Construction History Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia Pennsylvania
On 20 March 1821, the state legislature passed an
act stipulating arrangements for the erection of "A state penitentiary, capable of holding two
hundred and fifty prisoners, on the principal of solitary confinement of the convicts … at
such place within the limits of the City or County of Philadelphia, as the Commissioners
hereafter mentioned shall fix and appoint." The twelve-man "Board of Commissioners for the
erection of a state penitentiary" was approved, and provided with $100,000 for the purchase
of a site and the arrangement of construction contracts. The act stipulated the plan of the
building:
This arrangement made clear that William Strickland's octagonal plan for the Western State Penitentiary (constructed in Pittsburgh 1818-26) would at least provide a starting point for the design of Eastern State Penitentiary. The act did, however, allow for the possibility that a new architectural arrangement could spawn from a critical rethinking of the solitary confinement program.
On 6 April 1821, the Board convened for their first meeting; by September a six-man
Building Committee assumed responsibility for matters pertaining to the construction of the
new prison. The choice of a site was one of the first assignments. The legislation stipulated
the size (8-12 acres) and general location (no further than 2.5 miles from the state house) of
the desired property. By advertising in the local newspapers, the Commission compiled a list
of twenty-two possible sites ranging in cost from $5400 to $47,500. They settled on a plot
owned by brothers Joseph and Benjamin Warner in the Spring Garden District, near the
village of Francisville:
As recorded in two deeds dated 24 November 1821, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania paid a total of $11,500 to Joseph Warner and the executors of Benjamin Warner for a "Brick Messuage, and … one lot … containing ten acres three rods and thirty four perches." Its cherry orchard and elevated position had earned the site the name of "Cherry Hill"; the new prison would also come to be known by this epithet.
In May 1821, the commissioners announced the design competition for Eastern State Penitentiary. They received entries from four architects: New Yorker Charles Loos, Jr. and Philadelphians William Strickland, John Haviland, and Samuel Webb. The commissioners quickly narrowed the field to Haviland and Strickland. The only known details of Strickland's design for Eastern State Penitentiary were its octagonal plan and its 100' long keeper's house incorporated in the octagonal perimeter wall. The internal configuration may have echoed Strickland's Pittsburgh prison with a concentric arrangement of cells.
John Haviland drafted an explanation of his design in one of his daybooks on 2 July 1821. The prison had a rectangular perimeter wall with the 200' keeper's house (later known as the Administration Building) serving as the formal front of the institution. This building featured a cupola and frontal pediment with "PENITENTIARY" inscribed on the tympanum. It provided accommodations for the various prison officers as well as housing a stable and a cart room. Within the perimeter walls were the cells arranged in a radial plan. From the circular outline of the central hub building (Observatory) radiated seven wings with double-loaded corridors flanked by a total of thirty-two cells and four rooms. Each cell was fitted with a ventilator, skylight, and toilet and had an adjacent individual exercise yard. Inaccessible from the corridors, cells had one doorway to the adjacent walled exercise yard, which contained an exterior doorway. Guards stationed at the Observatory could watch the cellblock corridors from the first floor room (rotunda) and supervise the exercise yards from an outdoor walkway circumscribing the second floor. Haviland believed that the twenty-six cells in the Observatory, "under the same roof as the wash-house and laundry, would be a very appropriate situation for the confinement of the female prisoners." The ambitious plan for this building also accommodated storage cellars and eight dungeon cells in the basement and allowed for the installation of a chapel or a cistern on the second floor.
By 3 July 1821, the Commissioners split into factions supporting Haviland or Strickland. Strickland's champions felt that his plans more closely followed the act's stipulation of an octagonal plan, that his modest keeper's house better conveyed the nature of the institution, and that his compact plan offered a more economical project. On the other hand, Haviland's supporters seem to have preferred the radial plan and felt that his exercise yards and large perimeter wall made for a more secure and better ventilated prison. The debate was significant enough to delay and to confuse the selection. In August, the Commission solicited new designs for the keeper's house from both men, and even considered the juxtaposition of Haviland's front building and perimeter wall with Strickland's cell building. Both architects were evidently anxious to please; one secondary account of the meetings counted at least five different designs submitted by Strickland and at least four by Haviland. Haviland's design alterations included increasing the thickness of the walls, and covering each story with groined arches. With its improved structure and added tower, the building would cost $3000 more than originally proposed. Haviland also reconsidered the design of the Observatory and reassigned some of its many functions to the keeper's house and cellblocks.
