Litho. of prison yard and outline plan of ground, Pendleton's lithography, Boston

Litho. of prison yard and outline plan of ground. The first State prison buildings were completed in 1805 and occupied in December of that year when 32 convicts were received from Fort Independence on Castle Island where the prisoners of the state had been confined after 1775. Additions to the buildings were made from time to time as needed until 1850 when an octagonal central structure and a new wing, all of granite, were added. When Concord Reformatory was built in 1874 when the old prison was closed for a few years but reopened after the experiment proved too costly. "Said to have been the sixth state prison built in the United States."
Courtesy of Boston Public Library