Escape from New-Gate Prison

TWO YEARS BEFORE the first shots of the American Revolution were fired, the Connecticut General Assembly decided that what the colony needed most was a good, heavy-duty gaol (this was before the days of j-a-i-l-s). Up to that time, the county gaols had been the only places available for the confinement of convicted criminals. But these filthy lock-ups were always filled to overflowing, despite the fact that many cells were periodically emptied as inmates died in droves from the insect or rodent-borne diseases then rampant in them. In their wisdom, the legislators decreed that any new prison would have to meet certain specifications. It would have to be fairly close to Hartford; absolutely escape-proof; self-supporting (i.e., inmates would have to be "profitably employed"); and -- most important of all, then as now -- cheap to build and maintain.
Next, some lawmaker had a brainstorm. He remembered that up in what were known as the "Turkey Hills" of northern Simsbury (now East Granby) there were some abandoned copper mines which had been sporadically dug with disappointing results since early in the century. Maybe one of those old mines would fit the requirements for a gaol specified by the General Assembly. Since this seemed like a fine idea, the legislature immediately appointed a three-member study commission to "view and explore the copper mines at Simsbury... and consider whether they may be beneficially applied to the purpose of confining, securing and profitably employing such criminals and delinquents as may be committed to them." So, off went the commissioners, into the Turkey Hills.
When they filed their report with the Assembly a few months later, it was obvious that the study group had been mighty impressed with the prison potential of a many-shafted mine that ran deep under a mountain called, appropriately enough, Copper Hill. Only eighteen miles from Hartford, the mine boasted at least one cavern, twenty feet below ground, large enough to accommodate a "lodging room" sixteen feet square. There were also lots of connecting tunnels where prisoners could be gainfully employed by having them pick away at the veins of copper ore located there.
Better yet, according to the report, the only access to the mine from outside came from two air shafts: one, twenty-five and the other, seventy feet deep, the latter leading to "a fine spring of water." Still better was the £37 total estimated cost of mine-to-gaol conversion: £17 for the underground room, and £20 for the "doors" to cover the outside access holes. But best of all, the commissioners crowed, "When completed, it will be next to impossible for prisoners to escape." Why, concluded the legislature, this old mine was almost more suitable for "beneficial" prison application than they could believe!
By October of 1773, the government had obtained a lease from the landowner at Copper Hill, carpenters had built the lodging room and workmen had fitted a heavy iron door into the twenty-five-foot air shaft, six feet beneath the surface. In the same month, also, the General Assembly designated the place as "a public gaol or workhouse, for the use of this Colony"; named it "New-Gate Prison," after London's dismal house of detention; and appointed a Master (or Keeper) and three Overseers to administer the gaol. In addition, the legislature was thoughtful enough to provide for a "skillful miner or miners," to be named by the Overseers and paid out of prisoners' wages, to "instruct or assist the prisoners in their work." Once John Viets had been approved as New-Gate's first Master, and despite a disturbing (then, as now) £74 cost overrun, Connecticut's answer to the infamous "Black Hole of Calcutta" was ready for business -- just in time for Christmas, 1773.
Now, the General Assembly did not establish New-Gate as America's first state-run gaol just to provide secure confinement in a temperature-controlled environment for Connecticut's run-of-the-mill "criminals and delinquents." Only men (never women) who had been convicted of the most dastardly crimes known to the colony -- burglary, robbery, counterfeiting or passing funny money and horse-stealing -- were eligible for a one-way trip down the twenty-five-foot hole in the ground into the state's dank, dark "prison-without-walls."
Chosen for the dubious honor of being New-Gate's first prisoner was one John Hinson, a twenty-year-old man about whom -- considering his historic, "ground-breaking" status -- surprisingly little is known. Convicted for some unrecorded crime and remanded to New-Gate by the Superior Court on December 22, 1773, Hinson spent exactly eighteen days in the "escape-proof" gaol, before departing quietly for parts unknown, apparently during the early morning hours of January 9, 1774. Although no one saw him leave, obviously, there was some evidence that he had used the seventy-foot well shaft to climb out of the mine, a difficult but not impossible feat, given Hinson's youth, diminutive size (5'6") and compelling motivation.
Immediately after discovering that their one and only charge had flown the coop, the prison Overseers contacted the General Assembly with the startling news. Naturally, the legislators were incredulous. How could Hinson have escaped so easily and speedily? Hadn't the original study commission predicted that breaking out of New-Gate would be "next to impossible"? Didn't the General Assembly spend top dollar (or pound) to make sure that criminals who were sent down that hole in the ground, stayed down there? Tough questions, but the prison officials were equal to the challenge: the legend of the "evil-minded" accomplice was born.
Since there was no wall or enclosure of any kind around New-Gate's grounds at the time, it was a simple matter, so the story ran, for someone to walk up to the deep but coverless well shaft, drop a rope down and pull the prisoner out of the underground gaol. Since the natural barriers were so forbidding, the argument continued, no man could have escaped without some sort of "outside" help. Therefore, concluded the Overseers, Hinson must have had assistance in his climb to freedom and subsequent disappearance. But who would do such a dangerous thing? Back came the age-old answer: cherchez la femme, especially one who would risk all for love.
So compelling was this romantic, though fanciful, scenario that as it received wider and wider circulation, it began to be repeated as fact. Not only was the heat gradually shifted from the prison administration to the legendary "dark lady of New-Gate," but the tradition of John Hinson's shadowy accomplice gained a firm hold on the folk imagination. Indeed, as the tradition continued, variations on the legend evolved. One of the more interesting variants attributed the "dark lady's" motivation not to love, but to "scruples against solitary confinement!" Thus, as this story went, the woman accomplice acted as a matter of conscience: "it was not good for man to be alone."
As a consequence of the successful escape of John Hinson and, three months later, three more New-Gate prisoners, probably by the same route, the Connecticut General Assembly reluctantly came to the conclusion that two holes and an underground mine do not necessarily a prison make. So they ordered a series of modifications that included, in 1802, the erection of a high stone wall around the prison. Despite all the new security arrangements, however, those who were confined at New-Gate never tired of making strenuous efforts to leave. Few were successful after the improved security measures were taken, but a number of them were said to have happily died trying.
Finally, in September, 1827, after almost fifty-four years of operation, during which well over 800 prisoners were committed to its clammy subterranean dungeons, New-Gate Prison was abandoned and the remaining inmates were transferred to the new state prison at Wethersfield. Significantly enough, the last escape attempt occurred on the night before the move to Wethersfield, when a prisoner fell back into the well -- and drowned -- as he tried to emulate old John Hinson, of sainted memory. Coming when it did, at the bitter end of the facility's long, dark history, the death was a tragic, but somehow fitting reminder of New-Gate's most enduring legend.

from Legendary Connecticut by David E. Philips / ISBN 1-880684-05-5 / $17.95

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