The Building Commissioners came to a characteristically ambiguous decision in December 1821, when they passed a resolution which appointed Strickland to supervise construction but rejected his current design. With the building season soon approaching, the Commissioners voted on 12 February 1822 to offer Strickland a yearly salary of $2000 and to commence excavations and construction of a front facade 650 feet in length. This long dimension signals that the commission had at least adopted Haviland's plan for a rectangular perimeter wall; however, the cell plan and the design for the keeper's house were still under debate. Perhaps a composite of the two plans was being considered.
By late March, Strickland's supporters hoped to ensure the victory of his design by attempting to pass a resolution limiting the length of the keeper's house to 100 feet. The Haviland faction attempted to install their architect by lobbying for a resolution that the prison plan follow a radial rather than octagonal plan. Both architects submitted new designs for the front building. Estimated at $28,430, Haviland's 200 foot keeper's house was thought to be "unnecessarily large and will incur an extravagant and useless expenditure of the public money." The Commission decided upon Strickland's less expensive ($8000) design, whose plain exterior was promoted for its severity and solemnity.
By the meeting of 14 May, however, the majority of the Building Commissioners came to favor Haviland's designs. They reversed their decision to use Strickland's front building and voted to use Haviland's instead. The embattled Strickland contingent deprecated the rival building as "more fitted in its external shew and internal convenience for the dwelling of a nabob than the keeper of a prison." Nonetheless, the majority of the Commission committed themselves to Haviland's plan for the cellblocks as well. Within four months, Governor Joseph Hiester sent the Commission a letter endorsing Haviland's plan. Soon afterwards, the 1818 act was amended such that the plan of the Eastern Penitentiary would be altered to Haviland's "arrangement of the cells upon radiating lines instead of arranging them on the periphery of a circle." At last the matter was settled and Haviland could claim the $100 award for his design of the Eastern State Penitentiary.
Excavation and construction of the perimeter proceeded that spring. When Strickland learned that he had lost the design competition, he agreed to continue to supervise the construction but refused to take responsibility for the work executed. On 12 June, the Commission informed Strickland that he would be dismissed in September, at which time Haviland would commence work as supervisor on a monthly basis. By the end of the year's building season (December 1822), the workers had excavated 26,000 cubic yards of earth for grading and foundations, dug seven wells with walls and pumps, and laid 17,000 perches of masonry. True to the points of the compass, the four walls had risen up to the belting course, except for 50' of the west wall and 75' of the east wall which were 4' below this point. The southeast and southwest towers stood at 25' and 13' feet high respectively. Already $64,920 had been spent.
Secure in his position as prison architect and supervisor, Haviland continued to refine his design. In a letter to the Commissioners drafted in a letter book, the architect proposed a number of alterations to the front building "to effect the desired convenience, strength, economy, plus beauty of the design to its full intent and meaning." These changes would include siting the infirmary in the east wing, "rough casting" the south facade and coloring it to resemble marble, and finishing many of the [details] in cast iron or stone. By January 1823, the Greek temple inscribed with "PENITENTIARY" originally planned had evolved into a Gothic castle that itself embodied notions of incarceration and protection. Baigell suggests that issues of connotative meaning, economy, and archaeological accuracy all may have figured in Haviland's allusion to medieval English castles. The architect identified the primary facade--with its portcullis, castellated towers, and gabled buttresses--to be of the "Anglo-Norman style of Gothic Architecture … by which is meant that style which prevailed from 1066 to 1189 including the reigns of William I, Henry I, Henry II, and Stephen II."
On May 22nd, 1823 the ceremony commemorating the laying of the cornerstone of the front building took place. Commissioner Roberts Vaux presided over the gathering of workers, architect, superintendent, and fellow Commissioners. Deposited in the corner stone was a box containing a plan and elevation of the prison, as well as an inscribed metal plate.
By the end of 1823, the Building Commissioners reported the progress made. The front building, walls, and towers had been faced with cut stone to the belting course, the basement of the front building completed with fireproof brick ceilings, the second floor offices raised 4', and "iron securities" inserted in the walls. Work had begun on three of the cellblocks as well as foundations dug, exercise yards erected, and structure readied to receive floor paving, privy pipes, and door sills. These efforts and further grading work had cost the state $98,000.
