarters below. As “Master or Keeper of said prison,” the legislature appointed John Viets (1712–1777), who ran a nearby tavern, shown above. He was a former Simsbury selectman and militia captain, respected in the community. He hired guards, many appearing to be laid-off miners; they were expected to train the prisoners in digging.

The new prison was dubbed New-Gate, after a famous jail in London. Those two places had little in common, but Americans didn’t know many other lock-ups to compare theirs to.

On 9 Dec 1773, a court in New Haven handed down the first sentence sending a man to New-Gate Prison.

TOMORROW: The first prisoner.

“Time turns his Glass, and round the Pole Another Year begins to roll”

In 1775 the British artist John Hamilton Mortimer issued a series of prints titled Twelve Characters from Shakespeare.

One of those portraits showed Edgar from King Lear, in his guise as Poor Tom the madman, as shown here.

Among that character’s lines was “Poor Tom’s a-cold.”

Two hundred fifty years ago today, the young carriers of the Pennsylvania Evening Post quoted that line as they regaled their customers with this poem.

New-Year’s Verses,
Addressed to the CUSTOMERS of
The PENNSYLVANIA EVENING POST,
By the PRINTER’s LADS who carry it.

MONDAY, JANUARY 1, 1776.

“POOR TOM’s a cold”---God bless you, Masters,
And save you all from all Disasters!
Time turns his Glass, and round the Pole
Another Year begins to roll:
Welcome the new, adieu the old,
For every Year Poor Tom’s a-cold.

Sages have said, and Bards have sung,
That long ago, when Time was young,
The World enjoy’d a golden Age:
No Dog-Star kindled then to Rage;
No Summer’s Drought, nor Winter’s Snow,
Forbade the limpid Stream to flow:
No Torrents of descending Rain
With Desolation spread the Plain:
No languid Air, with sickly Breath,
Diffused the pois’nous Seeds of Death:
No Comet’s Blaze, of horrid Light,
Shot thro’ the Curtain of the Night;
No chilling Blast flew howling by,
No Lightnings rent the burning Sky,
Nor Thunder shook the rolling Sphere.
One genial SPRING was all the Year.
Then were the Hills and Vallies seen
Forever blooming, ever green;
And, like the Season, mild and gay,
Man liv’d a Stranger to dismay;
For smiling Peace, with Plenty crown’d,
Gave Health and Joy to all around.
No Din of War, no civil Hate,
Were then the chastening Rods of Fate.
O had I seen those Days of old!
But now, alas! Poor Tom’s a-cold:
But you, who live with Hearts at Ease,
Will surely never let him freeze.
Sweet Madam, Gentle Sir, Good-morrow;
God keep you free from Pain and Sorrow,
And let me hope, ere long, to boast
Good News!----Good News!----in the EVENING POST.

This example of carriers’ verse is interesting in how little it says about current affairs. The American colonies were at war with the London government, but the only possible allusion to that was the mention of “civil Hate.”

Earlier American examples of these verses reveled in the patriotism that the newspaper employees and their customers supposedly shared, heaping disdain on foreign enemies like France and Spain. But in a time of civil war, loyalties were more problematic. Better to talk about the weather.

That wasn’t because the printer of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, Benjamin Towne, kept away from politics. He supported the colonial resistance and independence, and a year later his 1777 carriers’ verse celebrated, “Shout, George is King no more.”

Of course, the British army occupied Philadelphia late that year. In 1778 Towne’s carriers offered lines praising Gen. Sir William Howe to the skies.