The prison buildings are just visible in the middle left portion of the image as one looks northeast on the Georges River, where it bends to the southeast and into Thomaston Harbor.

Before the fixed bridge replaced a toll bridge/drawbridge at the foot of Wadsworth Street (just around the corner to the right), large ships used to transit this river after being constructed in Warren to the north. This section of the river was referred to as "the narrows."

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, this land was part of the Fort Farm and was sometimes referred to as Henry Knox's pasture land. It was later the site of the Chapman and Flint shipyard before the Knox and Lincoln railroad was laid through the area in 1871.