Last month, Kate Masur recounted in the New York Times Opinionator Senator Henry Wilson's December 1861 crusade against the "sordid conditions" in the Washington city jail faced by African-Americans. In Washington, African Americans were regularly detained by the city's constables as suspected fugitives and held without charges in the city jail through 1862. Not entirely surprisingly, this practice also occurred south of the Potomac in Union occupied Alexandria. 150 years ago this month, Senator Wilson, a Massachusetts Republican, rose on the Senate floor to read into the record a scathing critique of the situation in Alexandria's jail.
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| Alexandria's city jail was located at the northeast corner of Princess and St. Asaph Streets. Built in 1827, it was designed by Charles Bullfinch. The facility was used by the City of Alexandria into the late 1980s when it was sold to developers. Although most of the building was demolished to make way for townhouses, one of the prison yard walls was retained and there is a small plaque. |
