Wiscasset Old Jail: Maine's First Penitentiary

The three-story granite jail on Federal Street in Wiscasset was authorized by Lincoln County in eighteen oh seven and finished in eighteen eleven, making it one of the oldest surviving jail buildings in Maine. It was built with twelve holding cells, one designed for solitary confinement with no windows. When Maine separated from Massachusetts in eighteen twenty, the Wiscasset Jail served as the new state's primary penitentiary for its first four years, until the state prison at Thomaston opened in eighteen twenty-four.

The jail held prisoners until nineteen fifty-three, more than a century and a half of continuous use, before being bought by the Lincoln County Historical Association the following year. The original jailer's house, added in eighteen thirty-nine, stands alongside. Both buildings are now a seasonal museum operated by the association, the kind of place where you can stand in a cell that held prisoners when James Madison was president.