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The Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds
Later Named The Eastern Lunatic Asylum, Williamsburg, Virginia |
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Eastern Lunatic Asylum, Williamsburg, Virginia Reconstructed |
Public Hospital
Williamsburg, Virginia
(Source)
First Public Building in North -
America Devoted to Treatment of Mentally Ill
First patient admitted October 12, 1773
The "Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and
Disordered Minds" was the first building in North America devoted solely to the
treatment of the mentally ill. The first patient was admitted October 12, 1773.
Hospital founded at urging of Governor Fauquier
A two-story brick institution south of Francis
street, Williamsburg's public hospital was founded at the urging of
Governor
Francis Fauquier (pronounced "Fau-keer"). Like many men of the 18th-century
Enlightenment, Fauquier believed science could be employed to cure "persons who
are so unhappy as to be deprived of their reason."
Parish vestries and families had long borne the responsibility for the care of
the mentally ill, but it was a responsibility sometimes beyond their means.
Fauquier spoke to the House of Burgesses in November 1766 of "a poor unhappy set
of people who are deprived of their senses and wander about the countryside,
terrifying the rest of their fellow creatures." He proposed a hospital for these
unfortunates staffed by doctors who would "endeavor to restore to them their
lost reason."
At first the burgesses paid little heed, but Fauquier got their attention by
consigning some prospective patients in the Public Gaol. On June 4, 1770, the
legislators adopted an act to "Make Provision for the Support and Maintenance of
Ideots, Lunaticks, and other Persons of unsound Minds."
Philadelphia architect Robert Smith submitted design for
hospital
George Wythe, Thomas Nelson, John Blair, John
Randolph, and John Tazewell were among the directors appointed. William Byrd III
invited Philadelphia's Robert Smith to submit a design for the hospital
building. Among Smith's other works are Carpenter's Hall in Philadelphia and
Nassau Hall at what is now Princeton. Though Smith never visited Williamsburg,
his plan fit the city well.
Benjamin Powell built hospital
Contractor Benjamin Powell began construction in
1771. The building stood 100 feet long and about 38 feet wide with a central
hall leading to the keeper's quarters and, beyond them, to patients' cells. A
central staircase led to a meeting room for the court of directors and to more
patients' cells. Before he was finished, Powell was directed to provide "yards
for patients to walk and take the Air in" and to put a fence around the lot.
Thomas Jefferson thought the building resembled "rude
misshapen pile"
The structure was crowned with a cupola that
carried an expensive weather vane imported from England, and it resembled the
Wren Building at the College of William and Mary. Thomas Jefferson, who had
different tastes in architecture, said years later that both were "rude
misshapen piles, which, but that they have roofs, would be taken for
brick-kilns." Inside the hospital looked much worse.
24 cells included iron rings and fetters
The building housed 24 cells, all designed for the security and
isolation of their occupants. Each cell had a stout door with a barred window
that looked on a dim central passage, a mattress, a chamber pot, and an iron
ring in the wall to which the patient's wrist or leg fetters were attached.
Neither harmless nor incurable people were admitted; the cells were reserved for
dangerous individuals or for patients who might be treated and discharged.
Apart from the keeper, the staff included a matron for female inmates, a
visiting physician (such as Dr. John deSequeyra and
Dr. John Minson Galt), and
slaves for domestic duties.
By the theories of the day, mental illnesses were diseases of the brain and
nervous system, and the mentally ill chose to be irrational. Treatment consisted
of restraint, strong drugs, plunge baths and other "shock" water treatment,
bleeding, and blistering salves. An electro-static machine was installed.
Between 1773 and 1790, about 20 percent of the inmates were discharged as cured.
Fences added in 1790 to provide exercise yards
In 1790, fences 10 feet high and 80 feet long were added to each end to provide
exercise yards for both sexes, and staircases were built at the ends of each
hall. In 1799, two dungeon-like cells were dug "under the first floor of the
hospital for reception of patients who may be in a state of raving phrenzy."
Treatment of restraint replaced by "moral management"
Late in the century the treatment of mental
disorder began to change. By 1836 restraint had been replaced by what was called
moral management, an approach that emphasized kindness, firm but gentle
encouragement to self-control, work therapy, and leisure activity. Cells were
furnished with beds and other comforts.
The Public Hospital's population grew, and so did its facilities. A female ward
was added in 1821 and a third story was raised in 1841. By 1859 there were 300
patients and seven buildings.
Hospital building declined during Civil War
During the Civil War the hospital, now called
Eastern Lunatic Asylum, began to decline. Stucco was falling off the walls in
1884, the gas generator that supplied fuel for illumination gave out, and there
were complaints of staff incompetence and drunkenness. In 1883 there were 400
patients and in 1885 about 450. By then, despite a fire in 1876 that destroyed a
building, there were 10 structures on the property, and a quadrangle had been
formed.
Electrical fire broke out June 7, 1885
James D. Moncure came in as a reform
superintendent, and repairs and improvements began – among them electric wiring
for lighting. Moncure was writing letters the night of Sunday, June 7, 1885.
"While I was closing my correspondence," he later reported, "I noticed that the
Electric light suddenly flared up giving an unusually bright flash which
indicated to me a short circuit had occurred some where." That had happened
before, and he paid no more notice until about 10:30 p.m., when he heard the cry
"Fire!"
Investigating, Moncure found two red-hot wires glowing through a hole in a
second-floor wall. Then he saw flames leaping above the roof toward the cupola
and spreading laterally through ventilating shafts that connected all the wings.
Moncure ordered the patients evacuated and sent a telegram to the chief of the
volunteer fire department in Richmond, about 50 miles west. "Come at once," it
said, "and bring engine. Eastern Lunatic Asylum on Fire. Will be destroyed if
help is not coming soon." Alas, help did not arrive soon enough. Flames
destroyed the 1773 building and five more. Two female patients may have died in
the fire – no remains were found – and a third who wandered away was discovered
dead the next day in College Creek. No one else was hurt, but 224 patients were
displaced.
The walls of the gutted buildings were pushed down and rebuilding began. Workmen
filled the cellar of the original building with rubble and raised a new
structure beside it. Eastern State Hospital, as it was eventually renamed, stood
on the site for almost 75 years.
Hospital moved to new location in 1960
Colonial Williamsburg acquired the property in
the 1960s, when the hospital moved to land provided by John D. Rockefeller Jr.,
west of the city. In 1972, archaeologists uncovered and excavated the Public
Hospital's foundations – still filled with the ashes and debris of the great
fire of 1885. Reconstruction was approved in 1979.
The Public Hospital reopened on June 8, 1985, with six exhibition cells in the
first floor of the east wing and staff offices on the second story. From the
west wing an underground concourse leads to the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts
Museum and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum.
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