The wounded guardsmen and Tory prisoners were “laid upon the floor, weltering in their blood… the faithful Sheldon [guardsman] sat on a bench, his body bent forward, and a bayonet dripping with blood lying before him which he had just drawn out of his breast…” So describes the aftermath of one of the many prisoner escapes by desperate men confined to the blackened horrors below ground. In 1773, the Simsbury Mine, fourteen miles northwest of Hartford, Connecticut, was turned into a dungeon, a wretched prison named New-Gate, after the famed jail in England. Besides housing the providence’s worst criminals, it became both a symbol and threat for those who claimed an alliance to England’s King; the unimaginable dark, dreary catacomb, where “armies of fleas, lice, and bedbugs covered every inch of the floor which itself was covered in five inches of slippery, stinking filth.” Murderers and outspoken loyalists incarcerated together in a hell few could imagine. And for those who rebelled against England’s rule, partisan hatred toward the Tory was all-consuming, with death too good for their fate.
New-Gate (also Newgate) in present day East Granby was once a copper mine then notorious prison, and now a national historic landmark and tourist attraction. It operated as a mine from 1709 to 1773 and as a prison from 1773 to 1827 – accommodating more than 100 prisoners in its caverns at any one time. Colonial prisons were little more than “chambers of punishment.” The sole crime of most of those incarcerated during the American Revolution was a firm sentiment to their mother country. They were forced to climb a ladder down a twenty-five foot narrow hole and descend deep underground into blackened caverns. Many of those in confinement were men of “talents, spirit, and wit,” whose only hope of survival was escape, anyway they could, using any and all means possible, including violence.
Early History of the Mine
December, 1705, and the Simsbury selectmen, in present East Granby Connecticut, was presented a report that copper was found within the township’s limit. By 1707, local interest had sought investors to begin the construction of a mine. In 1709, tree related clergymen formed a company to extract the ore – John Woodbridge, Timothy Woodbridge, Jr., and Dudley Woodbridge. The people listed on the 1706 tax list of Simsbury were invited to participate in the venture. Sixty-four residents, in exchange for financial and or labor investments, became share holders with the stipulation that they could not dispose of their shares to non-residents without the consent of the others. Perhaps to assure the town’s commitment to the project, one tenth of the profits from the mine, ten shillings on each ton of copper produced, was to be used for “pious purposes; two-thirds for a schoolmaster and the other third to support a school in New Haven started eight years earlier – Yale. This became the first chartered copper mine in British North America.
It soon proved that the town’s fervor did not match their metallurgical knowledge. Excavations were made on the summit of the hill and two perpendicular shafts were dug through solid rock to raise the ore; one nearly eighty feet deep and the other thirty-five. Caverns were carved out at the bottom of the shafts that extended several hundred feet in various directions. The ore, typical trap-rock oxide deposits, was developed amateurishly, broken out by hand, upgraded, and shipped to British consignees. Profits were minimal due to the manner of digging and hauling the ore plus British legislation which did not allow the ore to be smelted in America. Because they could not build a furnace to extract the copper from the ore, usually around two to three percent of the rock dug up, the entire mass had to be shipped to England resulting in large shipping costs. Within four years, the venture failed.
Interest in the mine remained after the company’s demise. In 1714, Jonathan Belcher of Boston (later Governor of Massachusetts), William Partridge, and one of the original company’s clergy, Timothy Woodbridge Jr, leased the area from the town and raised £10,000 to resurrect the mine. He promoted the operation to speculators in New York, London, and Amsterdam and brought in skilled miners to the region to dig and ship the ore. He built impressive head-works and surface installations on the site, including a ‘crashing mill’ which proved economically unjustified. The ore was hauled fourteen miles to Hartford, shipped to New York City, then loaded onto ships bound for England where it was refined.
Labor intensified costs were high employing local residents and African and Native American slaves. Percolation of water through the crevices of rock necessitated digging drains or levels to draw it off. It proved unsuccessful and pumps had to kept running day and night, the workers recruited from farmers of nearby Windsor township. Men would labor through the night, returning to their farms by daybreak. Slaves, “Indians and negar servants”, both imported and indigenous, were leased from masters and forced to work the mines. The first recorded slave in Connecticut was the property of Henry Wolcott of Windsor in 1680, though he may have been brought to the town by the first settlers in 1633. The record of burials in South Windsor lists twenty African American slaves between 1736 and 1768.
