AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS PRISON
For more than two centuries after the arrival of the early Dutch
settlers on Manhattan Island the land for a considerable distance on all
sides of the present Tombs prison was a fresh water lake known to the
people of that day as the “Kalchhook” or Collect Pond.
It seems almost incredible that less than a century ago the visitor to
Manhattan Island could have stood at the juncture of Park Row and Centre
Street, and looking north might behold a beautiful fresh water pond
hidden between the hills. This lake had been a favorite resort of the
Indians for hundreds of years prior to the arrival of Henry Hudson and
the Half Moon in September, 1609, or even before the discovery of
America. On the Broadway side was an Indian settlement where the red man
pitched his wigwam and when not hunting or fishing smoked his pipe of
peace.
The name given to this pond had a curious history. It seems that the
Indians had been in the habit of carrying oysters from the North River
in their canoes; afterwards they dumped the shells in heaps at the side
of the pond. What name the Indians gave to this sheet of water before
the coming of the white man we have never been able to learn. The Dutch
settlers called it “Kalchhook” or the Shell Point, from a large deposit
of shells found along its western shores.
After the erection of the original Tombs Prison, the authorities
experienced great trouble with water flooding the cellars, which clearly
proved that there were springs underneath the main building.
With the aid of some old maps now in possession of the Lenox Library,
the exact location of the Collect Pond can be readily described. It was
bounded by Pearl Street on the south, half way between White and Walker
Streets on the north, Elm Street on the west and Mulberry Street on the
east. Centre street as now laid out ran directly through the pond. It
had a navigable outlet to the North River, through Canal Street.
It is said that William IV, who was then the Duke of Clarence, came to
New York during the Revolution and was in charge of Admiral Digbie on
whose ship he was an officer. He was fond of skating on the Collect Pond
when off duty, and would have drowned there on one occasion, having
broken through the ice, were it not for the quick action of Gulian C.
Verplanck, one of New York’s distinguished citizens. Mr. Verplanck was
afterwards President of the Bank of New York, which position he filled
for twenty years. He died in 1799.
In 1805 the City Council gave orders that the Collect Pond should be
filled in with clean dirt from the hills that surrounded it, as it had
become a menace to the health of the city because of the filth that had
been dumped into it for several years. But little had been done towards
carrying this order into effect.
The winter of 1807-8 was one of great distress and poverty in this city.
To add to the misery of the poor, business was at a standstill and
hundreds of men were out of employment. In January, 1808, the unemployed
made a demonstration in front of the City Hall and called upon the Mayor
and Common Council to give them bread for themselves and their families
who were then in a starving condition. After a thorough discussion of
the situation money was appropriated and several hundred men put to work
to fill in the Collect Pond as a public improvement. After many months
the work was completed.
In the year 1830 the Common Council again took up the matter of erecting
a new prison. The population of the city had increased by this time to
over 200,000. The old Bridewell which had been erected before the
Revolution, situated west of the City Hall, had become a nuisance and
was unfit any longer for use as a prison. For several years the
agitation was kept up without any definite results. At last in 1835 the
erection of the Tombs Prison on a part of the old Collect Pond was
decided upon and work begun.
For over a year the construction of the new building was slow, as the
filling in of the pond had not been properly done. The ground was so wet
and “springy” that the foundation of the new prison had to be laid on
pine logs fastened to the ground by spiles.
The old Tombs was said to contain the purest specimen of Coptic
architecture outside of Egypt and was admired as a splendid work of art.
The style of this prison was decided on soon after the publication of a
new book of travels by John L. Stevens, of Hoboken. Mr. Stevens had just
returned from a visit to Egypt and the Holy Land and had given to the
public the result of his impressions abroad in a handsome volume. As the
author was well known in New York, his book became widely popular. On
the front page was a picture of an Egyptian Tomb. Some suggested that
the new city prison be built after this design. The Common Council
accepted the suggestion. Ever since the city prison has been called “The
Tombs.”
