Old New-Gate Prison and Copper Mine

This was a copper mine first and a prison afterwards, and the prison used the mine as its cells.

Copper was found on the west side of Talcott Mountain, then part of Simsbury, in 1705, and mining began in 1707. It was worked the hard way: a vertical shaft sunk from the surface, horizontal tunnels driven off it, and further vertical shafts dug for ventilation. In 1709 three clergymen, John Woodbridge, Timothy Woodbridge Jr and Dudley Woodbridge, formed a company to extract the ore, refine it and cast it into bars, and invited the people of Simsbury to take part. Sixty four residents became shareholders in exchange for money or labour, which makes it an unusually communal piece of colonial industry.

The mining never really paid. What the site became instead was Connecticut's first official prison, and between 1776 and 1782 it held prisoners of war from the American Revolution, underground, in the old workings. Being sent down New-Gate was not a figure of speech.

The site is now run by the state as the Old New-Gate Prison and Copper Mine Archaeological Preserve. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1972, closed for restoration in 2009, and reopened on 14 July 2018.

What you see is both halves: the ruined masonry of the prison above ground, and the colonial mine below it, which is explored on a guided tour. The underground is cold, wet and low in places, and it is the part that stays with people, because you are standing in a working from 1707 that somebody was later locked inside.