“New Gate Prison was again broke open”

Three months and a day after he first reported a convict escaped from Connecticut’s New-Gate Prison, keeper John Viets wrote out a second notice for the newspapers.

Here’s the text as it appeared in Hartford’s Connecticut Courant on 3 May 1774:

Simsbury, April 11, 1774.

LAST Saturday night the prisoners in New Gate Prison in Simsbury opened a way that had been in part stop’d up, that led from the place of their confinement into an old deep shaft that was partly filled with rocks & stones;

William Johnson Crawford, and Daniel Humphry (sometimes called Daniel Collyer Humphry) being more bold than the rest, ventured to pull away the stones from over their heads, and to work upwards in the old shaft, and so these two in the shaft pulled down the stones and the other three prisoners be low removed them out of the way to keep a communication between them, and all promised themselves a speedy escape—

when (at about three o’clock in the morning) the rock, stones, &c. in the shaft all gave away, and sunk into the shaft, where Crawford and Humphry were at work, to the great consternation of the three other prisoners, who say they really believe that Crawford and Humphry are both buried under the stones, &c.—but whether they are buried there or by some means escaped appears uncertain to those who have viewed the place, but rather conjecture the latter.

Therefore, this is to give notice, that if any person or persons will take up said Crawford and Humphry, or either of them, and convey them to said New Gate, shall have Ten Dollars reward for each, paid by
JOHN VIETS, Keeper of said Prison.

N B Said Crawford is about twenty four years of age, five feet and eight inches high, black curled hair, black eyes had on a light brown broad cloth cost, red duffel trowsers. Humphry is about twenty years of age, five feet and eight inches high, had on a light brown sea jacket, and brown plush breeches, both well set, spry young men.

That advertisement ran for another week, indicating the two fugitives were unaccounted for a month after their disappearance.

The other three men were still in the prison—two horse thieves convicted alongside Humphry and a “Ruffian” who had mugged a man near Norwich for his rum.

Then the 26 April Connecticut Courant offered this notice:

Last Saturday night
New Gate Prison was again broke open, and the following persons made their escape, viz. Zephaniah Ramsdel about 27 years of age, about 5 feet 8 inches high, lightish yellow hair something short, grey eyes, thinish face; had on a black coat & vest, cloth coloured plush breeches, a blue duffel great coat, and new shoes.—

Also, John Roberts, about 40 years old, about 5 feet 9 inches high, grey eyes, and short black curled hair; had on a brownish or redish colour’d surtout, a pair leather breeches very black if not washed since, a pair old shoes.—

Also, James Williams, a short well set fellow, about 28 years old, with short black hair; had on a blue cap, a pair long nasty linnen trowsers, check shirt, and new shoes. Whoever will take up either or all of said fellows, and return them to said New Gate, shall have Fifteen Dollars reward for each, paid by
JOHN VIETS.

Simsbury, April 25, 1774.

Apparently John Roberts had recovered from falling down a shaft, as reported when he first arrived at the prison.

For those keeping score, in 1774 the colony sent six men to its new New-Gate Prison for sentences of two to ten years, and by the end of April all six of those men had disappeared. (Two of them possibly under rubble, or possibly free.)

COMING UP: A hardened criminal.

“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. 

The Tar-and-Feathering and Execution of John Roberts

Last month I wrote about using today’s online newspaper databases to track down a couple of reports about women tarred and feathered by sailors in the mid-1700s. Those reports turned out to be different distortions of a newspaper report about sailors tarring one woman in 1743.

Here’s another investigation into an even more horrific event, reported in a secondary source and for a long time untraceable. In 1865, Frank Moore’s Diary of the American Revolution, which was a collection of news reports and letters, ran this item on page 359 of volume 1:

THIS morning, at Charleston, South Carolina, John Roberts, a dissenting minister, was seized on suspicion of being an enemy to the rights of America, when he was tarred and feathered; after which, the populace, whose fury could not be appeased, erected a gibbet on which they hanged him, and afterwards made a bonfire, in which Roberts, together with the gibbet, was consumed to ashes.

Unfortunately, the footnotes on that page got garbled in the printing. There were three notes, numbered 1-3. But within the text there was no superscript 1 and two superscript 2s.

The first few paragraphs on that page should have ended with a superscript 1. They indeed came from the source listed in note 1: Hugh Gaine’s New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury newspaper for 2 Dec 1776. I checked.

The second item was the story of John Roberts’s torture and killing, and Moore found that in the William Upcott Collection of Newspaper Extracts at the New-York Historical Society. Unfortunately, some authors trying to make sense of Moore’s footnotes have written that the story came from the New York newspaper.

The Upcott collection consisted of Revolutionary-era newspaper clippings, most or all from British printers. I hope that each clipping includes information on the newspaper it came from, but, having never seen the files, I don’t know if that’s true. I kind of doubt it.

However, through online hunting I can say that at least three British newspapers printed this text. Here’s how it appeared in the 4 Jan 1777 Ipswich Journal:

Charles-Town, Dec. 2. This Morning John Roberts, a Dissenting Minister, was seized at this Place, on Suspicion of being an Enemy to the Rights of America, when he was tarred and feathered, after which the Populace, whose Fury could not be appeased, erected a Gibbet, on which they hanged him, and afterwards made a Bonfire, in which Roberts, together with the Gibbet, was consumed to Ashes.

On 7 Jan 1777 the same news appeared in the Leeds Intelligencer and Manchester Mercury.

The Ipswich Journal headed that section “F. America,” and the first three items (of which that was third) “From the SOUTH-CAROLINA GAZETTE.” The Manchester Mercury headed its section “London, January 2,” suggesting this news came from a London newspaper of that date, and underneath that “From the SOUTH CAROLINA GAZETTE.”

We should therefore expect to find that news item in at least one London newspaper from early January 1777. Unfortunately, I have limited access to British databases, and their O.C.R. transcriptions are terrible.

We should also expect to find the original report in John Wells’s South-Carolina and American General Gazette from 2 Dec 1776. But the early American newspaper database I use doesn’t include any issue from that month. It’s possible no copies of this issue survived, or it’s possible that database has limitations.

Finally, once this item appeared in the South Carolina press, I’d expect to see it reprinted or alluded to in other American newspapers. At this time each side was hyping stories of atrocities by the enemy and trying to explain away enemy accusations, so this news would have been most appealing to Loyalist printers. Gaine had restarted his New York Mercury with a Loyalist slant in late 1776 under British occupation, and James Robertson launched another Loyalist paper in that city in January 1777. The South-Carolina and American General Gazette was itself a Loyalist paper from 1780 to 1782. But I couldn’t find any further reference to John Roberts’s death in eighteenth-century newspapers.

In fact, I can’t find another period record of the torture, execution, and burning of John Roberts beyond those two British newspapers. No South Carolina Loyalist appears to allude to it. No coreligionist of Roberts is recorded complaining about it. No published letter, memoir, or local history of South Carolina mentions it. I can’t find any report of the incident until Frank Moore’s Diary in 1865. After that, all citation trails lead back to Moore.

Among the possible explanations to explore:

• The chaos of wartime printing meant that the crucial issue of the South Carolina Gazette got to London but not to New York.
• There are errors in the London account, such as the victim’s name, which get in the way of searching independent American sources.
• Roberts was killed not just for being an enemy to American Patriots but also for fomenting a slave rebellion. That could explain why he was treated so badly and his body was burned. It might also explain why so little was published about it, why Loyalists didn’t make a martyr out of him—the slaveholding class tended to tamp down news of actual uprisings.

All further possibilities and leads are of course welcome.