The gathering together of a number of convicts in a workroom was at first productive of some disorder, owing to the difficulty of keeping them under proper discipline under the new conditions. In 1799 came the first riot. The keepers fired upon and killed several convicts. There was another revolt in 1803.
Gardner had been found guilty of forgery, but was reprieved on the gallows through the influence of the Society of Friends, of which he was a member, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Because of his services in organizing the prison work, he was liberated after serving seven years. Becoming then a shoe manufacturer, he was successful for several years, when he absconded, taking with him a pretty Quakeress, and was never heard of again.
Quaint Houses in Wiehawken Street
Although the prison has been swept away, an idea of its locality can be had from the low buildings at the west side of nearby Wiehawken Street. These buildings have stood for more than a hundred years, having been erected before the prison.
That part of Greenwich Village that was transformed from fields into a town in a few days, during the yellow fever scare of 1822, centered at the point where West Eleventh Street crosses West Fourth Street. At this juncture was a cornfield on which, in two days, a hotel capable of accommodating three hundred guests was built. At the same time a hundred other houses sprang up, as if by magic, on all sides.
Bank Street
Bank Street was named in 1799. The year previous a clerk in the Bank of New York on Wall Street was one of the earliest victims of yellow fever, and the officials decided to take precautions in case of the bank being quarantined at a future time. Eight lots were purchased on a then nameless lane in Greenwich Village. The bank was erected there, and gave the lane the name of Bank Street.
Washington Square