Burlington County Prison

The story

For more than 150 years, the stone jail on High Street in Mount Holly, New Jersey, held Burlington County's debtors and criminals, including its most violent. When the last inmates left on November 23, 1965, it was described as the oldest jail in continuous use in the country. It is now a museum and a National Historic Landmark.

The county Freeholders decided to build in 1806. On May 13, 1807, two commissioners were named to buy a lot next to the Mount Holly courthouse, with $2,000 set aside for the purchase. A program put before the Freeholders in February 1809 called for a stone building 80 feet across with two wings: a partly sunken lower story with a kitchen, a washing room, a "felons eating room" and ten workshops; a main floor for the keeper's quarters, a common hall for debtors and eight cells; and an upper floor with debtors' rooms, more cells and a dungeon. Every room was to be vaulted, and the doors were to be oak planks sheathed in sheet iron.

In March 1809 the county put the work in the hands of three supervising commissioners: Caleb Newbold, George Hancock and John Bispham. The National Register file says building began in 1809; the museum and Wikipedia say 1810. In February 1811 the committee reported the jail complete, pending only the drying of its walls, at a cost so far of $21,679.72; the final account, delivered in 1813, came to $24,201.13. Prisoners arrived in early 1811, in a building meant for about 40 inmates.

The designer was Robert Mills, a protégé of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (the 1986 nomination lists Latrobe in its architect field, while crediting Mills with the drawings; Latrobe's father-in-law had a summer estate at Mount Holly). Mills brought the ideas of the prison reform movement, inspired by the English reformer John Howard: individual cells, ventilation, useful labor, and the separation of prisoners by the gravity of their offenses. The heavy stone walls were an early attempt at fireproofing. Above the door, a motto Mills chose speaks of justice that, while it punishes, would try "to reform the offender."

Inside, rows of four cells shared a passage, so prisoners could move between cells but not into the corridor. Debtors, not seen as dangerous, lived in larger common rooms; New Jersey jailed people for debts of under five dollars until its debtor law was struck down in 1844. The most dangerous inmates were held in the wings and upper floors, and the very worst in the "dungeon," a top-floor maximum-security cell whose iron fixtures for ankle chains survive. The lower levels held a wash house for cleaning and fumigating prisoners, workshops for trades such as carpentry, basketry and harness making, a kitchen and bake room. Outside were the exercise yard, an inmate-tended vegetable garden and the gallows. Burlington County carried out 45 legal executions from 1718 to 1922; the yard was the scene of seven of those hangings.

The Historic American Buildings Survey recorded the prison in 1937. After closing, with more than 100 inmates transferred out, it opened as a museum in 1966. It closed for repairs in 1993 and reopened, its renovation complete by 2001, with the county's Parks Department in charge. It was listed on the National Register and designated a National Historic Landmark on June 24, 1986, and is a contributing building in the Mount Holly Historic District.

The legend

The prison's best-known ghost is Joel Clough, executed in 1833. According to the museum, he was buried on the prison grounds, and reports of his spirit began after his death. He is tied above all to the dungeon. There is a wrinkle: the museum's paranormal page does not say where he was executed, and its page on executions places the first two hangings after 1811 in a meadow in Hainesport, with only the later seven in the yard, so where Clough died is not settled.

The museum also says guards and prisoners heard moaning and rattling chains as far back as the nineteenth century, though it cites no document from that time. Reports describe the smell of cigarette smoke drifting from the dungeon and the women's wing. Wikipedia mentions a tall man in uniform seen in the basement and says the third floor has "a flurry of paranormal activity." Visiting groups report voices on recorders, orbs in photographs and spikes on EMF meters.

The modern reputation took shape during the 1990s renovation. Workers reported odd sounds and apparitions, and said tools vanished only to turn up inside locked cells. Afterward the county Freeholders invited a paranormal team in. The museum says groups from as far away as Ohio and Long Island have investigated and all found evidence, a claim from an interested party.

The best-documented investigation came from Ghost Hunters (TAPS) in season 4, episode 2, "Two to Tango," aired in 2008 (March 12 according to the episode list; Wikipedia's prison article says April 12). The team explained some of the claims: acoustic quirks, and flashing lights traced to car headlights reflecting off a museum sign. Others they could not account for, including the cigarette smell, the dizziness some members felt on the third floor and a figure on video that gave off no heat. They called the building "residually haunted."

What remains today

The 1986 nomination says the building "has changed little since it was built in 1810-1811." The jail is a three-story, U-shaped block of plain ashlar stone under a hipped roof, the street-facing center flanked by two wings that reach back around an enclosed yard. Original details include a heavy board-and-batten front door with a peephole and box lock, iron-barred interior doors on strap hinges, recessed windows under blind arches, brick-paved passages and cells floored in oak or heart pine. The dungeon keeps its oak-plank lining and iron restraints. A label over the entrance reads "prison," with the state and county seals on either side; a modern portico shelters the door. Mills's presentation drawings and his brief on what a county jail should be are held at the Mount Holly Library.

Visiting

The museum is run by Burlington County through its Parks Department, together with the Prison Museum Association; check its official website, prisonmuseum.net, for opening days and tickets. The county also rents the building for private paranormal investigations, booked through the Parks Department. In October the museum hosts "A Haunting on High Street," a staged haunted attraction on weekend evenings, which is entertainment rather than a paranormal claim. The building stands north of downtown Mount Holly, inside the town's historic district.

Sources

1. National Register nomination #86003558 (texte intégral) — U.S. National Park Service · Public record
2. National Register of Historic Places file (NRHP #86003558) — U.S. National Park Service · Public domain (U.S. government)
3. Wikimedia Commons category : Burlington County Prison — Wikimedia Commons
4. USGS 1:250000-scale Quadrangle for Wilmington, DE 1959 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1959 · Public domain (USGS)
5. USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for Mount Holly, NJ 1888 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1888 · Public domain (USGS)
6. "Episode Recap: Two to Tango" — Syfy — Syfy
7. "History" — Burlington County Prison Museum (official) — Burlington County Prison Museum (official
8. "List of Ghost Hunters episodes" — Wikipedia — Wikipedia
9. Official website
10. "Paranormal" — Burlington County Prison Museum (official) — Burlington County Prison Museum (official
11. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.