Canada's Big House
Hennessy, Peter H.
A report in 1833 by a committee of three respected Kingston colonials called for the construction of a limestone penitentiary on Hatter's Bay to the west of the town. Their report contained these words of advice for its future governors: "...[shall] be a place by every means not cruel and not affecting the health of the offender, [but] shall be rendered so irksome and so terrible that during his lifetime he may dread nothing so much as a repet...