The 1824 building season witnessed the completion of the north, east, and west walls as well as the near completion of the two north bastions and two south towers. Work on the front building progressed with iron gratings fixed on the eastern half. With that season costing $62,000, the Building Commission believed it would take another $186,720 to complete the project. By the end of the 1825 season, they could report on the near-completion of the first cellblock. As Haviland prepared several new estimates, the Commissioners debated whether to finish construction of just the first three cellblocks or to erect all seven in a single campaign.
The stone masons were particularly busy in 1826, erecting walls of the cells, yards, corridors, Observatory, and courtyards (for the front building). They also completed much of the stonework details (such as jambs, lintels, thresholds, sills, coping, brackets, cornices, and battlements), and a special marble mason had carved blue marble for additional features (sills, stairs, platforms, chimney copings, and sinks). Brick layers worked on culverts, walls, privy linings, vaults and ceilings, chimneys, and arches. Carpenters roofed two cellblocks, the three radiating corridors, the Observatory, and the Administration Building. Many copper, cast iron, and wrought iron elements had arrived on site to be installed the next season, at which time much of the plastering would be completed.
While construction was largely completed during the 1827 and 1828 seasons, the $5000 appropriated over those two years was insufficient to finish and furnish the buildings. On 16 February 1829, the Building Commission reported to the state senate that they lacked the resources to level and finish the surrounding streets, to lay pipes to the Fairmount reservoir, to build the covered passage from the front building to the Observatory (never carried out), to build boilers for washing and cooking, and to purchase furnaces, locks, bedsteads, doors, bells, and clock. A $5000 award funded the piping to Fairmount and some of the needed furniture and fixtures. Signaling the imminent completion of the first phase of construction, the Board of Commissioners transferred the prison to the Board of Inspectors on 1 July 1829.
Eastern State Penitentiary received its first prisoner on 22 October 1829. With the heating system yet to be installed, Warden Samuel Wood purchased six small coal stoves to warm the cells. In his December report, Wood expressed his hope to have "an air heater or furnace … sufficient to warm twenty cells … in operation in 10 days or two weeks." When the Board of Inspectors met for their second annual meeting in 1831, the warden reported that Eastern State Penitentiary was still relying on coal stoves. Nonetheless, the Inspectors were generally pleased with the completed structure and the institutional operations, and they proposed embarking on a second phase of construction.
A state act of 28 March 1831 authorized the Inspectors "to construct and erect buildings which shall contain at least 400 cells, suitable for the confinement of convicted criminals, in solitary confinement at labor." The act also stated that the County of Philadelphia would make a $120,000 loan backed by state stock. In a strange move, the Board of Inspectors reopened the architectural competition for a design for the new cell blocks, and promised another $100 reward. As expected, weeks later, the Board "Resolved that the added cells required by law to be erected within the outer walls of the Penitentiary be constructed on the plan now submitted by John Haviland on the radial system."
Work began in earnest in June, as the ground was levelled, lines staked out, and foundations dug for the new cellblocks. Haviland's proposed new cell model, with improved ventilation, met with the Board's approval by the end of the month. The new cells would feature floor ventilators with a double-cone shape, circular wall openings, larger parallelogram-shaped skylights, and access to the cellblock corridor via a pair of iron and wood doors. It should be noted that the early cells lacked doorways into the corridors: instead, the corridor walls were punctuated by peepholes for observation and metal drawers for the delivery of food to the cells.
Not approved until August, Haviland's plan for the new two-story cellblock buildings demonstrated several other marked improvements over Cellblocks 1-3. In the new cellblocks, the lower range of cells projected 3' beyond the upper level, thus providing additional room for manufacturing activity; the lower cells also had exercise yards. On the upper story, each inmate had access to two cells (paired with communicating doors): one cell as a living space and the other as a work or exercise space. All cells featured skylights installed at a 45 degree angle to prohibit views of anything but sky. By the end of the season, the 100 cells of Cellblock 4 were largely completed, and the walls of Cellblocks 5 and 6 had begun to rise.
Given the growing convict population, the Inspectors also concerned themselves with issues pertaining to the existing structure. Soon Cellblock 3 would be needed, and it still lacked locks on its cell doors. Two prisoners were assigned to manufacture locks for these cells. As workers began laying iron pipe from the nearby Fairmount Waterworks, it was realized that the low water level would not consistently reach the elevated reservoir and cell plumbing at Eastern State. On-site horse power would be required to draw water from wells to supplement the Waterworks supply.
