During the 1800s, the hill was the home of the Dodge farm, owned by local farmer and Civil War veteran Francis Dodge. Her doctor acknowledged that that was common to victims of sexual abuse, but refused to release her from the restraints. Poor lady. The hill is a 257-feet-high glacial drumlin located in Danvers, which was originally known as Salem Village until its official name change in 1752. When patients died, they were thrown into an unmarked mass grave on the grounds. Finally, read up on actress Frances Farmer and her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital. . A Study of Accidents in a Mental Hospital. The American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. No one would let them leave and held them against their will. of corse over the years i would hear the about the things that went on there. By June 2006, all of the Danvers State Hospital buildings that were marked for demolition had been torn down, including all of the unused buildings and old homes on the lower grounds and all of the buildings on the hill. While two or three miles from a town might be named as a good distance on the former, the facilities afforded by a railroad might make ten or twelve miles unobjectionableThe building should be in a healthful, pleasant and fertile district of the countryWhile the hospital itself should be retired and its privacy fully secured, it is desirable that the views from it should exhibit life in its active forms, and on this account stirring objects at a little distance are desirable (Kirkbride 7). The Grafton State Hospital was an abandoned state hospital that has since been partially demolished and re-purposed as educational and employment facilities. In December 2005, the property was sold to AvalonBay Communities, a residential apartment developer. Danvers as it stands today, a much more cheerful place. The hospital closed in 1976 and the building became the North Central Correctional Institute at Gardner in 1981. By 2002, the committee succeeded in identifying the names of over three-quarters of the patients buried in the cemetery and installed new headstones displaying the names of each patient and erected a memorial to the patients whose graves could not be identified. The Gardner State Hospital was an abandoned state hospital that has since been re-purposed into a prison. And we and our progeny are the losers. Address: 475 Trapelo Road, Waltham, Lexington, Belmont, Mass. She was put into restraints, which re-traumatized her. But whatever you call them, most people associate these places with creepiness and fear. But as time went on, it became a very disturbing place for the people that lived there. After venturing inside the tormented history of Danvers State Hospital, see these haunting photos taken inside asylums of decades past. By the early 1880s, overcrowding had already become an issue, with the hospital housing around 626 patients in 1881 and around 788 patients in 1885, as reported in the 1885 Annual Report of the Trustees of the Danvers Lunatic Hospital: The number of patients sent here has for a considerable time been too large, and the increase continues to exceed all relief from removals.The crowded condition of the hospital was not provided for in its design or construction.. Yesterdays Grim Asylums, Tomorrows Grand Apartments. Wall Street Journal, 27 July. actress Frances Farmer and her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital. We were just so shocked we were inside the tunnel that I didn't really think much about the video while I was recording. Lovecraft used Danvers as the inspiration for his Arkham Sanitarium. Well, youll be surprised to know how realistic the movies filming location is. In 1968, NBC10 aired a documentary about Pennhurst. I live in a town close by and it is something that has always interested me. The graveyard on the grounds was the only place that kept up with the demand of the increase in patients. By the 1920s the hospital was operating school clinics to help determine mental deficiency in children. 2023 Cinemaholic Inc. All rights reserved. Danvers State Hospital was a psychiatric hospital built in 1874 on Hathorne Hill, where the Salem Witch Trials judge John Hathorne once lived. I realize it's choppy, and doesn't have the best lighting and it's not as organized as my other videos. Construction of the Gothic-style building, made from locally-sourced red Danvers brick, began on May 1, 1874 and took four years to complete at a cost of $1.5 million, during a time when much of the country was still recovering from the financial strain of the Civil War. Plus, as I mentioned in a previous comment, a lot of the records were left behind when the building was closed and some of them were stolen. I am astounded by the size of these facilities. In 1989, the Kirkbride building was shuttered after the remaining patients were moved to the Bonner medical building. [2], The entire campus was closed on June 24, 1992 and all patients were either transferred to the community or to other facilities.[3]. on Abandoned Mental Hospitals in Massachusetts, Abandoned Mental Hospitals in Massachusetts, View all posts by Rebecca Beatrice Brooks, Abigail Williams: The Mysterious Afflicted Girl. [1], The Danvers State Hospital was officially opened in 1878 after four years of construction. One building remains unused and has partially collapsed but the plot of land it is located on is currently for sale by the state. The design of the hospital was based on the Kirkbride plan and totaled 313,000 square feet in size and 1,100 feet in length. Even in death, administrators at Danvers State Hospital did not dignify their patients. Grave of patient Annie Babcock, Danvers State Hospital Cemetery, circa 2013, One of the Memorial plaques dedicated to the patients of the Danvers State Hospital, Danvers State Hospital Cemetery, Danvers, Mass. in journalism. The hospital quickly became overcrowded and a new hospital, the Worcester State Hospital, was built in 1876 based on the Kirkbride plan. Hilltop Cemetery a Lasting Reminder of the Colony. The Gardner News, 8 March, 2012, thegardnernews.com/article/20120308/NEWS/303089614Foxborough State Hospital, Massachusetts Hospital for Dipsomaniacs & Inebriates. NPS.gov, nps.gov/places/foxborough-state-hospital.htmTaunton State Hospital. NPS.gov, nps.gov/places/taunton-state-hospital.htmBarclay, Melinda. