NY's first state prison was not Auburn, Sing Sing
or Dannemora. but Newgate in Greenwich Village, a late 18th early 19th Century
prison now mostly forgotten. At 2:45 pm Thursday Nov. 16 Ph. D student
Jonathan Nash unveils to "Researching New York 2006" conference participants at
SUNY Albany "Prisoners & Prisoner Experiences in the NYS Prison in NYC,
1797-1810."
Clicking any of the four images under the www.correctionhistory.org home
page headline "Rediscovering NYS' Mostly Forgotten 1st
Penitentiary -- Newgate in NYC" accesses the New York
Correction History Society (NYCHS) website's latest addition -- extended
excerpts from W. David Lewis' classic "From Newgate to Dannemora." This first installment of excepts consists of 8 web
pages spanning the book's first 60 printed pages. The presentation includes more
than 40 images.
The NYCHS home page box promoting the site's
Newgate book excerpts debut and Nash's Newgate paper at the "Researching
New York 2006" conference also calls attention to other talk topics among
the two dozen panel discussions scheduled Nov. 16-17.
These include the NYC Draft Riot during the Civil
War, the Colored Orphanage torched by the rioters, the post-riot organizing of
NYS' first U.S. Colored Troops regiment (trained on Rikers Island), and
Rockefeller Archive Center research on "The Cleverest Woman I Ever
Met."
The promo box of links to NYCHS website
presentations with information relevant to all those above cited topics at
the SUNY Albany conference appears near the top of the home page
at www.correctionhistory.org
I am happy to use this announcement of our
site's "From Newgate to Dannemora" excerpts
presentation as an occasion also to promote the "Researching NY 2006"
conference sponsored by the State University at Albany History Dept., the
History Graduate Student Organization and the NYS Archives Partnership Trust.
The Nov. 16-17 event is the 8th annual.
Congratulations and best wishes.
Thomas McCarthy
New York Correction History Society
general secretary/webmaster