There was once a Newgate prison in Connecticut. It was named for
the old English one, but, instead of being up over a gate, it was
down underground in a copper-mine. There was no entrance to it
except by a shaft thirty feet deep, and the colonists chose this
place for its security, yet the history of Newgate in Connecticut
is full of tales of the daring and successful escapes of its
prisoners.

Copper Hill, where the prison was, is in what used to be the town
of Simsbury, but is now East Granby. The copper-mines there were
opened early in 1700, and were worked for about sixty years. The
copper is said to have been of good quality. In 1737-39, coins
were made from it--some say by Dr. Samuel Higley who owned a mine
near his home. These coins were never a legal tender, but were
used as "token money," because small change was scarce in the
colonies. They are valuable to-day because they are very rare.
Granby coppers have on one side a deer standing, and below him a
hand, a star, and III, and around him the legend, "Value me as
you please." On the other side are three sledgehammers with the
royal crown on each hammer, and around them either the word
"Connecticut," or the legend, "I am a good copper," with the date
1737. A third kind has one broadaxe and the legend, "I cut my way
through." There is a specimen of each of the three kinds of
Granby coppers in the Connecticut State Library at Hartford.

The mines were quite successful at first, but, as the colonists
were not allowed to smelt and refine the ore in America, they
were obliged to send it all the way to England, and this was very
expensive. Sometimes, too, the ships carrying copper did not