History, Natural History & the Arts
The Hudson River Maritime Museum has an extensive collection of oral histories interviews of Hudson River commercial fisherman, including Edward Hatzmann, who was recorded on April 25th, 1992.
Hatzmann recalled a story told to him by fellow fisherman Charlie Rohr, about a prison break from Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. [Read more…] about Sing Sing Prison Break: A Hudson River Fishing Tale
The exclusion of “undesirables” to remote lands has a long history. The shameful attempts by contemporary governments to “solve” the refugee problem in that manner has had precedents.
During the mid-1930s Mussolini dumped socialists and anti-fascists in the inaccessible and malaria-ridden southern areas of the country.
The use of islands as off-shore detention centers has a parallel history. The government of Charles I locked up its opponents at Jersey, Guernsey, or the Isles of Scilly. Having lost the English Civil War, Charles I himself was incarcerated in Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight. Faced with continuing sedition and agitation, Charles II sent several former leaders of the Interregnum into island isolation. [Read more…] about Islands of Punishment and Exclusion
On this episode of Empire State Engagements, Dr. Clarence Jefferson Hall, Jr., talks about his book A Prison in the Woods: Environment and Incarceration in New York’s North Country (UMass Press, 2020). [Read more…] about North Country Prisons Talk On ‘Empire State Engagements’
The Adirondacks in Northern New York covers approximately 5,000 square miles. Widely known for its natural beauty, recreation opportunities and tourism, it may surprise many of those travelers to learn that the Adirondacks’ trails and amenities are intrinsically connected to New York’s carceral history.
In A Prison In the Woods: Environment and Incarceration in New York’s North Country (Univ. of Mass. Press, 2020), Clarence Jefferson Hall Jr. traces the planning, construction, and operation of penitentiaries in five Adirondack communities – Dannemora, Ray Brook, Gabriels, Lyon Mountain, and Tupper Lake – between 1840 and the early 2010s to show the intersections between the environment and mass incarceration.
Hall’s own personal history adds an interesting aspect to his narrative. His father worked for the New York prison system from 1973 to 1998, mostly at the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora. He states that “the rhythms of the prison system became natural to our family, just as they did for so many other families in towns and villages across the Adirondacks.” [Read more…] about Prison In the Woods: Environment & Incarceration in Northern NY
This week on The Historians Podcast, Katie Turner Getty discusses the prison ships that the British used to hold prisoners of war during the American Revolution. Turner Getty, a Boston lawyer and independent historian, addressed this topic at a conference sponsored by the Fort Plain NY Museum. She writes articles that appear in the Journal of the American Revolution. [Read more…] about British Prison Ships in the American Revolution
John Brown Lives! has announced A Prison in the Woods: Environment and Incarceration in the North Country, a virtual book talk with author Clarence Jefferson Hall, Jr. set for Wednesday, May 19th. [Read more…] about A Prison in the Woods: Environment & Incarceration in the North Country
Perhaps you have never heard of Katherine Lawes. Katherine was the wife of Lewis Lawes, warden at Sing Sing Prison from 1920-1941.
Sing Sing had the reputation of destroying wardens. The average warden’s tenure before Lewis Lawes was two years. “The easiest way to get out of Sing Sing,” he once quipped, “is to go in as warden.” In his 21 years he instituted numerous reforms – and an important part of his success was due to his wife Katherine. [Read more…] about The Mysterious Death of the Angel of Sing Sing
The one-year anniversary of the infamous Dannemora prison break recently passed, so here’s the story of an inmate linked to a pair of unusual breakouts, excerpted from my book, Escape from Dannemora.
Despite media stories claiming early on that Richard Matt and David Sweat were the first-ever escapees from Clinton Prison, some in the past did it in even more spectacular fashion, and overall, hundreds managed to escape under various circumstances. Among them was Jack Williams, a participant in two Clinton exits involving unusual components featured in no other Dannemora escapes. [Read more…] about Dannemora Escapee Jack Williams: At First, Too Big to Succeed
On Wednesday, June 29, 2016, from 6 – 8 pm at Solaris, in Hudson, the Prison Public Memory Project presents an evening with Lily Hibberd, distinguished Australian interdisciplinary artist, writer, curator and Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
Dr. Hibberd’s work centers on marginalized people and the representation of their histories through the collaborative production of new forms of memory documentation. More detail about her work can be found here. [Read more…] about Art, Memory, And Historical Sites Of Conscience
Among the several dozen correctional institutions in New York State, Dannemora (officially Clinton Correctional Facility) is the largest maximum-security prison. It is located in northern Clinton County, where the cold winter weather led to a variety of nicknames incorporating the word “Siberia.” It is also known as home to the worst of the worst, housing many of our most dangerous criminals.
For more than 160 years, the North Country’s famous lockup has confined inmates guilty of the most heinous crimes: murder, rape, arson, assault, bank robbery, serial killing … and chicken theft.
Chicken theft? About now, you might find that cool Sesame Street song going through your head: “One of these things is not like the others ….” But any crime is serious, especially if you’re the victim, and the seriousness of stealing chickens was once elevated in stature for a few reasons. [Read more…] about Chicken Theives: History’s Low-Down Dirty Crooks