Public Gaol Williamsburg

Williamsburg’s Public Gaol was nearing completion in 1703 when the House of Burgesses appointed its first keeper. The brick jail stood near the Capitol, placing confinement beside the machinery of colonial government. People held there included debtors, people accused or convicted of crimes, enslaved people who had escaped, and political prisoners. The jail was part of how the colony enforced laws and protected the property claims on which its society depended.

In 1718, the gaol held fifteen pirates captured after Blackbeard’s death. They were brought to Williamsburg for trial the following year. Thirteen were hanged; Israel Hands turned Crown’s evidence, and another prisoner was spared after becoming too ill to stand trial. Their case made the jail famous, but it was only one episode in a much longer institutional history.