But the Tories were just as anxious as any other prisoners to
escape if they could. Three times the wooden guardhouse over the
entrance was set on fire and burned down. Once, when there were a
great many Tories in Newgate, they made a concerted plan and
carried it out successfully. The wife of one of them had
permission, to visit him, and came to the prison one night about
ten o'clock. Only two guards were on duty then at the mouth of
the shaft. When the trapdoor was lifted for her, the prisoners
were all ready and waiting on the ladder. They rushed out,
overpowered the two men, took away their muskets, and got
possession of the guardroom. The rest of the watch, who had been
asleep, hurried in, and there was a desperate fight; one man was
killed and several were wounded. At last the prisoners succeeded
in putting all the guards down into the mine and closing the
trapdoor upon them. Then they escaped themselves, and few of them
were ever retaken.
A story is told of a Tory prisoner who, about the year 1780, made
his escape in a remarkable and unexpected way. There was an old
drain in the mine which had once carried off water, but when the
mine became a prison it was stopped up with stone and mortar,
except for a small opening where the water still ran off between
iron bars. The outlet of this drain was far down on the hillside
beyond the sight of the guards. The prisoner, Henry Wooster, who
worked in the nail-shop, contrived to hide some bits of iron nail
rods in his clothes and carry them back with him into the mine.
He learned, with their help, to take off his fetters at night.
Then, with the same bits of iron, he worked at the bars of the
drain until, little by little, he loosened some of them and took
them out so that he could crawl through into the drain. But the
drain was too narrow in some places to let him pass and he was
obliged to loosen and remove some of its stones. This was a long
and hard task, but he was not easily discouraged. Each night he
took off his clothed and his fetters, crawled into the drain, and
worked until morning. Then he replaced the iron bars, dressed,
put on his fetters, and was ready when the guards came down to go
up to the shops with the rest of the prisoners. By and by he got
nearly to the end of the drain. Then one night, while he was down
there, a stone, which he had accidentally loosened, fell behind
him and blocked his way back. He could not turn to reach the
stone with his hands, for the drain was too narrow, he could not
stir it with his feet, and he dared not cry out for help; time
passed, and it was almost morning; he would be called and missed,
and he shuddered to think of the consequences. At last, as he was
about to give up in despair, he felt the stone move just a
little. Bracing himself against the sides of the drain, he pushed
it vigorously with his feet. Slowly, inch by inch, it rolled back
until it fell into a slight depression so that he could pass over
it. Bleeding and exhausted, he got to his bunk and into his
clothes and fetters again just as the guards came down the
ladder. A few nights later he finished his work and, with several
other prisoners, escaped through the drain.
Some of the Tories in Newgate were well-known and educated men.
One was a clergyman named Simeon Baxter. He preached a sermon,
one Sunday, to his companions in the mine, in which he advised
them, if they could, to assassinate Washington and the whole
Continental Congress. This sermon was printed afterward in London
and proves how bitter the feeling was in those days between the
Americans and the Tories.
After the Revolution, Newgate was the state prison of the State
of Connecticut until 1827. New workshops and other buildings were
added from time to time as they were needed. The wooden
guardhouse was replaced by one of brick, and a strong stone room
over the mouth of the shaft went by the nickname of the "stone
jug." There was a chapel and a hospital, but the hospital was
seldom used because there was very little sickness. The pure air
and even temperature in the mine, where it was never too hot in
summer nor too cold in winter, kept the prisoners well in spite
of darkness and confinement, and men who were sent there in a bad
state of health often recovered.
At one time there was a strong wooden fence, with iron spikes on
its top, around the enclosure, but in 1802 it was replaced by a
stone wall twelve feet high, with watch-towers at the corners and
a moat below it. Some of the prisoners helped to build this wall,
and when it was finished they were allowed to take part in a
celebration. One of them, an Irishman, gave this toast at the
feast: "May the great wall be like the wall of Jericho and tumble
down at the sound of a ram's horn."
But the wall is still standing on Copper Hill after more than one
hundred years and, although the prison is empty and the mines
deserted to-day, a great many people visit the place every year
because of its interesting history. Guides take the visitors down
the steep ladder in the shaft and lead them through the
underground galleries where copper was mined, and show them the
caverns where the prisoners once slept in old Newgate Prison.