Dr. Daniel Rose of Boothbay was, to say the very least, a colorful and multi-faceted figure in early Maine politics. Born in Connecticut and graduated from Yale in 1791 he settled in what is today Alna. He studied medicine and practiced in Boothbay and later Wiscasset.
After serving in the War of 1812 as a Captain of engineers, he became a leader in the "separation movement" serving as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention where he unsuccessfully led the opposition to the creation of the Executive Council.
A member of the Maine State Senate from 1820 to 1824 he served as President of that body for the latter two years until he moved to Thomaston in 1824 to become, of all things, the first Warden of the Maine State Prison.
Rose had been obsessed for several years with unique ideas regarding the reformation of criminals and he had the political clout to choose the site of the new State Prison, design its layout and become its first Warden.
The prison which Rose designed was unique in the history of American penology, consisting of fifty-six individual cells actually dug into the ground. In Rose’s own words these underground cells were constructed: "That even their aspect might be terrific, and appear like what they should, dark and comfortless abodes of guilt and wretchedness."
Dr. Rose resigned as Warden of the Maine State Prison in 1828 amid controversy over how the prison was being run and over the deliveries of granite promised to the trustees of the Mariner’s Church in Portland which had not been delivered, causing thousands of dollars in delayed construction costs.
Following his resignation as Warden, Dr. Rose served as Maine’s Land Agent from 1828 to 1831, moving from Thomaston to Augusta as he took up his new post.
An excellent horseman, he stood six feet in height and weighed over two hundred pounds. He always carried a heavy, ironwood cane with him wherever he went.
Rose died at Thomaston on October 25, 1833 at the age of sixty-one.