The vein yielded three to five percent of pure copper, however it was not enough to offset the cost of running the mine, which would change hands many times over the years. Because of Belcher’s initial extravagant investments in materials and mounting operational expenses, speculators pulled out and he dissolved the venture. Time and again others would renew the lease, however profits remained small. Cargoes shipped to Europe had slim returns. Over the years, two ships were lost, one taken by the French as a prize during war and the other sunk in the English channel. Some company owners saw a way to avoid the large expense of shipping the ore to England by defying the ban on smelting in America. Buildings and furnaces for pounding, smelting, and refining were erected in Simsbury upon a creek a few miles from the mine. This facility, named Hanover for the German workmen who manned it, was done is secrecy, but it too proved a financial burden and was abandoned.
Several texts and internet articles mistakenly claim that Connecticut’s first copper coins were produced at the Simsbury mine. Samuel Higley made the coins, not from the Simsbury mine, but from a mine one and a half miles south which he had begun in 1737. He refined the copper from his mine and minted three penny coins for a number of years, but users of the coins believed them to be overvalued and subsequent devaluation caused Higley to end production after only a few years. Other copper mines in Connecticut were at Wallingford, Cheshire, and Bristol.
Mine Becomes a Prison
In 1773, the Connecticut General Assembly sought a central prison to house its more ‘deplorable’ convicts. They explored the possibility of turning the unsuccessful mine with its labyrinth of caves and shafts into an escape-proof institution in which isolated prisoners could be kept from society. This was a time when jails were based solely on punishment for crimes with no concern for reform. Cell conditions in ‘goals’ throughout the province were wretched – lacking good hygiene, sewage, proper food, sleeping quarters, and where frequent whippings were common. Therefore when the idea of using an underground facility with carved caverns and catacombs, there was no thought to the horrid conditions the residents would have to endure, rather the benefits of convenience and cost savings at not having to construct housing. Colonel William Pitkin, Eratus Wolcott, and Captain Jonathan Humphrey visited the mines in May of 1773 and found two shafts, one 25 feet deep with a ladder attached to it and another 67 feet deep used for extracting the copper ore; tunnels and drainage ditches extended outwards. Upon inspection they determined that by carving a 15 by 12 foot lodging room near the first shaft along they had the makings of a formidable prison
Tons of yellow-blue copper ore was taken out of Talcott Mountain, the thirteen mile long traprock mountain ridge that ran west of Hartford to Simsbury. The ore would prove of a poor grade and difficult to extract. Few speculators ever got a return for their investments. It was estimated that in the sixty years of the Simsbury mine’s operation, the total tonnage of ore extracted was no more than 500 tons. James Holmes of Salisbury, Connecticut, a region known for its iron furnaces, was the last mine owner, purchasing the lease in 1772. By then, the copper ore deposits became harder to find and the mining profits vanished.
The colony purchased the remaining years of Captain James Holmes’ mining lease and set about turning the mine into a prison. A small blockhouse was constructed over the main shaft with ladder – the only entrance and exit from the mine. The lodging room was enlarged along with accommodations for the expected prisoners. For a total expense of £37 or approximately $375, the legislature was confident that they had acquired an impregnable prison that “would be next to impossible for any person to escape.” An act was passed prescribing the terms of imprisonment: burglary, robbery, and counterfeiting for the first offense – not to exceed ten years, and the second offense was life. The incarceration of outspoken loyalists into the mine was not to occur until two years later. The keeper of the prison was authorized to punish the convicts for offenses by “moderate whipping, not exceeding ten stripes, and by putting shackles and fetters upon them.” It was intended that prisoners would be employed at labor. On December 2, 1773, representatives for the Colonial Legislature approached Captain John Viets, owner of a tavern nearby the mine. He was convinced to take the position of prison keeper and shortly thereafter, the Legislature sent Viets his first charge.
