Research

Scope and Content Note

Three volumes contain daily entries concerning prison events.

Entries provide the following information: name of warden (sometimes principal keeper) in charge; total number of inmates confined; names and numbers of prisoners admitted, discharged, or punished; and a note of events at the prison. The narrative of daily events in the first two volumes (1904-1909) is usually very brief or lacking; it becomes much more detailed in the third volume, apparently because a new warden came into office. A "daily journal of the proceedings of the prison" was required by Revised Statutes of 1829 and by the new Prison Law of 1909. The form of the journal was not specified, but it was to include a record of infractions of rules, punishments, and "well-founded complaints."