Category: Wethersfield Prison Blues
About the Author: Amy Gagnon
Amy Gagnon completed her Master’s work in Public History at Central Connecticut State University in 2010 and will be presenting her capstone project, a National Register nomination for the Temple Street Garage, in October 2011. Amy currently works as a researcher and writer for the Connecticut Humanities Council on a …
Wethersfield Prison Blues – Additional Notes
Wethersfield Historical Society member John Oblak contributed the following additional notes. Brenda Milkofsky [former WHS Director] gave a lecture a number of years ago on the opening of the prison. The 81 prisoners – men, women and children – were marched to Wethersfield from Old Newgate in Granby. The youngest …
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Wethersfield Prison Blues
In September 1827, the newly constructed Connecticut State Prison opened its doors to eighty-one inmates once housed at Newgate Prison in Granby. The prison was modeled after a state-of-the-art penitentiary in New York, and the prison’s administration stressed prisoner rehabilitation during incarceration: prisoners labored by day to learn a trade, …