Records of the following season's (1832) work reveal distress over the city's decision to locate a Poudrette lot (for the deposit of human waste) within 30' of the penitentiary. Also of concern was the Waterworks' announcement that the construction of a new railroad line would interrupt the water supply for two months. To ward off disease, prison officials treated the central reservoir with lime chloride and encouraged the prisoners to treat their own privies with lime chloride and "weak sulphuric acid." During this interval, the penitentiary depended entirely on water supplied by on-site wells. Despite these unfortunate conditions and the difficulties in acquiring iron castings and stone, work did proceed on the new cellblocks. Roofed, plastered, and its yard walls raised, Cellblock 4 would be ready for occupancy once it was dry and its ironwork received and installed. The walls of Cellblocks 5 and 6 had reached the second story and were roofed over in time for the winter. In response to concerns raised by the prison doctor, Haviland improved the ventilation in Cellblocks 1-3 by installing new skylights.
An act of 27 February 1833 appropriated another $130,000 for the completion of the prison. Haviland's model for the Cellblock 7 cells was adopted in May. By the end of the 1833 season, Cellblock 4 was ready for inmates, and Cellblocks 5 and 6 were completed but for some of the yard walls and some plastering work in the cells. About one sixth of Cellblock 7's masonry was in place, and the workers had almost finished laying a culvert around the cells.
By the end of 1834, Eastern State Penitentiary featured 311 completed cells. With Cellblocks 5 and 6 nearly completed and Cellblock 7 walled and roofed, Haviland cordially resigned his post. Workers had dug, walled, and arched over a new cistern 30' in diameter and 25' in depth. This structure adjoined a new 40' x 34' boiler and furnace building on the plot between Cellblocks 4 and 5. A six-horsepower steam engine could draw water from the well and expel it into a masonry reservoir (40' in diameter, 10' high). The 76,000 gallon reservoir provided water for the lower cells and privy plumbing. Filled with water by the steam engine, nine cedar tanks stationed over the reservoir served the second-story cells and privy plumbing.
In 1835, Cellblocks 5 and 6 received their first prisoners, and Cellblock 7 was plastered and its yard walls erected. The construction of the original seven cellblocks, Observatory, cistern and engine house, Administration Building, walls and corner towers was complete in 1836 at a price of $772,600.69.
Although Haviland prepared an aerial perspective drawing of Eastern State Penitentiary soon after construction was complete, it provides an idealized image perhaps revealing how the architect had, in hindsight, wished the prison had been built. Haviland historian Matthew Baigell has dated this view, which is held by the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, to ca. 1838-1846. It portrays seven two-story cellblocks arranged symmetrically around the rotunda and the only outbuilding on the lot a small stable addition to the easternmost courtyard wall. Entitled "Pennsylvania State Penitentiary Philadelphia: The First Prison erected on the 'Haviland Plan' of construction" (emphasis original), the drawing was clearly intended as an advertisement of Haviland's architectural program.
Fortunately, the text and drawings prepared by Frenchmen Frederic-Auguste Demetz and Guillaume-Abel Blouet provide a detailed document of the penitentiary upon its completion in 1836. Published in their 1837 Rappons sur les Penitenciers des Etats Unis, their meticulous plan portrays the less-than-regular distribution of the 582 cells and the various support areas near the shoulders of the newer blocks: storerooms in Cellblocks 4-7 and kitchens in Cellblock 7. Demetz and Blouet also reveal the presence of the various outbuildings and additions. Appended to the extremity of each cellblock was at least one structure for the housing of a heating apparatus. The frame laundry and drying rooms were located directly to the north of Cellblock 4. There was a cistern as well as a building housing the reservoir, fulling-mill, and steam engine room between Cellblocks 4 and 5, a frame forge between Cellblocks 5 and 6, and a frame carpentry shop between Cellblocks 6 and 7. By the Administration Building, there was a dye-house appended to the warden's east courtyard wall, a structure for the reception of prisoners inside the northeast corner of the other courtyard, and a stable/coachhouse appended to that courtyard's west wall. Demetz and Blouet also indicated the necessaries: sewage lines for the cellblocks located between Cellblocks 1-2, 2-3, 4, 4-5, and 5-6 and privies in both Administration Building courtyards.
