Katharine Driver

Dating back to 1822 when construction was in place, it was the Quakers who initiated the concept of reformation by solitary confinement in the hope that those who broke the law would become penitent and mend their wicked ways.

Over 300 prisons worldwide based their constructional designs to imitate the Eastern State facility.

Today the place is in ruins and fosters the feeling of gloom and doom. The walls are pealing, the concrete is cracked, the metal frames of the beds are rusted and water drips from the walls.

While lauded as a hallmark of ingenuity, all too soon it was discovered that solitary confinement led to madness.

With a central circular area, the cell blocs were spokes extended from the main area. As the population grew, portions of what began as one story structure remained, while additional cell blocks were constructed in a two-story system.

When Charles Dickens visited America and toured the penitentiary in 1842, his sharp words foretold the terror that would reside in the walls, even to this day.

."I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body; and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye,... and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear; therefore I the more denounce it, as a secret punishment in which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay.

While I was distracted by the poorly written text, I did find this book interesting. A number of credible ghost hunting/paranormal investigations all conclude beyond a shadow of a doubt that the penitentiary is indeed haunted.

When the author and her team spent six hours of intense study of the edifice, they found ghostly voices, a sense of fear and a few of the team members were physically harmed while in the penitentiary.

Cell blocs four and twelve in particular generated a lot of activity.

When the doors were officially closed in 1971, only the spirits remained. A popular tourist attraction today, it is worth the visit.… (más)