Jail tour

A few days ago for the last class in Beyond the Grave we took a tour of the old Charleston jail with Glenn Mckenzie.  He gave us some interesting facts about the Jail and told some ghost stories. 

The jail opened in 1802 and closed in 1939 which is a long time considering it was made before Napoleon Bonaparte and closed after Hitler.  It was made for 130 inmates but during the war with all of the prisoner of war it got up to around 600.  Most of them in the prison died, not only from the death penalty but mostly from disease from the trench in the back with all of the human waste in it. 

The first room we went in was pretty much just a holding cell he said on the first floor and it had a thing in it to hold the prisoners still to brand them or do what ever they need to do to them.  The next room had a few cells in it and it was just for the normal criminal. But the top floor was for the worst criminals.  It was the hardest to escape because it was so high and also because they made the inside of the room metal.  And a lot of them died from heat, he said over the summer it could get up to 130 degrees in the room. 

One of the first women to get the death penalty in South Carolina was here Lavinian Fisher.  Apparently she was ver gorgeous but was thought to be a serial killer.  She was guilty for highway robbery and was executed.