place

Charlestown State Prison

1805 establishments in Massachusetts1955 disestablishments in MassachusettsCharlestown, BostonPrisons in MassachusettsUse American English from August 2019
Use mdy dates from August 2019
State prison 1840
State prison 1840

Charlestown State Prison was a correctional facility in Charlestown, Boston, Massachusetts operated by the Massachusetts Department of Correction. The facility was built at Lynde's Point, now at the intersection of Austin Street and New Rutherford Avenue, and in proximity to the Boston and Maine Railroad tracks that intersected with the Eastern Freight Railroad tracks. Bunker Hill Community College occupies the site that the prison once occupied.In 1803 the Massachusetts General Court passed an act approving the construction of a prison. The prison opened in 1805. In 1828 the construction of a north wing was underway. The construction of the south wing occurred in 1850. In 1853 the Legislature of Massachusetts voted to build a prison to replace Charlestown. The prison's space increased as time passed. By 1867 the state converted a guardroom into hundreds of prison cells. On the morning of April 10, 1873, an Englishman named William Patterson, who was incarcerated for burglary, stabbed a turnkey named John E. Shaw. Shaw's injuries were so severe that he was not expected to live.Gideon Haynes had fourteen years of service as warden of the prison about the time of the Civil War, and later (in the late 1870s) as superintendent of the Charlestown property when the prison in Concord opened. One of his children, Inez Haynes Irwin, became a noted suffragist, feminist, and writer. The Haynes family lived at 85 Chapman Street, a street that no longer exists.The new prison, MCI Concord, opened in May 1878. Many prisoners were transferred to the new prison. Governor of Massachusetts George D. Robinson signed a bill ordering prisoners to be moved back to Charlestown on May 21, 1884. In 1886 the west wing, with nearly 60 cells, was built in Charlestown. In 1890 a prisoner named Moore escaped. During the same year "Chicken" Walsh, another prisoner, made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. At a later point a prison riot occurred.By 1903, of the prisoners at Charlestown, 75 were in life imprisonment, 54 had varying terms, and 863 were held under minimum and maximum sentence forms. In 1920 Charlestown began manufacturing and issuing license plates. The prison closed in November 1955, and prisoners were moved to other facilities.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Charlestown State Prison (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Charlestown State Prison
New Rutherford Avenue, Boston Charlestown

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Charlestown State PrisonContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 42.374752777778 ° E -71.067566666667 °
placeShow on map

Address

New Rutherford Avenue

New Rutherford Avenue
02129 Boston, Charlestown
Massachusetts, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

State prison 1840
State prison 1840
Share experience

Nearby Places

Charlestown, Boston
Charlestown, Boston

Charlestown is the oldest neighborhood in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Originally called Mishawum by the Massachusett tribe, it is located on a peninsula north of the Charles River, across from downtown Boston, and also adjoins the Mystic River and Boston Harbor waterways. Charlestown was laid out in 1629 by engineer Thomas Graves, one of its earliest settlers, in the reign of Charles I of England. It was originally a separate town and the first capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Charlestown became a city in 1848 and was annexed by Boston on January 5, 1874. With that, it also switched from Middlesex County, to which it had belonged since 1643, to Suffolk County. It has had a substantial Irish-American population since the migration of Irish people during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s. Since the late 1980s, the neighborhood has changed dramatically because of its proximity to downtown and its colonial architecture. A mix of yuppie and upper-middle-class gentrification has influenced much of the area, as it has in many of Boston's neighborhoods, but Charlestown still maintains a strong Irish-American population. In the 21st century, Charlestown's diversity has expanded dramatically, along with growing rates of the very poor and very wealthy. Today Charlestown is a largely residential neighborhood, with much housing near the waterfront, overlooking the Boston skyline. Charlestown is home to many historic sites, hospitals and organizations, with access from the Orange Line Sullivan Square or Community College stops or the I-93 expressway.