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| Sanborn Map showing the Dorchester County Jail in 1891. |
The beautifully situated Dorchester County Jail, with a fine view of the Choptank River, furnished a rather attractive spot for wayward types to idle away the days, reflecting on their crimes. Opened in 1883, the granite Jail and Sheriff’s House, a Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival Style building, stood in back of the courthouse. It had four tiers of cells, one on each side of a central passage-way on the first and second floors. The front portion was fitted up as a residence for the Sheriff, who had ”more comfortable quarters probably than any of his bother officials on the Easter Shore,” the Baltimore Sun reported. Charles L. Carson of Baltimore was the architect and J. E. Chilecutt and R. H. Stevens of Dorchester County were the builders.
Its first two occupants were two men arrested for catching oysters without a license. They had good to reason to congratulate themselves that their offense was not committed during the days of the old Cambridge jail, which was built about 1790, the Sun reported.
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1 comment:
there is no justifying the destruction of this beautiful old building, both the county and state governments waste uncountable BILLIONS of our tax dollars on myriad crap projects and programs, but nobody could cough up the bucks to save this treasure? i bet if harriet tubman had so much as taken a leak in that place the state would have been shipping in cash by the truckload to save it.
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