Prison Life 1880

A person charged with a crime and sentenced to prison in Lawrence County in the 1880’s was sent to the State penitentiary in Chester Illinois. You might have wondered what that prison was like a century and a half ago.  A prisoner wrote a letter on May 7, 1880, published in the Weekly Western Sun, a Vincennes newspaper, describing his life in the prison.  He stated that he had lived in Vincennes but then apparently got in trouble in Illinois and was “sent up”.

“The convicts rise at 5:30, go down and get their breakfast; march back to the cells and eat it, then out to work at 6:45; into dinner at 11:45; out to work at 12:45; into supper at 5:45. Each man’s share is portioned out to him in tin cups and pans, which he picks up as he marches in.  The meals consist of the following: Breakfast, one half pint of coffee without cream or sugar, and all the bread they want.  Dinner, meat of some kind with either potatoes or hominy, and bread and water. Supper is the same as for breakfast.  After supper they are locked in cells, two occupying each cell. 

“They work at different kinds of work; sone quarrying, brick making, blacksmithing, carpentering, and numerous other occupations. They wear suits striped black and white, and caps of the same material, and straw hats in summertime, one side of which is painted red.  Each gang of men has its keeper, who wears a uniform.  None of the convicts are allowed to talk, and a strict watch is kept over them; if they do not behave, they are sent to the solitary (a close dark cell apart from the rest) and tied up by the hands, where they are compelled to stand; they get about a pint of water and six ounces of bread each day, so you see it does not take long to bring them into subjection.”