The Prison
The dank dismal cavern had but one accessible entrance; a forty-foot ladder led to the depths from the newly constructed guardhouse. Year round the temperature remained about 50 degrees – the only sound was the everlasting rhythmical drip of water, the only light that which filtered down the well shaft. Prisoners would be provided with musty straw to sleep on. It would gain a reputation as a dismal environment where “the light of the sun and the light of the Gospel are alike shut out…”
Richard Phelps, in his 1844 (later 1860 revision) text Newgate of Connecticut: A History of the Prison, best described the mine that was readied for Connecticut’s incarcerated: “The passage down the shaft into the caverns, is upon a ladder fastened upon one side, and resting on the bottom. At the foot of this passage commences a gradual descent for a considerable distance, all around being solid massive rock or ore. The passages extend many rods in different directions, some of them even leading under the cellars of the dwellings in the neighborhood. In two of the passages are wells of deep water, one of which measures eighty feet, they serve for a free circulation of air to the inmates of this gloomy place, and were sometimes used for shafts through which to lift the ore, when the business was carried on. On the sides and in the niches of the cavern, platforms were built of boards for the prisoners on which straw was placed for their beds. The horrid gloom of this dungeon can be realized only by those who pass among its solitary windings… the dripping water trickling like tears from its sides; the unearthly echoes responding to the voice, all conspire to strike the beholder aghast with amazement and horror…”
Escape-proof Jail Loses its First Prisoner & Improvements
Newgate’s first prisoner was John Hinson. He was sentenced to ten years for burglary and arrived the first week of December, 1773. Hinson was considered an elusive character. Considered a career criminal, he had already spent time in half a dozen county goals for peddling stolen wares. The judge who turned Hinson over to Viets warned the tavern keeper that he was sly, ornery and cunning as a viper. He continued that if there was any way of breaking out of the Simsbury goal, Hinson would find it. Eighteen days after Hinson descended into the cavern’s confines, a snow storm struck. Around midnight, Viets went out to the blockhouse to check on his captive. He unlocked the trap door and called down with no answer. Taking a club and lantern, he descended the ladder. Hinson’s bunk was empty and his few possessions were missing. After further exploring the caverns, it was apparent he had escaped. Later, it was discovered that a female accomplice had braved the deep snow with a hundred foot rope coiled around her shoulder. She lowered the rope down the eighty foot well shaft and Hinson, climbed out.
This embarrassing episode resulted in the Hartford Assembly’s recommendation of changes: At least two guards were to watch the prison at night. The ventilating shaft in which Hinson had made his escape was covered with “stones about 15 to 18 inches square and of suitable length, be laid across said shaft about eight inches asunder… and as to the west shaft, which is about 25 feet deep, secured with a strong iron gate, about six feet below the surface. We propose that a strong log house be built of two or three rooms, one of which to stand over this shaft to secure it from persons abroad, and the other rooms to be for the miners, etc.” [It was determined to hire miners to work with prisoners to extract ore]. The recommendations were signed January 17, 1774.
Four months later the overseers of the Simsbury prison reported improvements to security, as well as additional prisoner escapes: “…have built a strong log house 36 feet in length and 20 feet width… divided into two rooms, one of which includes the west haft, and in the other, which is designed for the miners to lodge, we have built a chimney… some ceiling to secure from the cold winds… we have also secured the east shaft where the first prisoner escaped, with iron and stone, and every other place where we thought it possible for any to escape; and we apprehend that said prison is now well secured and fitted to receive and employ those offenders that may be sent there.” Further embarrassment may have resulted when the report also reported the escape of all the prisoners who had been sent since the first escape – blaming it on “evil minded persons abroad.”
Over the next several months, every type of criminal from murderers, thieves, and even young boys doing three months for misdemeanors were crowded into the black underground caverns. Soon after the prison had first opened, it was decided to have a lucrative project that brought in some revenue to help offset the cost of incarceration. The idea was to have a few expert miners employed to work with the prisoners. After a larger blockhouse was constructed, picks and shovels were doled out to the convicts. But the system didn’t work. Miners became too friendly with prisoners and too readily entered into their escape plans. Furthermore, the tools required for mining were just the tools needed for escape. Mining and penology didn’t mix. With this failure rate, it was probable that Simsbury prison would have been abandoned.
Laws Against Loyalist Tories
As hostilities heated up between patriot and British authorities, so did the partisan politics ignite the factions of Whigs (rebellious colonists) and Tories (those who remained loyal to the Crown). More and more Tories were persecuted if they expressed loyalist sentiments to England and the King. Tarring and feathering became common. One ‘incorrigible Tory’ who called the local patriots ‘damned rebels’ was made to walk before a mob from New Milford to Litchfield, some twenty miles, carrying his own goose. When they arrived, they tarred him and forced him to pluck his goose, laying the feathers on him – demanding that he kneel down and thank ‘them for their leniency.”
