Jail Books & Bail Records

Links to Georgia’s Virtual Vault, which hosts digital scans of every county’s extant superior court and inferior court minutes.

Criminal recognizance bonds. Although they post-date the Founding era by a decade or so, many bonds appear on printed forms that remained unchanged from the mid-eighteenth century.

Journals from the General Sessions county court, which had jurisdiction over criminal matters.

Bonds to keep the peace and remain of good behavior, occasionally with a condition to appear at court, from Camden, South Carolina.

Writs and returns offering excuses for forfeited criminal bail bonds.

A transcription of all legislation referencing “bail” in Pennsylvania from the colonial founding of the Commonwealth in 1682 to the year 1801.

Docket of untried prisoners held at the Walnut Street Jail, with a ledger of prisoners’ names, commitment date, ground for commitment, date of discharge (if any), and responsible magistrate.

Prisoners committed to the Walnut Street jail/prison for vagrancy, including runaway slaves, servants, and apprentices.

A “day book” recording the daily decisions of Ebenezer Ferguson, Justice of the Peace, relating to bail and pretrial detention, peace bonds, and adjudication of petty offenses.

Records of Courts of Oyer & Terminer, each constituted by one Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice and several judges from the Court of Quarter Sessions, which heard capital and other serious cases.

Records of the Mayor’s Court, which had jurisdiction to hear everyday criminal and civil cases arising in the city of Philadelphia.

Records of the Court of Quarter Sessions, which had jurisdiction over criminal and civil cases arising in Philadelphia County.

Meeting minutes and committee reports for the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Misery of Public Prisons, later known more simply as the Prison Society. The Society was a private charitable organization founded in 1787. Courtesy of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Recognizances from a federal criminal prosecution for assault on the high seas.