This photograph shows the Oxford County Jail building on Paris Hill as it looked before 1900. The building was made of granite blocks brought by oxen from Horse Hill in Oxford in 1822. It was surrounded by a picket fence and a rectangular sign visible on the front of the fence says "All persons are positively forbidden talking with the prisoners."

A door behind the fence opened to the downstairs where there were four cells, two on either side of a walkway. The jailer's desk was located at the end of the walkway. An outside door and stairway built over the downstairs door led to two cells upstairs. There was no inside stairway as the second floor was made of large granite slabs.