Sockenstuguberget
Kirkkokatu 2–4 Uusikaarlepyy
The border between the town and the rural municipality used to cross Sockenstuguberget (Pitäjätalon kallio, “the parish house cliff”). According to folk memory, a parish house stood on the cliff already in the 1600s. The last parish house built on the cliff in the 1820s was demolished in the early 1970s. It was customary to arrange administrative and ecclesiastical meetings and court sessions in parish houses, usually led by priests. Moral issues, social welfare and education were among the themes addressed in parish houses.
Still in the 1860s, the riverside slope of the cliff featured “church cottages”, in which faraway churchgoers were accommodated with their horses. At some point, these cottages also housed many kinds of less advantaged people, and they were finally torn down. The old parish granary located in the area was moved elsewhere in the early 1980s.
The cliff featured a punishment place as well: a mobile whipping post, to which convicts were tied by the neck and put on public display for some time before their sentence was carried out. During the whipping, the convicts’ hands were tied to the stake with rope or chain. The events were watched by an audience of all ages, so they also served as educational performances. The last punishment at the whipping post took place in 1870.
The old Town Hall is situated next to the cliff, with its oldest part from 1729 and an ancillary building from the mid-1800s. In the same place as this building, there used to be the first trivial school of Ostrobothnia, established by Per Brahe the Younger in the early 1640s.
In the historical centre of Uusikaarlepyy, by the Lapuanjoki river (Nykarleby älv), there is a church and bell-tower from the beginning of the 1700s.
Stories
The whipping post in Uusikaarlepyy is known to have been used a lot. Frans Ervard Henelius has reminisced having seen some executions in his school years in the 1860s. In one of them, a short, sturdy man had to stand for a few hours in a neck iron, while still looking brave enough to receive the whippings. The whipping had not lasted long before he started to cry: “Mercy, dear marshal, pardon me!” Whipping left bloody wounds on the convict’s back, and the audience standing too close also received their share of blood on their faces. When the man passed out, he was given drinking water. When he regained consciousness, he had to take on the rest of the sentenced whippings. After the punishment, the man was put on his stomach, and the physician spat out liquor from his mouth onto the man’s wounds. After this “disinfection”, the man was dressed in his shirt and taken away. (http://www.nykarlebyvyer.nu/sidor/texter/prosa/birck/ii/spopalen.htm)
Photos
The old Town Hall
The whipping post
Uusikaarlepyy church
A view towards the parish house and church probably in the early 1930s
http://www.nykarlebyvyer.nu/sidor/texter/diverse/nygardsv.htm
People in front of the parish house long ago (Nykarleby Fotoklubb)
http://www.nykarlebyvyer.nu/sidor/texter/prosa/nyholmr/forsfore/01forsfo.htm#sost
The parish house in summer 1971
http://www.nykarlebyvyer.nu/sidor/texter/bidrag/holmstrf/sockenfh.htm
The Town Hall and church probably in summer 1940
http://www.nykarlebyvyer.nu/sidor/kortindi/JH/JH_P/Jhph001s.htm