In 1863 the state was admitted as one of the constellation of states
of the union. Virginia had seceded from the union by a majority vote.
The strong and indomitable minority citizens of the Old Dominion
residing in the western part of it, many of whom were Scotch and Irish
descendants and natives of the adjoining states, who had taken up their
homes in the valleys and on the hillsides, were loyal to the Union,
loved well the flag, and reverenced with an undying affection the
builders of the union of states for the greater blessing of the people,
and stood firm and unyielding for an indivisible united country. By
their hands and brave hearts they built a state stretching from the
Potomac to the Ohio river, carved out of the Old Dominion. The war-born
daughter of the historical commonwealth proved, in the subsequent
years, to be rich in the production of materials in active demand in
the marts of commerce, and she now outstrips her mother state in the
race for greatness, prosperity, and happiness.
Many regions of the state are mountainous, and the principal industries
are lumbering, mining, and oil production. Many of the white people
are typical mountaineers and somewhat rough and uncouth in manner,
while the negroes, many of them, have drifted from North and South
Carolina, Alabama, and other southern states to be employed in the
development of these industries.
There are very many respectable farmers, professional and business men,
and cultured ladies residing in these almost inaccessible parts; but
the rough element in many places predominates, and the order of the
day and night is drinking and brawling, ending as a rule in desperate
encounters and murder. Most of the white and black inmates of the
penitentiary have been and are now composed of the lawless men from
these regions, from the time it was only a stockade of ten acres in
1866, when Hon. J. W. McWhorter of the Tenth Judicial District was
appointed warden by Governor Boreman. He resigned the position after
viewing it. In a letter to Warden Hawk he states it was for the reason
that there was not so much as a building erected for the shelter of the
inmates, and he thought he could not work the convicts to advantage
under the circumstances. The penitentiary has been improved from time
to time to the present, by additions, until it is a massive structure
of stone and iron, with a high stone surrounding wall. It has 695
inmates at the present writing.
The center, or main building, is built after the old baronial
castellated style of architecture, and with its several stories
height, it makes an imposing appearance. It is flanked on the north
and south by the stone and strongly-barred buildings, wherein the old
and first built stone cells and the modern steel ones—900 in all—are
placed. Entrance is to be had into the prison proper by means of a
round turning iron-barred cage in the main hallway of the central
building.
The cell-building halls are kept in a neat and clean condition; the
cells are in good sanitary condition and are kept in good order by the
inmates, many of whom are artistic in taste and paint and make many
fanciful designs as adornments of their small sleeping quarters. The
yard, limited in area by the shop, dining-hall, engine and hospital
buildings, is artistically laid out in grass-grown plats and flower
beds in season. Around the area of space on brick-laid pavements the
prisoners are permitted to walk in columns of two according to grade
for exercise during the afternoon after working hours, and Sabbath
forenoon prior to and after chapel services. At the four corners of the
penitentiary walls are stone turrets where armed guards are placed from
four o’clock a. m. to 9 p. m.
Upon West Virginia establishing a state government, Wheeling was
selected as the capital where the legislature met in session in 1863,
with Hon. Arthur I. Boreman as chief executive. The prison was located
in 1866 at Moundsville, Marshall Co., then a beautiful village a few
miles from the seat of government. The location, for drainage and
sanitary conditions, might have been better selected from one of the
many surroundings hills than in the midst of the village in the valley
on the banks of the Ohio river.
Moundsville has since the location of the penitentiary there, grown
into the eighth city in population of the state, and is now a
manufacturing and resident town possessing daily and weekly newspapers.
Modern improvements prevail, with water and electric light systems and
street-car lines connecting with Wheeling and adjoining suburbs. The
magnificent mound erected by the Mound Builders many years gone by for
the burial of their dead, to be seen near the penitentiary, is one of
the attractions to the thousands of persons who visit the locality.
Hon. G. S. McFadden, of Moundsville, was the first active and practical
warden of the penitentiary. With the means at hand he made many
praiseworthy improvements for the amelioration of the inmates during
his incumbency. The condition of the prisoners during the four years
past and now, is a vast improvement over the old system. Skilled and
humane prison managers for many years were wanting. The condition of
the inmates was at times deplorable in the extreme. The methods of
punishment in vogue were extremely severe, the work laborious, the
clothing of the zebra kind, the lock-step exacting, the supply and
kind of food indifferent and bad. The employment of the prisoners on
the state account or under contract was unprofitable, and expenses
for the prison’s maintenance piling upon the taxpayers, who made just
complaint. Loud demands were made by the people of Moundsville and
throughout the state, conversant with the deplorable condition of the
affairs of their penal institution, for a change.
After Governor Atkinson’s inauguration, March 4, 1897, he appointed
Colonel S. A. Hawk as warden of the penitentiary. He was at the time
of his appointment a well-known business man of Huntington, Cabell Co.
For a number of years he was also known as a popular employee of an
Ohio river steamboat running out of Huntington. He was at one time a
successful merchant, hotel-keeper, contractor, and during President
Harrison’s administration as President he was an official of the
Interior Department in charge of the public domain in Arizona Territory.
Prior to the incumbency of Warden Hawk the West Virginia penitentiary
had for years been running behind the legislative appropriation
many thousand dollars annually, and not much, if any, success was
made in the reformation of the prisoners. Altogether the prison was
in bad order when he took hold as warden, he not only introduced
reformatory treatment with respect to the prisoners, but he has made
the institution bring to the state an actual profit over and above all
expenses for maintenance. Warden Hawk took hold of the penitentiary
management May 1, 1897. He discovered that his predecessor’s method
of punishment was principally solitary confinement. Twenty-seven or
more prisoners were undergoing the punishment on bread and water, and
they presented a pitiable condition. Their labor was lost to the state;
their mental, moral, and physical health undermined; hope seemingly was
blasted, and they were strangers to God. The warden turned the key and
liberated these men and put them to work, which they gladly expressed a
willingness to do.
He adopted the new and advanced method of prison management in line
with up-to-date penalogists; viz., The grade system, plain clothing in
lieu of stripes, more and better food, first-class medical attendance,
every prisoner at work, more personal liberty and exercise granted; he
made himself approachable to those prisoners having a grievance, and
in so far as he could within the bounds of true discipline, rectified
them. Religious worship was fostered and encouraged; punishment for
willful infractions of the rules and regulations governing the prison,
sure and certain, by black-listing from special privileges, for a
period of thirty days or more; the lock-step, by carrying on the yard
an iron weight during working hours, and in extreme cases of fighting
and other reprehensible misconduct, corporal punishment with a leather
strap was inflicted, or by buck-and-gag. Other changes of a minor but
not less ameliorative nature were made conducive to the moral welfare
of the inmates.
To bring about these humane changes many and substantial improvements
were made in the way of buildings and additions without cost to the
taxpayers, for the prison was more than self-sustaining, and a handsome
sum of money was on hand for this purpose.