The Carceral Connecticut Project

Located in East Granbury, Connecticut, New Gate Prison was established in 1707 as a copper mine and in 1773 as the first state prison.  A number of the confined included Tory loyalists who demonstrated sympathies for the Crown during the 1776 rebellion against the British parliamentary monarchy. Enslaved Black and Indigenous persons were also among those in New Gate Prison. Not unlike contemporary spaces of incarceration, those confined were compelled to undertake industrial labor. In 1827, the prison closed and its inhabitants were moved. Three years later, the prison was bought by businessmen who formed the Phoenix Mining Company, attempting to reactivate the original purpose of mining. Yet, this venture did not have much success. More successful, the owners also provided guided tours in the mines (with candles), which rendered it a tourist attraction and demonstrated how far back the non-incarcerated fascination with the phenomenon of imprisonment extends. In the 1970s, Old New Gate Prison, as it came to be known in the late nineteenth century, was transformed into a museum and eventually listed on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized as a National Historic Landmark.