SIMSBURY MINES.
At the base of Greenstown mountains, in the town of Granby, stands an
old ruin, surrounded perhaps by more fearful associations than any one
spot in the United States. The very tread of a stranger's foot on the
soil arouses painful thoughts, for it awakens the reverberations which
haunt those cavernous ruins, and every sound seems weighed down with
moans, such as were for many years common to the place.
It is an old ruined prison I am writing about--one of the most terrible
places of confinement ever known to this free country. A copper mine,
which failed to yield its rich metal in the abundance demanded by
capitalists, had been abandoned, and over the caverns hollowed out from
the bosom of the earth, the authorities of Connecticut erected a prison
for criminals. Thank God the place is a ruin now.
Humanity has dragged the wretched sinners from their burrowing places
under ground, and given them at least pure air and the sunshine which
God created alike for the innocent and the guilty. The spot is deathly
silent, but you cannot pass it without an aching heart, for the misery
once crowded in those caverns gathers around the imagination, and
settles upon it in a heavy cloud, surcharged with groans. You know that
human misery has been crowded there in masses, without air to breathe,
or such light as God gives to his meanest animal. You think of this till
the hollows of the mountains seem gorged with groans, and the cry of
suffering souls comes up through the very pores of the earth, making the
wild flowers tremble beneath the doleful misery that grew desperate
beneath their roots.
A group of rambling wooden buildings thrown promiscuously together, at
the foot of a range of hills, standing out bleak and bare, form the
ruthless feature of a lovely landscape. One building, lifted from the
abrupt descent of the mountain by a double terrace of rocks, commanding
a view of the country, which contrasted its rich cultivation, pleasant
homesteads, and well-filled barns with that narrow roof and meagre
belfry, rose beneath the wild beauty of the mountains. This was the
aspect of Newgate built over the Simsbury Mines, at the time Katharine
Allen first recognized it from the highway, which she must not tread
again for eight weary years.
The front building alone was visible. That long attachment which runs
back toward the hills, with its range of narrow windows, and the smaller
buildings crowded against it, lay in shadow, but from the distance there
was something imposing in the uncouth pile. The sun was approaching its
rest, and flung increasing light around the old prison, giving it gleams
of false cheerfulness that never entered its walls.
Katharine, who sat in the heavy country wagon, between her guards,
chained to the seat, and with her delicate wrists chafed by the iron
that weighed those little hands down to her lap, looked toward the gaunt
pile with a feeling of sad speculation. Why had she--an innocent
woman--been sent to a place like that? for it was terrible, even in the
glory of sunset. In her whole life she had committed no wrong worthy of
more than gentle punishment. Was it not enough that her husband had
abandoned her? that her child was dead? that her name had become a
by-word in the land? Not enough that she had gone through the first and
most bitter portion of her sentence--had suffered that hour of public
scorn on the gallows at New Haven--a more terrible penance than if her
life had been exacted, for the memory was with her always? Must the laws
be forever warring at her young life? Was that huge pile to be her home
for eight long years? They would crowd her down among the desperate
criminals who burrowed their lives out in the bosom of that mountain,
and leave her to die there.
But could she die? Would the principles of life ever give way? When the
sentence had been pronounced upon her, and the judge had condemned her
to go through all the forms of an ignominious death without its last
horrible pangs, she had said to herself, "It is well. I shall not live
through that hour. They will not kill me; but I shall drop dead on the
scaffold. It is thus our Lord will be merciful, and save me from all
this misery."
But, alas! we cannot die of our own will. She had outlived that hour,
and now stood before her second fate, and no signs of death came to
snatch her from it. The anguish of this thought broke upon her as her
eyes fell upon that gloomy pile, and she cried out in the depths of her
soul.
"My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?"
As the cry left her lips, she lifted her chained hands to her face, and
shut out the prison from her sight, moaning because God would not let
her die.
The two men heard this outburst of misery, and looked on each other in
silence. One turned his head aside, and drew the cuff of his coat across
his eyes, and the other spoke sharply to his horses and began to lash
them; but his voice and arm failed, and he, too, turned away his face.
"Look up, my poor gal," he said, at last, pointing toward the mountain
with his whip. "It doesn't look so tarnal gloomy now."
Katharine dropped her hands, and the iron clashed down to her lap again.
The sun was now at its full setting, and flung a thousand gorgeous tints
on the old prison. Its windows sent back a blaze of gold, the cupola
seemed brimming over with crimson radiance, and rich lights slanted down
the terraces of the mountain.
"Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "God is everywhere--even in that place.
