crime: May 2009 Archives

In the latter part of the 19th century the country heard of the violent feuds of the Hatfield and McCoy clans on the West Virginia border. Though their story might be mostly forgotten, we still refer to feuding families or neighbors as getting along like the Hatfields and McCoys.

Not too much later then the heyday of the Hatfield-McCoy quarrel, about thirty years, some York County people made the papers with their own feuding. The February 12, 1908 York Gazette reports:

One of the most awesome, and chilling, buildings I have ever visited is the former Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. It was opened in 1829 and closed in 1971.
After over 20 years in limbo it opened as a museum with guided tours in the mid-1990s. As funds are available, more and more of its vast expanse is being maintained and restored.

Click here for Eastern State Penitentiary web site with extensive history and tour information.

During much of the prison's history, each inmate was kept in solitary confinement, not as an extraordinary punishment, but with the idea that the time alone would give the prisoner time to reflect on their crime and become pentitent.

Being in the eastern part of Pennsylvania, York County criminals who were convicted of any major crimes were sent to Eastern. The records of the Penitentiary are part of the collection of the Pennsylvania State Archives. A friend shared some information from those records, which led to my York Sunday News column, repeated below, on the tragedy of a young York County woman led astray.