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"Black Jacob," a monument of grace the life of Jacob Hodges, an African Negro, who died in Canandaigua, N.Y., February 1842 , an annotated digital edition

Page 30

p. 30

82
JACOB HODGES.
the State's prison, for the term of twenty
one years. Another of the convicts had
his sentence changed to imprisonment foi
life. The remaining two were executed
according to the sentence of the court, on
the 16th day of April, 1819.
Leaving the scaffold of these miserable
felons, and this ruined and imprisoned
woman, who had been instrumental in
bringing misery and guilt upon a poor,
ignorant African, we must follow him to
his dreary cell in the penitentiary on Man¬
hattan Island. These gloomy walls he
now enters, a wretched outcast, a con¬
demned murderer.
At this time but little attention was paid
to the habits, education, or moral improve¬
ment of the inmates of our prisons gene¬
rally. They were regarded more as places
of punishment and means of restraint
upon the lawless and desperately wicked,
than as designed for instruction and moral
influence. The idea of making them
nurseries of education, means of moral
reform, and sanctuaries for moral and re-