Even the detailed 23-page web presentation that this slide show samples can only raise avenues for yet deeper and wider study.
Any monitoring done on jailors’ purchases for inmates? What role politics in local adminis-tration of the Chinese Exclusion Act? Did local attitudes toward the illegal immigrants go beyond snide newspaper remarks? Did adding ‘r’ to ‘county’ in the ledger column head reflect suspicion of ‘foreigners?’ Did local judges manipulate system to get the kind of results that later child offender laws codified? Why ‘only’ 4 murder executions?
Although the extensive web presentation – 23 pages, 150+ images – includes vastly more details and source citations that can be provided in these slides and their printed notes, even it can only raise or show avenues for yet deeper and wider study.  But that is precisely the point of this slide show: to promote “panning” or “mining” old jail and prison records for a wealth of material opening up new or connecting to on-going historical inquiries.

Here are just a few that occur to my correction-focused mind: What monitoring was done on jailors’ purchases for inmates? What role did local politics play in administration of the Chinese Exclusion Act? Did local attitudes toward the illegal immigrants go beyond snide newspaper remarks? Did adding “r” to “county” in the ledger column head reflect suspicion of “foreigners?” Were the Frechettes and Le Goia whom Harriet Stone accused in denying murdering the Frechette child “foreigners? Did that figure in her quick acquittal? Did local judges manipulate the system to get the kind of juvenile monitoring results that later child offender laws codified? Why ‘only’ 4 murder executions in more than 150 years? Was this rural county’s seeming reluctance to execute typical or atypical in NY’s North Country?