1850s York County Prison
Here we were with a nice new jail that resembled a castle and someone had the nerve to deface the tablet over the entrance. When you look at the photo above you wonder how in the world anyone could get to it unnoticed. The arched entrance is quite high and very visible from the street and from the railroad track. The tablet must be the light colored rectangle above the arch.
The commissioners certainly took offense, offering a substantial reward and threatening to throw the book at the perpetrators, as reported in the Democratic Press of September 5, 1854.
For sake of comparison: Barnum's Museum and Menagerie, the premier circus of the day, was appearing in York. Admission was 25 cents, so if you turned in the vandals, you would have enough cash to treat 200 of your dearest friends to "the largest Traveling Exhibition in the world."
Click the links below for more on York County prisons.
Despite the vandalism back in 1854, the marble tablet over the door survived, and when the old castle facade was torn down in 1906 and replaced with the newer portion of the prison, the tablet was moved inside, between the newer front section and the original older cell block. Unfortunately, there is no clever inscription like "enter to reform, leave to serve". The inscription simply says:
York County Prison
Erected 1853-54
Edward Havilland
Architect
Jacob Gottwalt
Builder
David Leber
Philip Sheffer
George Dick
F.C. Herbert
County Commissioners
John W. Hetrick
Clerk of Courts
Interestingly, the architect's father, John Haviland, designed the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, and Edward designed very similar prisons in several other Pennsylvania counties. He left a very detailed description of the inside design of the prison in his writings.
The marble tablet from the 1853 prison is now mounted in the lobby of the administrative building of the new York County Prison on Concord Rd in East York.
Thanks Mike. I didn't realize that the tablet is in the present prison. I'll have to include that info in a future post. The Havilands certainly seemed to have the prison design trade tied up.