Читать книгу The New York Tombs Inside and Out!. Scenes and Reminiscences Coming Down to the Present. A Story Stranger Than Fiction, with an Historic Account of America's Most Famous Prison онлайн

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At one time Hart’s Island had something like sixty extra men who were classed as stablemen and orderlies. They had absolutely nothing to do except to draw their pay and help the district leaders. Bitter complaints were made from time to time against a brother of the deputy who ran things with a high hand. If anybody complained against these scandalous conditions he would soon be “fired.” Tammany has no use for reformers. I do not think it possible to paint the New York prisons as black as they have been until recently. If a day of judgment ever comes when all the scandalous conditions shall be exposed to public view the people will be astonished.

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For more than two centuries after the arrival of the early Dutch settlers on Manhattan Island the land for a considerable distance on all sides of the present Tombs prison was a fresh water lake known to the people of that day as the “Kalchhook” or Collect Pond.

It seems almost incredible that less than a century ago the visitor to Manhattan Island could have stood at the juncture of Park Row and Centre Street, and looking north might behold a beautiful fresh water pond hidden between the hills. This lake had been a favorite resort of the Indians for hundreds of years prior to the arrival of Henry Hudson and the Half Moon in September, 1609, or even before the discovery of America. On the Broadway side was an Indian settlement where the red man pitched his wigwam and when not hunting or fishing smoked his pipe of peace.