By 1775, the divide between Americans who prepared to raise arms against British authority and those who wished to remain within England’s jurisdiction had reached an impasse. Loyalists were assaulted in the streets and their homes were raided and damaged. If one fell under suspicion of the people, the town’s Committee of Safety (local committees that sprang up throughout the colonies – the brainchild of Boston radical activists as a means to unite the colonies to the cause) were immediately notified. The person was ordered to report to the committee and state his or her loyalties. If found to be a Tory who was lukewarm or indifferent to the liberal or patriotic cause, they were closely watched. If he vocally or in writing expressed sentiments towards England and the King, he was housed in the local goal.
With open warfare erupting between rebels and His Majesty’s troops and the establishment of loyalist regiments who fought alongside the British, strict laws were passed for anyone who aided the enemy. The law stated that citizens or subjects of the United States who declared allegiance to the King of Great Britain, persuaded inhabitants to renounce their allegiance to the State, or aided the enemy would be guilty of high treason and sentenced to death or imprisonment.
Those persons who joined the enemy, robbed, or plundered [as many roving bands of armed ‘cowboys’ loyalists did throughout Westchester County, New York] would not be considered prisoners of war, but convicted before the superior court and either sentenced to death, whipped, or imprisoned. By not obtaining the status of prisoner or war, a loyalist could not be pardoned, exchanged, or released. Patriotic leaders sought means to remove the more vocal loyalists from local society and saw the answer in a nation prison and the ready-made facility at Simsbury was chosen.
The Arrival of Tories in 1775 and the First National Penitentiary
The Hartford Council of Safety feared that the addition of Tories mingling with murderers and thieves to the Simsbury mine, which was had acquired the title of New-Gate Prison, could exacerbate an already uneasy situation that existed. At first the number of Tories remanded to the prison did not exceed five or six, and these were guilty of other crimes. In time, the numbers increased to between thirty and forty Tories who were incarcerated purely for their loyalist views. Additional money was stipulated for improvements and with the increase of prisoners, so was the need for more security and troops to guard them. Even with more money and additional guards, they still had trouble maintaining a lid on the prisoners below and escapes continued.
The fact that men escaped the confines of the mine on a regular basis did not deter the general consensus that the prison’s security was sound. General George Washington must have been convinced as he saw the prison at New-Gate as a means of getting rid of and locking up the more distasteful loyalists. He wrote to the Committee of Simsbury, Connecticut from his headquarters at Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 7, 1775: “The prisoners which will be delivered you with this, having been tried by a court-martial, and deemed to be such flagrant and atrocious villains that they cannot by any means be set at large or confined in any place near this camp were sentenced to be sent to Symsbury, in Connecticut.”
Washington continued, “You will be pleased to have them secured in your jail, or in such other manner as you shall seem necessary, so that they cannot possibly make their escape.” He added that the charges for their imprisonment “will be at the Continental expense.” When General Charles Lee arrived to take command in New York City in early 1776, he divided his time between overseeing the construction of fortifications in and around the city – and what many considered his main purpose, rounding up outspoken Tories and sending them to the Simsbury Mine in Connecticut. Before he was dispatched to Charleston, South Carolina to help fend off a British invasion, he was responsible for several new tenants at the prison.
Treatment of Tory Prisoners
Tories were treated no different than convicted murderers and chronic thieves; in many cases it was worse. Some historians believe that the harsh and poor treatment received by the Tories at the New-Gate prison was in response to the horrendous conditions and ill treatment of American prisoners aboard British derelicts as prison ships anchored off New York City. With the increase of incarcerated prisoners, mining was abandoned and the need for punitive work expanded their hard labor to include making hand wrought nails. “Prisoners were led forth in chains every morning at four o’clock for compulsory labor in the nail factory, provided with half-edible food, given countless lashes for disobedience, and returned at four o’clock in the afternoon seventy feet underground. A “lady of Boston” wrote a poem after having visited the prison:
Can then the verdure of these blissful plains conceal the Caves where penal Rigor reins! Where the starved wretch, by suffering folly led, to snatch the feast were pampered plenty fed. Shut from the sunny breeze and healthful skies, on the c old, dripping stone, low, withering, lies. Torn from the clime that gave his visions birth, a palsied member of the vital earth! Hear his deep groan, heed his repentant prayer, and snatch his frenzied spirit from despair. Nor let these fields, arrayed in heavenly bloom, blush ov’er the horrors of a living tomb!