Strange to say, this new prison was erected in the midst of a
neighborhood that has ever since run riot in every form of crime and
wickedness. For over sixty years some of the blackest and bloodiest
murders, robberies, assaults, hold-ups and other deeds of darkness were
committed in this neighborhood or within a stone’s throw of the prison.
In early days that part of the old Tombs building fronting Centre Street
was known as the Halls of Justice, as it contained the Court of Special
Sessions and the First District Police Court. For several years after
the Tombs was opened the Sheriff of the County had charge of the
building and all of the prisoners from the time of their committal till
they were safely landed in the Penitentiary or State Prison.
The old Tombs Prison was an oblong building 142x48 and contained four
tiers, having one hundred and forty-eight double cells. As far as safety
and economy were concerned, it was one of the best in the country. It
was so constructed that one man on the fourth tier and one man at the
desk could see everything going on in the building.
Forty years ago there was a stone building at the corner of Franklin and
Centre Streets which for years was known as “Bummers’ Hall.” It was used
principally for drunk, disorderly and crazy people. After a time it
became dilapidated, filthy and overrun with rats. A young tough named
Mahoney and some boys who were detained with him for some minor offence,
made their escape from “Bummers’ Hall” through a window. After it was
demolished, a brick building was erected known as the New Prison, which
is now called the Annex. When the Tombs was first built it contained a
cupola over the main entrance, which was burned on the day set for the
execution of John C. Colt, November 18th, 1842. The original Tombs
Prison was opened for business in the early part of 1838.
Retrospect
If the stones and iron grating of this dismal old prison, now no more,
which for two-thirds of a century stood with its back toward Elm Street,
and its front entrance facing Centre Street, could only speak out its
experience and tell its woes, what a heart-rending story of crime it
would tell; what bitterness of soul, dashed prospects, guilty
consciences that presage horrors, together with the breath of a fetid
atmosphere, where like hades, the smoke of their torment rises
continually! It would also be a story of blood and tears!
For over sixty-five years the “old Tombs” prison has been the scene of
so many tragedies and the grave of innumerable buried hopes, once most
promising, but long since crushed under the iron heel of fate! And these
realms of darkness, cold, damp and forbidding cells, clammy and foul
with the sweat and tears of a past generation, remind us of the cruel
dungeons underneath the Mamertine prison of the Caesars!
When we think of the number of cold-blooded murderers, the burglars,
highwaymen, forgers, swindlers, gold-brick men, green-goods operators
and hundreds of others possessing dark criminal records, that have lain
here for many months, coming from every State and part of the globe, our
blood curdles within.
What hideous characters have domiciled in this prison during these two
generations, who afterwards paid the penalty of the law for their bloody
deeds! Think also of the conglomeration of forces that actuated and bore
them into their doom like driftwood going over a Niagara as merciless as
fate would have them!
Men and women that came from noble sires, scholars and specialists with
trained minds that would have shone in any department of life, lawyers,
teachers, business men, bankers, brokers and even men of letters, all
under the cruel hand of fate, succumbed to the tempter in a weak moment
and fell; alas! some never to rise again.
“Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years,
I am so weary of toil and tears.”
But, alas, it is too late. The die is cast forever!
Our young men and women should learn ere it is too late, or even before
they launch forth on a career of crime, that we cannot break the divine
law without punishment. “Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also
reap,” is a law that is as true in the moral world as it is in the realm
of nature. Our large cities are full of the whirlpools of vice that
carry multitudes swiftly over the rapids of destruction into the
maelstrom of eternal death.
The New City Prison
After many years of agitation the plans for the new Tombs Prison were
prepared and approved during the Strong administration, which went into
power on a reform wave in 1894.
