Old Newgate Prison in Connecticut Held Prisoners Underground

Just before the start of the Revolutionary War, officials in Connecticut decided they needed a secure place to house criminals. In 1773 they converted an old copper mine into an underground fortress and for the next half century held criminals in the dark, cold tunnels of what was to become the country's first state prison. Newgate Prison had begun as the continent's first copper mine in 1705. But after several decades the mine eventually proved unprofitable, and the Connecticut colonists began holding criminals underground there - naming it Newgate after the notorious London prison.

Originally, the Connecticut Assembly saw the prison as a workplace, where a sentence of "hard labor" would replace harsher penalties, such as whipping, which were common at the time. Criminals convicted of crimes such as horse thievery or burglary - the most common offense - were sent to Newgate for underground confinement and work.

The single entrance to the underground caverns was thought to ensure security, and to keep prisoners from easily escaping. But the prison proved to be fairly easily breached. The first prisoner ever incarcerated there escaped just 18 days later. And prisoners had every reason to attempt to escape. Life underground at Newgate was very harsh. As many as 40 prisoners were confined to the prison's mine tunnels. It was always dark and cold. The temperature hovered near 50 degrees year round. What little light was available came from smoky torches that fouled the stale air even further. Insects and rats were plentiful. With no running water or plumbing, waste was hauled to the surface by the bucketful, with an unfortunate prisoner known as a "cullyman" responsible for filling and emptying the buckets.

During the Revolutionary War, loyalists to the British cause were kept at Newgate as political prisoners. The state of Connecticut began to imprisoned women there beginning in 1824. As the prison population at Newgate expanded, so do the facility. Above-ground buildings were constructed to use prison labor to forge nails. Some prisoners would be brought to the surface each day to work, including walking 20 at a time on a treadmill. This ingenious system used humans to power mills to grind corn and grain.

Eventually, the prison was found to be inefficient, expensive and inhumane. It was closed by the state of Connecticut in 1827 when a new state prison was built.

Today, Old Newgate Prison is on the National Register of Historic Places. Visitors can pass through the 12-foort thick walls to tour the remains of the above ground guard house and Viets Tavern, the home of the prison's first warden. A stairway leads underground to the old mine, where nearly half of the original tunnels where prisoners were held captive are open to be explored.

Old Newgate Prison is open to the public on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from May 1^st through October 31^st. It is located at 115 Newgate Road in East Granby, Connecticut.