Another observer wrote: “Here are copper mines. In working one many years ago, the miners bored half a mile through the mountain, making large cells forty yards below the surface, which now serve as a prison, by order of the General Assembly, for such offenders as they chose not to hang. The prisoners are let down on a windlass into the dismal cavern, through a hole, which answers the triple purpose of conveying them food, air, and – I was going to say light, but it scarcely reaches them. In a few months the prisoners are released by death and the colony rejoices in her great ‘humanity’ and the ‘mildness’ of her laws. This conclave of spirits imprisoned may be called, with great propriety, the Catacomb of Connecticut.”
In November, 1784, Joel Stone, a loyalist who moved from New York City in 1776 to escape persecution, penned his experiences. He settled on Long Island after the British occupied New York. Stone sought to join loyalist militia organizations to resist the rebellious Americans. On May 12th, 1778, he was captured at Huntingdon by a raiding party of from Connecticut who took him to Norwalk Connecticut. He was refused prisoner of war status, this so that he could not be exchanged and would be indicted for treason along with a death sentence. He was soon after committed to Stone-Gate Prison which he described: “The dungeon was truly dismal, the walls strong and the place perpetually guarded, yet being in the prime of life my spirits were warm and my passions violent. I therefore firmly determined to effect an escape if I even should be obliged to sink the last shilling and go out naked into the world.” He continued his account: “…by the generous aid of my friends and a judicious application of almost all the money I could raise, we happily emerged from that place of horror July 23, 1778, and with quick dispatch pursued our way into the wilderness of that country to wait the further assistance of our friends.”
The War Continued and So did Escapes
As the war with England raged, so too the animosity between Whigs and Tories. The number of incarcerated sympathizers to the crown increased. These loyalists became desperate men living in unheard of squalid conditions – overworked during the day, frequently lashed, underfed, chained, and each night, descended into a stinking, damp, black pit forty yards below ground. Existence in the Simsbury dungeon was so unbearable that getting out was the one incentive that kept its inmates alive. The methods to gain freedom varied: one would substitute his body for that of a corpse; men waited weeks for the opportunity to attack their guard and attempt to fight their way out; others pooled their meager funds for a bribe large enough to persuade an attendant to leave a door unlocked; or find ways to distract and slip out without notice.
Failure to detain inmates for long never seemed to weaken the faith of lawmakers in its impregnability. But either through accident or purpose, the use of the mine for a prison soon helped obtain another goal set by legislatures – a deterrent for Tory activity. As fast as miscreants and Tories were rounded up and sent to the prison, others had found ways to abscond almost as fast. Guards were doubled, then quadrupled, until over two dozen were employed; and still breaks continued. In the first two years of the prison’s operation, practically every prisoner had managed to escape. However word of the dungeon’s horror spread faster than its insecurity. Gradually, the terrible conditions inmates suffered while incarcerated became known throughout the colonies. Legislatures discovered that just the threat of being sent to the Simsbury mine at New-Gate was enough to discourage and dampen Tory activity. Therefore, no matter how many found ways to gain their freedom, the entire war saw loyalists continually sent to the mine’s depths. Most escapes were of a small scale with little or no violence – an exchange of money and a blind eye at an appropriate moment. However there were a couple of more grand escapes attempted with various levels of success.
Escape by Incompetence
Though most of the escapes involved outside help in the way of providing money for bribes, (guardsmen were poorly or rarely paid by legislatures) some involved organized planning by groups of prisoners. One of the earlier escapes took advantage of jail keeper John Viet’s predictable schedule. There was an anteroom or passage, through which to pass before prisoners reached their cells. Viets would look through the grates of the cell door. If they were not near the door, he would enter then lock the door after him. Consequently, one evening, some of the prisoners hid out of sight. As soon as Viets entered, they knocked him down, took his key, and locked him in, escaping.
Escape by Fire
In the Spring of 1776, prisoners attempted an escape by burning a heavy door over the exit shaft that drained off the water through a hill to the west. Over several weeks, hay was smuggled down and piled in front of the door. When they deemed they had enough combustibles piled before the door, they set it afire. Unfortunately, because of damp conditions, the fire only smoldered and the caverns filled with a suffocating smoke. Once the fire died down and the smoke dissipated, the prisoners were brought to the surface. One was found dead and five others had succumbed to the smoke, however recovered. They were all put into a wooden blockhouse and in the following confusion, some managed to escape. Some accounts state that the survivors further set fire to the blockhouse. That did not occur, according to historian Phelps. It was a year later, in 1777, in which the blockhouse was set on fire and several inmates made their escape.
