Sing Sing Prison and Tappan Sea

Sing Sing Prison just over a decade after opening.

Until the abolition of capital punishment, Sing Sing Correctional Facility housed the only execution chamber in operation in New York. The maximum-security prison first opened in 1828 and quickly gained notoriety for its policy of complete silence among inmates (revised in the 1840s).

This view shows the facility on the banks of the Hudson River, with a number of ships berthed at the wharves and plying the tranquil waters. Designed by Thomas Creswick and engraved by Henry Adlard after a sketch by William Henry Bartlett.

Published in 1840 as part of Volume II of “American Scenery: Or, Land, Lake and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature.”