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In 1822, Newburyporters appealed to the court for a new jail and jailyard expansion. Thomas Somerby sold the land to the county for $1,900 in 1823 and construction began.
In January, 1824, the Prisons Committee of the state of Massachusetts gave the Newburyport Jail on Federal Street a very bad review. “We found the apartments in this jail offensive, probably owing in part to the age and construction of the building and then necessity of placing a number of prisoners together. The jailer declared it impossible to make the apartment sufficiently warm in winter.”
One year later, the stone for the jail and the jailkeeper’s house was laid, and the builder needed help finishing the job. On August 6, 1824, an advertisement called for “any person or persons who may wish to contract for all the woodwork of a stone dwelling house to be built on the county land in this town, also the glazing, the plastering, and the painting of said house. Proposals will be received on or before Wednesday the 25th of August at Pearson’s hotel in Newburyport. A plan of the house may be seen by applying to S. J. Park Esq.”
The new jail was completed in 1825 at a cost of $12,500. (This is when a skilled laborer made $1.00 a day.)
The Architect of the Old Gaol in Newburyport, Stuart James Park
S. J. Park, Esq. is Stuart James Park (1773-1859), a man whose presence in the historical record is surprisingly fleeting, despite a truly, and literally, monumental career. By the time Stuart J. Park was hired to design and build the jail in Newburyport, he was known throughout New England for his imposing public buildings. He built the New Hampshire State House in 1819, as well as the Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire State Prisons, in 1803, 1808, and 1810 respectively. He built bridges, dry docks, locks, canals, and stone prisons from Worcester to Portland, Maine, even helping to design the Bunker Hill Monument. Park’s work as a designer and builder can be seen all over New England. And yet, when he died in 1859 at his estate in Groton at the ripe old age of 86, he is listed as a “stone mason”.
Stuart James Park was the son and grandson of Scottish-born stonemasons. His grandfather, William Park, came to the United States from Glasgow in 1756, settling in Groton, Massachusetts, where he became a gravestone carver. His wife and children joined him more than a decade later, in 1767. William Park’s eldest son John was thirty-six when he came over to join his father, and already an established stone mason and builder in the employ of the Duke of Argyll. John Park did not intend to stay in New England and was asked to return to Scotland by the Duke to work on renovations to Inveraray Castle, but the American Revolution changed those plans.
Stuart J. Park’s Glasgow-born grandfather, William Park (1704 to 1788), was a well-known gravestone carver. His stone, which he likely carved, is in the Old Burying Ground in Groton, Mass.
Stuart James Park, youngest son of John, went into business with his father, who had introduced the process of splitting granite with flat steel wedges into this country. With his father, Stuart built stone jails in Worcester and Concord. Stonecutting was dangerous work, as Stuart James Park’s memory of his father’s death in 1793 illustrates.
“My father undertook the building of a jail in Amherst NH, and while attempting to move a very large stone with four oxen and large levers, the chain around the stone to which the oxen were attached slipped upon the stone and the stone tipped on one end of a very heavy oak beam and the other end struck my father under the chin with such force as to destroy his consciousness and shatter the whole bony structure of his head, causing his death in about 24 hours after the accident occurred.”
Stuart J. Park’s Glasgow-born grandfather, William Park (1704 to 1788), was a well-known gravestone carver. His stone, which he likely carved, is in the Old Burying Ground in Groton, Mass.
Stuart James Park, youngest son of John, went into business with his father, who had introduced the process of splitting granite with flat steel wedges into this country. With his father, Stuart built stone jails in Worcester and Concord. Stonecutting was dangerous work, as Stuart James Park’s memory of his father’s death in 1793 illustrates.
“My father undertook the building of a jail in Amherst NH, and while attempting to move a very large stone with four oxen and large levers, the chain around the stone to which the oxen were attached slipped upon the stone and the stone tipped on one end of a very heavy oak beam and the other end struck my father under the chin with such force as to destroy his consciousness and shatter the whole bony structure of his head, causing his death in about 24 hours after the accident occurred.”
The stone jail in Amherst, New Hampshire that killed John Parks in 1793.
