The first building used as a jail on Manhattan was on the corner of Dock street and Coenties slip. After the erection of the City Hall in Wall street, the criminals were confined in dungeons in the cellar, while debtors were imprisoned in the attic apartments. The next prison erected was known as the "New Jail," called also the "Provost" (see page 74), from its having been the headquarters and chief dungeon of the infamous Cunningham, the British provost marshal of the Revolution. It was a strong stone building erected for the imprisonment of debtors, and is now the Hall of Records. The pillars which now, ornament it are of later origin. The next was the Bridewell (see page 69), a cheerless, graystone edifice, two stories high, with basement, a front and rear pediment, which stood a little west of the present City Hall. It was erected for the confinement of vagrants, minor offenders, and criminals awaiting trial, in 1775, just in time to serve as a dungeon for the struggling patriots of the Revolution. The building was scarcely finished, the windows had nothing but iron bars to keep out the cold, yet in the inclement season the 'British thrust eight hundred and sixteen American prisoners, captured at Fort Washington, into this building, where they continued from Saturday to the following Thursday, without drink or food.

During these perilous years all the public and many of the private buildings, besides numerous sugar-houses and ships, were crowded with suffering American prisoners of war.