Where Sacco, Vanzetti and Malcolm X Stayed in Charlestown

Charlestown State Prison was located on a five-acre lot between Austin and Washington Streets, close to where Bunker Hill Community College is now. Until the Charlestown prison opened in 1805, the fort at Castle Island in South Boston served as the state penitentiary.

Originally holding ninety cells, within its first few years of operation the state prison in Charlestown became notorious for its cruel and abusive conditions. The cells were barely large enough to hold a cot, and there was neither a window nor plumbing. Prisoners received a bucket for waste, which they emptied once each day during their hour of free time. According to the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, Charlestown inmates wore uniforms that were half blue and half red, with painted caps. A yellow stripe was added for repeat offenders, and convicts were tattooed before being released into the community.

There were some reforms in 1829 under the Auburn system, named after a New York prison. In the belief that silence would induce an attitude of penitence, inmates were not allowed to talk to each other. When this system, too, proved too severe—prisoners were also required to march in lockstep formation—Reverend Jared Curtis brought a more humane approach in the early 1830's. A Sabbath school to teach the Bible and basic reading, writing, and arithmetic was quite successful, and prisoners were given separate garden plots to cultivate. Inmates learned stonecutting, and there were shops for cabinetmaking, tin-smithing, and shoemaking.

The prison was expanded three times—a north and south wing were added, and an octagonal granite structure increased prison capacity to 750 prisoners. By 1867, a guardroom had been converted into hundreds of prison cells.

In 1878, the same year a new prison in Concord opened, the Charlestown prison was condemned. Charlestown prisoners were transferred to the new prison, which quickly became overcrowded. Six years later, Governor George Robinson ordered that all prisoners be returned to Charlestown. A west wing was added, and, with it, nearly 60 new cells. By 1903 there were almost 1,000 prisoners at the Charlestown prison. 

In 1876, Jesse Pomeroy (who, at sixteen years old, was the youngest person ever convicted of murder in the first degree in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) began his sentence at Charlestown. Other infamous inmates included Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, inmates in the 1920‘s; Barney Welansky, owner of the Coconut Grove, served three years of a 15-year sentence in the aftermath of the 1942 Coconut Grove fire; and Malcolm X —nee Malcolm Little—was imprisoned at Charlestown from 1946 to 1948.

The last executions in Massachusetts were at Charlestown State Prison. Phillip Bellino and Edward Gertson were electrocuted on May 9, 1947 for the murder of Robert William.

The prison closed in November 1955.

• Where was it? On five acres of land in the Lynde’s Point section of Charlestown, at the junction of Washington and Austin Streets.  Bunker Hill Community College is close to where the prison used to be.

• When was it built? 1803

• Who built it? State of Massachusetts

• What was it built for? As a penitentiary. From the late 1700’s Castle Island was used as the state prison.

• Why was it built? The state of Massachusetts required a secure state prison.

• How was it built? Of granite. Charles Bulfinch served as one of the pricipal architects. The four-story building added in 1826 and designed by architect Gridley J. Fox Bryant was 200 feet long and forty feet wide and held 304 individual cells. Each cell was seven and a half feet long, three and a half feet wide and seven feet high. Each cell door was made of wrought iron with a grating at the upper part to let in some light, so that ‘the convict could read.’

Information for this article was compiled from various sources, including: History from the Inside Out: Prison Life in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts by Larry Goldsmith; Buried from the World: Inside the Massachusetts State Prison -- The Memorandum Books of Rev. Jared Curtis edited by Philip F. Gura; and various web-sites, including: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:State_prison_1840.jpg; http://www.folkartmuseum.org/?p=folk&t=images&id=4137; http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/massachusetts-0;  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn_system.