The new City Prison contains three hundred and twenty steel cells
arranged in four tiers in the men’s and four in the boys’ prison, with
parallel corridors. There are forty large cells on each tier, arranged
back to back, with all the recent improvements, which consist of running
water, electric light, toilet, wash basin, hung table and cot. The new
building is said to have cost over one million dollars.
On September 30th, 1902, the old offices on Leonard Street which had
been in use since the front building on Centre Street had been torn down
to make room for the new structure, were abandoned and the books and
other important documents removed to the offices in the new building.
This new building, however, was not entirely ready for use, but the
first step had been taken and the occasion was hailed with joy. The
second step in the entire occupation of the new City Prison took place
Tuesday, January 6th, 1903, when the contractors handed over the entire
structure to the City authorities and it was formally opened to the
public by Mayor Seth Low and Commissioner Thomas W. Hynes in the
presence of a number of invited guests. A few days afterwards the
prisoners were transferred from the old prison to the new, and the work
of demolishing the old Tombs was begun.
When the new Tombs was opened in 1901, John E. Van De Carr was Warden.
And a kinder and more obliging man never lived than he. Both under the
administrations of Mayors Strong and Low he was the official head of the
city prison, and cared for the inmates of the prison as if they were his
own family.
For many years the city prison has been noted for some of its
semi-official inmates, who lived on perquisites and tips, and one of
this class was old John Curran, the official guide of the prison. Old
John had served in this capacity for many years, and knew every nook and
cranny of the old structure. Roland B. Molineaux had a good opportunity
of seeing old John at his best, and has kindly spoken of him in his
book, “The Room with the Little Door.” Whenever John waxed eloquent, in
describing the places of interest within the Tombs yard, he revealed a
strong Irish brogue, that made his descriptions witty. You could not
help smiling when you heard John, as he was wont to do, point out the
last remaining beam of the old Tombs gallows, on which a score or more
of persons were hung. “Gintlemens, thems th’ last and true part of old
galleys of New Yark, on which so many famous chaps wint to death.” As he
turned toward “Bummers’ Hall” with his visitors in the rear, he would
exclaim, “Gints, thems the way to the exodus” as he would point to the
back door of the new prison.
Soon after the opening of the new prison John disappeared from history
as if the earth had opened its mouth and swallowed him out of sight.
Where did he go? No person seemed to know. Mr. Sullivan, who was known
as the Captain of the Bum Brigade, and was known as John’s confidential
adviser, said that as soon as the old fellow secured his “pile” he
vanished. I afterwards learned that John had a daughter living in Maine,
and without communicating his plans to any one in the prison, removed
thither, where he purchased a farm and now resides, happy and contented,
ever and anon dreaming, how he had lived so long in the old Tombs and
how he had so long fooled the visitors with his “Corkonian eloquence.”
After John’s disappearance the redoubtable Billy Gallagher added to his
already onerous duties of prison messenger, that of official prison
guide. After a while Billy learned the “lingo” and became as proficient
as a “Bowery drummer” or a Coney Island “barker.” When the Commissioner
had learned that John Curran had made a fortune as Tombs guide, he
prohibited Billy Gallagher from asking fees for his services. Billy was
a favorite with everybody, and could always be depended on for his
veracity. Apple Mary who knew Billy for many years used to say, “God
bless Billy Gallagher,” to which everybody would say Amen.
Billy Gallagher devoted more time to the Bowery bums who so often
infested the ten-day house, and they took advantage of his generosity.
They frequently palmed off on him a lot of “fake” jewelry on the
strength of which he paid their fines. After a time Billy had a carpet
bag full of tin watches and paste diamonds, on which he had made small
loans. Charley Sheridan, who was one of Frank Lantry’s district
captains, was “boss” of the ten-day house for several seasons. He was
tender hearted and often talked to the fellows from the Bowery and
Mulberry Bend in a fatherly way and more than once paid their fines. Of
course they “beat” him in the end as they do everybody who trusts them.
They go on the principle that they have everything to gain and nothing
to lose by a lie.
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