"PIRATES' PRISON FOR SALE," Toronto Star Weekly. July 17, 1937. Page 26. --- GRIMLY reminiscent of the earlier days of penal administration in Nova Scotia, the old provincial penitentiary, on the shores of the North-West Arm at Halifax, is soon to be offered for sale, with its razing contingent to purchase.
For slightly over a century this old graystone building has frowned upon pleasure-seekers on the Arm. Nearby, two rotting hulks add to the generally desolate appearance of the premises.
This penitentiary was built by the Nova Scotia government about 1830, and was used as a provincial penitentiary until the Dorchester penitentiary was built for the use of the three Maritime provinces.
For some years after that it was vacant, then, when a holocaust swept through the Halifax Poor Asylum, claiming 32 lives, the old penitentiary was pressed into service as a home for a short time. Finally it was used by the People's Light and Heat Com Company, which, under the promotion of Harry Whitney, of Boston, operated a short-lived gas and coke works. After the company ceased operations, the building was abandoned. ☆☆☆
SINCE then, the old place has been brooding under the dust of a century. Many a tale is told of the murderers and pirates who were incarcerated there.
In 1844, the notorious pirates of the Saladin, Jones, Anderson, Hazel- ton and Johnston were kept there, and it was from there that the firing squad from the 52nd regiment took them to the old South Common, near where the Victoria General hospital now stands.
Its gloomy cells and narrow corridors have re-echoed to the tread of the mate of the Zero, a man named Douglas, who served part of a life sentence there as accomplice to the colored sailor who murdered the captain of the Zero off the coast of this province.
A nameless woman lies there, in an unmarked graved whose locality is unknown. Although the grave was kept up for a time, it has now been neglected for many years. The site is not now apparent, nor is even the offence of the woman known.
AN image of the dreaded Devil's Island, is conjured up by the method of escape which was used, and sometimes successfully, by prisoners in the old jail. They swam across the Arm, and made off into the woods on the opposite side.
One man is said to have lived for the whole winter in a cave near William's Lake, a region recently devastated by forest fire. In the secluded cave, whose entrance is concealed by nature, the marks of the fire may still be seen.