Most Famous and Violent Escape
After the blockhouse was torched, it was quickly rebuilt, stronger than ever with the addition of a whipping stall. Separate dungeons were added and double hatchways at the main shaft entrance. Prison officials erected a picket fence encompassing an area of approximately 187 by 160 feet. The guard was increased to twenty-four privates under a corporal, a sergeant, and a lieutenant. The privates were required at all times to carry loaded muskets with bayonets fixed; the officers, cutlasses and pistols. Along with the sense of increased strength, there developed a degree of laxness that eventually eroded the harsh treatments of the previous years. Guards began treating their charges with civility that included occasional visitors.
On the night of May 18, 1781, Abigail, wife of prisoner Jonathan Young, presented herself to the lieutenant on duty. She begged permission to spend an hour with her husband. After submitting herself to a careful search, she was escorted to the hatch at the top of the shaft. It soon became apparent that Abigail’s arrival was not unexpected, but part of a carefully crafted plot to escape. Most of the prisoners were waiting on the ladder armed with stones or any piece of metal they had been able to sneak into their quarters. While two officers were raising the shaft’s gate, it was violently heaved upward and the men scrambled up the ladder into the blockhouse. During the blackened fight and scuffle that ensued, the officers on duty were overpowered and their arms taken. Privates on night duty quickly surrendered and those sleeping were not given the chance to resist. During the blackened brawl, several guardsmen were wounded, including some prisoners who, in the dark, were mistakenly gashed by their own comrades. By midnight, every inmate who was able to travel, some were too badly wounded, had taken to the woods. Left behind were one officer, Gad Sheldon, dying from his wounds, and six privates severely stabbed or shot. The entire company of jailers, regardless of their condition, were locked in the dungeon. The breakout was not discovered until morning. One of the prisoners was taken east of the mountain. A few others were found in swamps and neighboring towns’ barns. The rest had made good their escape.
Afterwards, what was regarded as America’s strongest prison proved a painful embarrassment to Connecticut. The legislature was in session at Hartford when word of the escape reached them. An investigation was quickly initiated. Overlooking the fact that most of the privates were very young farmers who were recently assigned to the prison, the strongest censure was reserved for the guardsmen: “A young man more fit to carry fish to market than to keep guard at Newgate;” “Jacob Southwell was awakened by the tumult, took a gun and run out of the guard house, and durst not go back for fear they would hurt him;” and the sarcastic charge describing Private Nathan Phelps, “A small lad just fit to drive a plow with a very gentle team.”
Abigail, wife of prisoner Young, was later interrogated. She said that the first night she “came to the prison and gave her husband $52 dollars… that her husband told her after he came out that he had given Sergeant Lilly $50 in order that he may suffer the prisoners to escape – that he told her the Sergeant purposely left the door of the south jail unlocked, allowing them to gather by the exit.”
On November 6, 1782, the wooden buildings of the prison were again destroyed by fire, to aid the escape of the Tories in confinement. This was the third time the prison buildings had been torched in nine years. In spite of changes each time a dramatic escape proved successful, in the five years that New-Gate served as a penitentiary for the Continental government, over half the prisoners had absconded. Yet despite the breaks, the riots, and the fires, the makeshift jail somehow retained its name as the most formidable stronghold in the country.
William Franklin, Ben Franklin’s Son David Mathews, mayor of New York City, Were Not Incarcerated at New-Gate Prison
Some texts and internet posts claim that one of the more infamous Tories imprisoned at the Simsbury Mine was the estranged son of Benjamin Franklin, Governor William Franklin of New Jersey. This is not true. In May, 1777, armed guards took Governor Franklin to Litchfield, Connecticut. They placed him in solitary confinement in the cell reserved for prisoners condemned to death. His filthy room contained a straw mat on the floor and nothing else – no bed, seat, or toilet facility. He spent several months confined as such writing, “I suffer so much in being thus buried alive, having no one to speak to day or night, and for the want of air and exercise, that I should deem it a favor to be immediately taken out and shot.” When his wife was dying, he had requested a leave to be at her bedside. It was not granted. During his entire ordeal, not once did his famous father try to intervene on his behalf.
