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2 unusual facts about Moyamensing Prison


Moyamensing Prison

On July 1, 1849, when Edgar Allan Poe was in Philadelphia, he drank, became drunk and hallucinatory, and made a suicide attempt.

Sinking of the Petrel

The surviving rebels were eventually sent to Philadelphia in the steamship USS Flag to be charged for piracy but the accusation was not justified and the sailors were taken to Moyamensing Prison for the duration of the war.


Passmore Williamson

Williamson, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society and a well-known public figure, was later convicted of contempt of court by Pennsylvania District Court judge John K. Kane and served a sentence between July 27 and November 3, 1855, in Moyamensing Prison.


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