Oxford County Gaol: A History of Imprisonment

Read and discover a few stories of inmates in the County Gaol and the House of Refuge.

By Liz Dommasch, County Archivist

At the beginning of the year, I gave myself the lofty task of compiling a complete list of prisoners housed at the County Gaol based on the Return of Prisoners lists we have at the Archives. The Return of Prisoners lists were quarterly reports submitted by the County Sheriff that listed the prisoners at the gaol during that time period, for how long they were in for, and for what crime they committed. Although the Gaol officially opened in 1852, our Return lists don’t begin until 1869. However, they provide a fascinating insight into the people confined there and for the types of crimes being committed. Inmates included men, women, and even children. For example, in June 1880 James Smith, age 10, was arrested for stealing the horse and buggy of Dr. Murray while he was visiting a patient on the 10^th line in East Zorra Township. Following his conviction he was sent to the Reformatory in Mimico for six years.

The types of crimes committed ranged in offences such as abortion, assault, drunkenness, forgery, horse stealing, insanity, keeping a house of ill fame/disorderly house (this would have been classified as a house where immoral activities would occur, usually prostitution and/or gambling), leaving an employer, murder, poisoning dogs, profanity and obscene language, rape, refusing and neglecting to maintain your family/spouse, rioting, selling liquor without a license, and vagrancy.

The County Gaol at night, late 1800s - early 1900s

Sentences ranged from a matter of a couple of days, to months, to even years. Usually such crimes as being drunk and disorderly would lead to $1 fine and sleeping it off in the gaol. Other crimes received longer sentences. Fanny Hague, a woman described in the local newspaper as “silly and loose”, spent 269 days in the gaol from July 1879 to April 1880 for procuring an abortion. In 1887, she makes the headlines again this time as a “simple minded old creature” who was the partner of guilt of one, John Harrison, charged under the Charlton Act for carnally knowing an imbecile woman. For his crime he only spent 7 days in the gaol. The longest resident at the gaol was a woman named Nancy Legg, whom in 1882 was charged with murdering her child. Although she was found not guilty of infanticide due to insanity, she was placed in the gaol due to the lack of an asylum in the area. She would remain in the gaol until 1890, when her son from Michigan agreed to take her.

In the 1800s the majority of residents of the jail were deemed to be vagrants, either ones picked up by the police on the street or those that requested a stay, as there were no shelters or agencies at the time to deal with the homeless. In some cases, vagrants that could pay the fine (again usually $1 and costs) were permitted to leave, while others that promised to leave the County promptly were often just let go. Compiling my list there were definitely repeat residents to the gaol, often for years at a time (a few even passed away there), while in some cases, whole families were listed as being charged with vagrancy. By the late 1880s there was a large push in the County to erect a House a Refuge to care for the indigent and elderly, as the gaol was deemed to be inadequate to house them. In 1891 work began on a new House of Refuge and Industrial Farm on Lot 3, Concession 10 in East Zorra Township. It would officially open in March 1893 and would remain in operation until 1969, when the first Woodingford Lodge was opened in Woodstock.

Strangely enough some inmates preferred the living conditions at the gaol over the House of Refuge. In 1921 a gentleman named Edward Gill, who had been an inmate at the House of Refuge, had refused to stay, preferring the confines of the gaol instead. The Gaol Surgeon makes mention in one of his reports that even after 18 months of confinement at the goal Edward still refused to leave.

I still have a long way to go in completing my list of prisoners, but once finished I hope that it will be a useful tool for researchers. In the meantime, I hope to share more interesting stories about the gaol and its prisoners.