Book dossier

The American Siberia

by J. C. Powell

This book was written by J.C. Powell, a resident of Chattahoochee Florida and a prison guard at the prison. The property was originally was the Chattahoochee Arsenal during the Civil War and Indian Wars which was established by Andrew Jackson. The Florida State Penitentiary in Chattahoochee was on the grounds the first state penitentiary in Florida in 1868. Powell wrote an account of his experience of the horrible prison system. The prisoners were chained together during the day in the old arsenal and worked in harsh long hours. The notorious carpetbagger warden Malachi Martin used the prisoners or his own gain. Martin leased out prisoners for work and used the prisoners for his own 200 acre winery in which he made large profits. This story is an account written from the view of the prison guard during this infamous time of prison reform. This book a excellent historical reference for what is now one of the few historically documented account of the prison that once was the sitte of a Fort, arsenal, Civil War training camp for the confederates, a penitentiary, a psychiatric asylum and now the Florida State Hospital that is still in operation with many of the original buildings.