If He will not let me die it is because there is work for me to do. I
shall find it among poor souls yonder--more miserable still than I am,
for they struggle under a weight of guilt; and I--God help us all. I
shall find some one to tend and comfort there."
Katharine grew resigned under these good thoughts, and a sweet
tranquillity stole into her eyes. She was innocent. God knew that, and
she knew it, for had not her babe gone to Him pure from her own heart?
Why should she question His graciousness? If He permitted her home to be
in that prison, what right had she to rebel against it? In this frame
of mind she entered Newgate.
It was that sad hour which consigned the prisoners, whose toil lay above
ground, to this living tomb, deep in the earth. The crash of hammers and
clank of iron had ceased in the workshops, and the prisoners were
assembled in the main building, ready to descend into the mines in
search of such rest as that terrible place could afford.
The officers of the prison were occupied. Guards leaned idly on their
muskets, and a group of keepers kept strict watch over the terrible
group. They had no time for newcomers, so Katharine stood between her
guards, drooping wearily under her irons, and looked on, forgetting
herself in compassion for those lost wretches.
A trap-door, scarcely large enough to admit a healthy man, led to the
subterranean dungeons. Around this the prisoners crowded, some swearing
fiercely, others laughing in fiendish glee, a few humble and
brokenhearted, all hustling each other like wild animals crowded on a
precipice. The guards and keepers looked on impatiently. The clank of
chains and those haggard prison faces were familiar to them. They were
only impatient to urge the crowd down that narrow passage, and seal the
unhappy wretches deep in the bowels of the earth, when their duty ceased
till morning.
Down through this narrow trap the prisoners forced themselves, cursing
as they went, and jesting at their own misery. At last all had
disappeared save a little band of women in "linsey-woolsey" dresses cut
very scant, who had waited in one corner of the room, under a guard, for
their turn to descend. As they passed Katharine, these women lifted
their heavy eyes to her face, too miserable for pity or wonder; but her
beauty and the strange expression of her features made them pause and
look upon her as if they could not believe that she was one of
themselves.
Some formalities passed. Katharine's name, age, and sentence were
written down in the black records of the prison: "Katharine Allen, aged
twenty-two, found guilty of manslaughter in the first degree; sentenced
to sit upon a gallows in the public square of New Haven for one hour,
and serve eight years at hard labor in the State Prison at Simsbury."
Twice as the warden made this record he stopped to look at the prisoner.
Her presence troubled him with vague compassion. He took the irons from
her arms himself, and rubbed the chafed wrists gently with his palm,
muttering, "Poor wretch, poor wretch. It's hard to put her down among
them."
It was not often that this dignitary visited the subterranean prison,
but he called the keeper most remarkable for kindliness of heart and
bade him take her away. His voice was gentle and Katharine looked at him
gratefully, but she was afraid to speak, for while standing near the
trap-door she had seen a keeper strike one of the women who presumed to
answer him.
A rude ladder, which stood almost perpendicular, led from the trap-door
to the dark caverns underneath. At the first glance Katharine drew back
sick and appalled by the black gulf into which they were urging her. The
warden came forward and strove to reassure her, but she trembled
violently and reeled back from the door, holding out her hands with a
piteous cry for mercy.
There was no help for it; she must descend like the rest, sleep and
suffer like the rest, notwithstanding her beauty and the pure magnetism
of her goodness. She clung to the kind hand reached forth by the warden,
and shutting her eyes sunk through the trap and placed her trembling
feet on the ladder. The keeper was just below encouraging her. The iron
lamp which he held only served to make the darkness horrible. The
blackness into which she was passing seemed to cover her soul and body.
At last her feet touched the earth. The skeleton ladder seemed melting
away in the darkness overhead. The keeper's lamp flickered fitfully; a
mouldy scent floated around her. "This," she murmured, "this must,
indeed, be the valley and shadow of death."
The man opened a door sunk into the walls of the cavern, and there was a
rude cell, occupied by a wooden bench, over which some straw was
scattered; a slanting board, also covered with straw, rose a few inches
above the level at one end, and this was all the pillow that beautiful
head would know for eight years. The keeper carried a coarse gray
blanket on his arm, which he laid down on the bench. Katharine took up
the blanket, but her hands trembled so violently that she could not
unfold it. He saw this; set his lamp on the earth, and spread the
blanket over the straw. She tried to thank him, but could not speak.
The lamp light, faint as it was, revealed drops of moisture glistening
thickly on the walls around her, and she detected the dull sound of
water falling in perpetual rain from the low ceiling. This was the end
of her journey; this was her home. The man left her alone; no light, no
voice; the dull dropping of water from the roof was all the sound she
heard. No wonder that she cried out again, "My God, my God! why hast
Thou forsaken me?"