Rutland Prison Farm

Getting arrested for petty crime in the early 1900's didn't always mean you'd end up sitting in a jail cell. If you were of the non-violent type or otherwise a low risk criminal - perhaps one of the local drunks or vagabonds - you just might find yourself tending animals and working the fields at the Rutland Prison Farm in central Massachusetts.

Not unlike the highway chain gangs I got used to seeing during family vacations in North Carolina, this farm was a way for prisoners to occupy themselves and at the same time give back to the community they'd wronged. Potatoes were grown and shipped to the Massachusetts state prison, and enough milk was being produced to sell to the nearby city of Worcester.

* Photo courtesy: Town of Rutland 

Built in 1903 on a 900+ acre plot of land, the farm operated until the 1930's when it was closed and abandoned due to being located on the drainage area of the local water supply. Today, the land remains open for public visitation and walking trails are throughout the complex. The entrance itself - a gated dirt road with parking for a handful of vehicles - was easy enough to find, and from there we began our trek down a dirt road and soon began finding remains of demolished buildings.

A map we had to go by was an old hand-drawn one, and using these foundations as landmarks we soon found the first of several structures.

From there we started coming to the good stuff. This colorful place was listed on our map as the "Old New Boston Schoolhouse" and described as a pre-existing building taken over and used by the prison. That didn't sound exciting enough for us, so we instead dubbed it "solitary confinement" due to its several small rooms.

Another location that needed some embellishment was the root cellar, which we instead designated the prison gallows. We told each other tales of many doomed criminals who met their fate in this dark and foreboding cave. Here is an original picture from 1934.

* Photo courtesy: Town of Rutland

And here it is in 2016 after a paint job by some local artists.

Embellishment wasn't needed inside this cellar, however. It was plenty creepy as is.

Additionally we found remains of the pump house, silos, hen houses (aka torture chambers), and a hospital that was added in 1907. Not much remained of the hospital other than the lower frame and these support posts we raced each other to climb.

Although a successful adventure, there were at least two places we somehow missed during our exploration. Apparently I didn't do my homework well enough. One is the graveyard which holds the remains of 59 prisoners, and the other is a long drainage tunnel that I've seen pictures online of people walking through. It was both bad and good news that we didn't find either of these spots. Bad news of course because we didn't get to see them on this particular day.

And good news because we now have an excuse to go back and explore the Rutland Prison Farm all over again.

Links:
Photo Album
Town of Rutland