Recollections of Windsor Prison; / Containing Sketches of its History and Discipline, with Appropriate Strictures and Moral and Religious Reflection

by of Vermont John Reynolds

In view of this melancholy history, the mind will naturally inquire, what good reason had Rodgers and F*** for entering that complaint which led to such direful results? what had Godfrey done? Is it a crime deserving of punishment for a man to say, "I have done more than I meant to," when he had done his full task, and done it well? especially after he explained by saying, "I have wove more than I thought I had"? Is this a crime? Was it right to treat a prisoner, who had always behaved well, in such a manner as this? What excuse is there for those who reported him? Let me, in concluding this sketch, hold up to the notice of all men,—saints and sinners, bond and free, the man who, in his testimony on the trial, said,—"I advised Mr. Rodgers to report him, and wrote the report. I had understood that there was a combination among the prisoners, not to weave over a certain quantity."

ROWLEY.

This was an old man of near eighty. He had been worth a great fortune, and was then in possession of property to the amount of about twenty thousand dollars. In the prison he found no indulgence for age, no compassion for the sick, no pity for the suffering, and he was scarcely in it before he was put in punishment. There was at that time a guard named French, who had been a soldier at Burlington, and who said that he had been employed by Rowley, when he was not on army duty, to cut corn stalks, and that he had cheated him out of his pay. This he reported to the prisoners and keepers; and now he thought he should have a good opportunity to be revenged. Accordingly he kept him in the solitary cell, and wearing a block and chain, most of the time. The old man could not look, speak, or walk, but French would report him; and so well was it understood that he was suffering for this old grudge, that when any one saw him going to the cell, the remark was immediately made—"Rowley is paying French for the stalks."

The punishment thus begun, was carried on during the five years of his sentence. He was the common mark for every little stripling, who wished to get into the graces of his superiors, by doing some deed of cruelty; and I presume he was in punishment three years out of the five to which he was sentenced. No allowance was made for his years—his want of sight—or his infirmities; he was in the power of man, an unsocial crabbed old creature it is true, but still a human being, and entitled to the common mercy of a state prison. But the "stalks" were always green on the memory of his keepers, and they could not endure to see him out of the cell. He lived, however, in spite of them, to see the end of his sentence and to return to his family, where he soon after died.

Much as French and others are to be blamed for their conduct towards this man, the burden of condemnation rests on those, who were bound by the oath of their office, to protect the prisoners from "cruelty and inhumanity" in the guard. Ought such personal feelings to be indulged towards a prostrate victim? Can that man be worthy of any office, who can stoop to such criminal meanness? I am told that French has since become a christian, and I sincerely hope he has; for I am well persuaded that it will require many years time, and many a bitter tear, to purify his conscience from the iniquity of the "corn stalks."

COLLIER.

This man entered the prison under the influence of a cold which he had taken in gaol. He was in the bloom of youth, and as bright as young men in general. Not feeling well, he did not always do so much work as was required of him, and consequently soon began to feel that he was in a prison. The iron storm of punishment began to beat upon him, and he was so affected by it, that he lost the use of his limbs in a great measure, of his speech for some time, and finally of his reason. The treatment he received would make the records of the inquisition blush. Starvation, chains, and the cold cell were the only mercies he experienced. At a certain time when he was unable to speak, as he was sitting in the cook-room, the Warden entered, and declared that he would make him speak or kill him. To effect this, he took him by the hair of his head, and dragged him round the room, pulling and jerking him with all his might, and crying all the time, "speak or I'll kill you!"—Reader, have you ever read Howard's Prisons of Europe? It was in Europe that he found so much misery and cruelty; but this is in America. Yet here, see that Warden of a prison, dragging a prisoner by the hair of his head, and declaring his intention to kill him if he did not speak. Inhuman man! where is your heart, if you have any? Will God suffer you to go unpunished for thus trampling on His authority, and abusing your fellow man?

After exhausting all his strength, the Warden gave up, without either making him speak, or killing him. Every prisoner's heart burned within him, when he saw what this poor unfortunate man was suffering, and what might become his own doom. I wonder that every one of them did not spring forward, and rescue the sufferer from the wicked hands of that heartless tyrant. I wonder that the earth which bore up the lion-hearted despot, did not open and destroy him. But this is not the end of Collier's sufferings from the same man.

Reduced by disease, and unable to be in the yard, the doctor ordered him to be put into the hospital, and properly attended to. While he was there, the Warden went up to see him. Unkind visit! for he took with him a horsewhip, and before he left him, he used it with lusty arm about his naked back, until he was quite exhausted, and till demons might have trembled at the superior depravity and heartlessness of man. This visit was repeated once, and perhaps twice, and the same medicine administered.

Such was the conduct of the Warden, of whom the laws of the prison say, that "with the powers entrusted to him it cannot be necessary for him to strike his prisoners; much less can it answer any good purpose for him to give his command in a threatening tone, or accompanied with oaths; but he shall give his commands with kindness and dignity, and enforce them with promptitude and firmness."—"He shall never strike a prisoner except in self-defence, or in defence of those assisting him in the discharge of his duty." With this part of the laws of the prison before us, no comment on the acts of the Warden, in the cases cited above, is necessary.