After the death of his father, Stuart J. Park went into business on his own, building a series of stone jails. His most visible and celebrated commission was the New Hampshire State House in Concord, today the oldest state house in which the legislature meets in its original chambers. Park Street flanks one side of the building, named in honor of its architect, Stuart Park. After this, there was a dam in Boston, another prison in Dover, New Hampshire, and then, beginning in 1823, the jail in Newburyport. After the completion of the Newburyport jail, Stuart Park had two more commissions – the first dry dock in the Charlestown Navy Yard and the Boston and Lowell Railroad. Then, having made a lasting contribution to public architecture and infrastructure in New England, he retired to his farm in Groton, emerging to serve as a Massachusetts State Senator for three years, beginning in 1837.
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Stuart J. Park’s Glasgow-born grandfather, William Park (1704 to 1788), was a well-known gravestone carver. His stone, which he likely carved, is in the Old Burying Ground in Groton, Mass.
The stone jail in Amherst, New Hampshire that killed John Parks in 1793.
After the death of his father, Stuart J. Park went into business on his own, building a series of stone jails. His most visible and celebrated commission was the New Hampshire State House in Concord, today the oldest state house in which the legislature meets in its original chambers. Park Street flanks one side of the building, named in honor of its architect, Stuart Park. After this, there was a dam in Boston, another prison in Dover, New Hampshire, and then, beginning in 1823, the jail in Newburyport. After the completion of the Newburyport jail, Stuart Park had two more commissions – the first dry dock in the Charlestown Navy Yard and the Boston and Lowell Railroad. Then, having made a lasting contribution to public architecture and infrastructure in New England, he retired to his farm in Groton, emerging to serve as a Massachusetts State Senator for three years, beginning in 1837.
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Stuart J. Park’s Glasgow-born grandfather, William Park (1704 to 1788), was a well-known gravestone carver. His stone, which he likely carved, is in the Old Burying Ground in Groton, Mass.
This image of Park’s New Hampshire State House is from a stereo-view, c. 1870
Gaol comes from Middle English: based on Latin cavea (see cage). The word came into English in two forms, jaiole from Old French and gayole from Anglo-Norman French gaole (surviving in the spelling gaol), originally pronounced with a hard g, as in gale.
The buildings form a compound with a courtyard in the rear and a jailyard in the front. The jailyard was used partly as a garden and partly as a grass plot which the prisoners could access.
The jailkeeper’s house is at the corner of the compound and is a Federal-Greek Revival era stone building with a full hip roof. The stone walls are backed by a full post-and-beam frame and the roof and floor structures are wood. The stone is all from Rockport and is rough-cut with smooth-cut corner blocks; the roof is slate with two dormers. It has a standard 3-bay floor plan with four rooms per floor and a central stair hall.
The jail is a full stone building in a Greek Revival style. The only wood in the building is the windows and the roof structure, which is covered by slate. The walls are 3’ thick Rockport granite, and dressed on the exterior and rough-cut on the interior. The floors are 12” thick solid granite slabs. It has two stories with four cells on each floor and a central through-stair hall. All cells are 10’ x 13’ and 8’ high.
Doors, grates and stair rails are all iron. Today only the solitary cell is of 1825 construction; the doors on all other cells were changed to vertical bars in 1886, allowing light and air into the cells.
The carriage house, now used as office space, is all rough-cut Rockport granite rubble with wood floor and roof structures, and a slate roof. It was built and used as a barn with horses and a hayloft. The wood addition that now connects it to the house is new.
All three buildings are well proportioned and beautifully built, designed and supervised by Stuart Park, then 51, who also built the New Hampshire State House, the Concord Jail, and eight other jails. Not only are the buildings well-sited, but show a positive beauty and use for the not-well-regarded inmaes. They are a remarkable example of good planning and design, and of Newburyport’s past.’
The jail was an important part of city life and the jailkeeper’s status was high. Most prisoners were jailed for debt or drunkenness. Inmates ate the same food as the keeper’s family, and some were allowed day leave to work off their debt. During the jail’s 92 years of operation, there were only four jailkeepers and 12,306 prisoners. The last, in 1918, said to have been Newburyport’s “most notorious murderer,” escaped while awaiting execution.
The Essex County Jail (1825-1918) and Building Compound is Newburyport’s third jail. The first was built in Market Square in 1707. The second, built in 1744 was on Federal Street and still exists today but has been converted into a private home.
References:
“An Evening in Gaol”, Brochure dated May 12, by Newburyport Preservation Trust, 2017
“Newburyport Preservation Trust and Community”, by Mary Eaton, Newburyport Daily News, Newburyport, MA, May 9, 2007