|
The original legislation enacted by the Pennsylvania Legislature incorporating Bellefonte specified that all public buildings be built in the town's public square. The town fathers decided that it would be detrimental to the interest of the town and it's citizens to build the prison in the public square. They therefore applied to Legislature to allow the jail to be built at another location and the Legislature granted their request. In 1800, they hired Hudson Williams to build the prison at a cost of $1,162. It was to be bulit just off the public square on E. High Street. The structure was 30 by 25 feet and was required to have a cellar for a dungeon measuring 12 by 9 feet, covered above with hewed logs laid close together under the plank floor. The dungeon was accessed by a trap door.
Grand jury foreman John M. Beuck recommended repairs to the jail in August 1811, because "prisoners were escaping with alarming regularity." May 28, 1814, the county commissioners advertised for someone to build a new jail. After 45 years, in 1859, prisoners were again escaping from this jail with regularity by taking picks and shovels to walls which were described as "ready to tumble of their own weight."
During the 1800's and the early 1900's, the County Jail was the site were the county exacted the ultimate punishment of the judicial system, execution by hanging.
In May of 1867 Charles McCafferty & Company was constructing a new jail for the County. The jail was constructed with stone walls, cornered by turreted guard towers. After almost 92 years of use, this facility was destroyed by fire in January 1959 and was replaced with the current building.
|
|
