Virginia State Penitentiary

SA-113

The Virginia General Assembly authorized a state penitentiary in 1796 during a penal reform movement aimed at rehabilitating convicts through confinement and labor. Benjamin H. Latrobe, who later designed the United States Capitol, was the primary architect. The penitentiary opened here in 1800, and other buildings were added later. Early inmates included former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr, incarcerated in 1807 while awaiting trial for treason, and British prisoners captured during the War of 1812. Virginia's executions took place here from 1908 until the penitentiary closed in 1990. Latrobe’s structure was razed in 1927, and the rest of the complex was demolished in 1992.

Department of Historic Resources, 2016

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Jeffrey A. Cohen and Charles E. Brownell, The Architectural Drawings of Benjamin Henry Latrobe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 2:98-112. Edward C. Carter II, ed., The Virginia Journals of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1795-1798 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), vol. 1. Paul W. Keve, The History of Corrections in Virginia (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986). Calendar of Virginia State Papers, 10: 278. “A Guide to the Records of the Virginia Penitentiary, 1796-1991,” (Library of Virginia) Norman Johnston, “Prison Reform in Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Prison Society Mary Agnes Grant, “History of the State Penitentiary of Virginia” (M.A. Thesis, College of William and Mary, 1936). Richmond Times-Dispatch, 28 Oct. 1927, 11 April 1992. Washington Post, 15 Dec. 1990. Samuel Shepherd, ed., Statutes at Large of Virginia, 2:5.