So too, despite some scholarly claims, one time Tory Mayor David Mathews of New York City never descended the stairs into the Simsbury dungeons. He became mayor of New York in February, 1776, however was soon accused of “treasonable practice” for his role in the “Hickey Plot”, a counterfeit scheme that reportedly included the planned assassination of General George Washington. Mathews was also imprisoned in Litchfield, Connecticut, but escaped in 1779 – returning to New York were he assumed his position as mayor until 1783 and the British evacuation.
After American Revolution – Still used as a Prison
After the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty in September, 1783, federal interest in New-Gate prison faded. However, Connecticut would continue the facility, designating it a permanent state prison in 1790. Several improvements were enacted. A new workshop for the convicts and a comfortable brick dormitory for the guardsmen were added. A half-acre yard was enclosed in a sturdy log palisade topped with spikes. The wooden barrier would prove to be inadequate. In 1802, the prisoners were set to work replacing it with a stone wall twelve feet high along with a moat on the western side. From nail making, the prison industry branched out: cooper shop (making and repairing wooden vessels such as barrels), blacksmith, manufacture wagons and plows, a machine shop, a shoe shop, and basket weaving were all incorporated into the prison workforce.
Over the years, several buildings would occupy the parade grounds: a stone chapel with a picturesque spire, a large kitchen, several small factories, a hospital, quarters for female convicts, and a thirty-foot treadmill that was operated by twenty two inmates climbing paddle blades to grind grain. Though many improvements were many, the jail remained a miserable facility. Men were chained and forced to march the treadmill, an overseer standing by with his whip ready. In 1824, a four story building was erected containing offices, a granary, mess hall, and additional cells for fifty prisoners. The focus became punishment along with employment in producing commercial products to help offset prison operating expenses. In 1827, after fifty four years as a prison, New-Gate was shut down.
After the Prison Closed
After fifty four years of operation as a prison, Simsbury Mine returned briefly to its original intent. Attempts were made to extract copper ore from the rock and was soon abandoned. The mine was purchased by private owners who, for a price, provided candles and guided tours of the old prison for curious visitors. By the 1870’s, tourists and antiquarians referred to the mine as “Old New-Gate.” A fire in 1904 destroyed most of the four-story structure and cell block. During the 1920’s and ’30’s, the guardhouse was turned into a dance hall. Prison tours were still carried on and to attract more visitors, a variety of attractions were introduced – caged bears, antique cars, and a World War I tank. The state purchased the site in 1968 and removed all non-historical features. In 1973 – two hundred years from the time the mine was converted into a prison, the National Park Service designated New-Gate Prison as a National Historic Landmark. The old prison and copper mine is now administered by the Federal Government’s Department of Economic and Community Development.
Today, the old New-Gate Prison and Simsbury mine resembles an old fort among the verdant Connecticut landscape. If you visit the mine from May through October, there are guided tours of the dark caverns and tunnels that served as the notorious prison. Take Connecticut Route 20 to East Granby and turn onto Newgate Road. Soon, the Old New-Gate Prison Museum will come into view. The road passes through the center of the complex with stonewalls to the left and the still standing Viets Tavern on the right.
For more reading, check out Amazon Free Previews of great books on Loyalists, Tories and the American Revolution
Exciting New Series on African Americans who Fought in the American Revolution. Read a Preview of Book 1 on Amazon – Shades of Liberty Josiah
Also of Interest on Revolutionary War Journal
SOURCES
Abbott, Collamer M. “Colonial Copper Mines.” The William and Mary Quarterly. Vol. 27. No. 2 (Apr. 1970), pp 295-309.
Allen, Thomas B. Tories: Fighting for the King in America’s First Civil War. 2010: Harper Collins, New York, NY.
Commager, Henry Steele & Morris, Richard B. The Spirit of Seventy-Six: The Story of the American Revolution as told by Participants.1958: Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, IN. 1995: DeCapo Press, New York, NY.
Crary, Catherine S. The Price of Loyalty: Tory Writings from the Revolutionary Era. 1973: McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, NY.
Fitzpatrick, John C. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources 1745 – 1799, Vol. 4 Oct. 1775 – April 1776. 1931: United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC
Franklin, William & Hart, Charles Henry (editor). “Letters from William Franklin to William Strahan.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. 35, No. 4 (1911). pp 415-462).
Garrison, Webb. Sidelights on the American Revolution. Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn.
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