THE BIG CASTLE

     “Dreamt that my father was dead and laid in his coffin, that my mother was by and it was to be closed but I said it should not till I would strow over him some sweet herbs George had gathered for that purpose….”- Colonel Charles Clinton journal, Fort Herkimer June, 25, 1757

    

     The size of Newgate was startling. Designed and built with the help of Quaker iron merchant Caleb Lownes, and architect Joseph F. Mangin, it was constructed like a medieval fort, with massive cell dormitories looming above the 23’ high walls and gun tower turrets, that surrounded the packed dirt yards, garden, and brick prison workshops. Under different circumstances William Coffey, David Conklin and Jack Hodges would’ve been in awe, completely impressed, and honored, to take a tour of this modern facility. The stonework was plain, but beautifully functional. The shops looked efficient, open and airy. The garden was well tended, and just starting to bloom…….. suddenly the piercing sound of a steam whistle split the air, bringing the new inmates back to their senses. Neither had ever heard anything so shockingly loud. They’d just gotten a taste of the industrialized future. 

    What followed was worse: a cacophony of muttering and yelling men and women slamming iron doors, as a twelve hundred and sixty boots (Coffey’s figures) greeted the new prisoners, worn by small time gangsters, pimps, thieves, truants, debtors, delinquents and the odd, insane, innocent. A chaotic mass of humanity flooded the common yard in a cloud of dust and sweat. The frightened, chained and naked, rich farmer from upstate, and the unflappable black sailor, involuntarily ducked behind their guard. Then he undid Conklin and Hodges’ cuffs and shackles, straightened his hat, and disappeared into the crowd. Another guard magically materialized with two striped, dirty nightgowns, one bar of lye soap and a bucket of ice-cold water. “Wash,” he ordered with a sharp slap to Jack’s back, and a wink to Conklin. “Welcome to Newgate.”

    It was hard to imagine that this prison had actually been built in response to, and with the help of, anti-capital punishment advocates and progressive reformers like Thomas Eddy and the colonial scion, General Philip Schuyler. Eddy, now a successful New York banker/philanthropist and the prison’s first agent (director) felt that solitary confinement, attention to hygiene, and inmate hard labor were preferable to random corporal punishment and the counterintuitive finality of hanging. He would be up against a system that would not turn easily to the left.  

     Thomas Eddy was another one of those post-enlightenment era men, like Charles Wilson Peale and the Coldens, who had vast interests, sharp intellect and money to indulge both. He had helped map the Erie Canal along the Mohawk river waterway for Canal Commissioner Dewitt Clinton (Charles Clinton’s grandson) and sat in with ex- Revolutionary War General Philip Schuyler on various Indian treats (crooked land deals). Schuyler, the father-in-law of Alexander Hamilton, was Thomas Eddy’s well-heeled connection to the New York elites and entree into reformist society. With Eddy’s paternalistic Quaker vision for a Christian inspired social justice system and Schuyler’s monied political connections they would build New York State’s first prison.

      In Europe, slowly emerging from its own bloody history of torture and corporal punishment, the very idea of criminal incarceration and correctional reformation was a radically new one. Until the early 19th century, gaols in Europe and the U.S., were pre-trial repositories for debtors, petty thieves, counterfeiters or vagrants, whose only offense was, in effect, criminalized poverty. If the debts were not paid, the offender could grudgingly be released, or in extreme cases of malfeasance, given long sentences, or executed. Violent crime rates were low, because most violence was perfectly legal. Patrician authority saw to that. But theft, counterfeiting, or property crime was dealt with severely. Jennifer Gaber points out, that as the 19th century dawned in England, “The expanded list of offenses punishable by death increasingly targeted petty crimes against property, such as stealing a sheep or pilfering fruit.” In the United States a boy stealing a loaf of bread could get life in prison. An Indian or slave could be hung for the same crime. Killing your wife could easily be overlooked.

    Until the antebellum era, blatant white law breakers in the U.S. were, like in Europe, either fined heavily, whipped, tortured and humiliated in the public square—or executed. As the young republic matured so did the penal system, under Thomas Eddy’s benevolent tutelage. Newgate was a visionary approach that Eddy hoped would deter crime, forgo excessive punishment (including execution) while turning a healthy profit. Introduction of the profit motive into penology was radical and well received amongst capitalists like Schuyler and his son-in-law Hamilton. According to Eddy this newly incarcerated individual (given the opportunity and proper guidance) could be reformed, encouraged to change his or her destructive ways and simultaneously exploited for their labor. If Eddy was right, the criminal was an untapped resource, ripe to be reborn and raised in contemplative solitude, much like Quaker children, in the walled off, secluded garden. Then they would be put to work, rebuilding their lives.... learning to make shoes in the process. 

      Thomas Eddy’s directorship at Newgate Prison lasted only until 1804, around the same time his friend Alexander Hamilton was being shot by Aaron Burr across the Hudson River, in sight of Newgate Prison. Just to make things interesting, Aaron Burr’s second was Judge William P. Van Ness, (not Judge William W. Van Ness). If you haven’t gotten whiplash yet, William P. Van Ness, Stephen Crane, and Martin Van Buren all attended Washington Seminary in Claverack, New York, founded by Abraham Osterhout Fonda. There’s one Fonda. Judge William W. Van Ness’  historic home Talavera is also located in Claverack (tours by appt.) leading one to believe the two Judge Van Nesses were closely related, or at least known to each other. Judge William P. Van Ness later sold his Kinderhook estate to his classmate and former law clerk Martin Van Buren. A famous duel, the electoral college, the Vice Presidency, the Presidency, nepotism, land, money, sleazy backdoor politics, Thomas Jefferson and the song sung by Lin-Manuel Miranda in the Broadway musical Hamilton— The World Was Wide Enough. “…I was too young to see- I should’ve known- I should’ve known the world was wide enough for Hamilton and me….”

   

    The grandson of Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, proprietor of Aaron Burr Cider, friend and local historian, Andy Crown Brennan, sent me this:  

 “I had never heard of Newgate Prison and looked it up. It was described as the first prison in America to relocate from the crowded city center (Wall Street) to the suburbs (Greenwich Village). Hmm, sounds like the Colonial equivalent of Otisville. [Donald Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen is now  Andy’s neighbor at Otisville Federal Correctional Institution, doing three years, just a few miles away.]

  “Although, I don't know if Lin-Manuel was right, that the post-revolution world was wide enough for both Burr and Hamilton. The plutocracy we’re starting to see now would have been cemented as policy 200 years earlier hadn't Burr popped a cap in that Federalist twit. Someone had to take out the trash.”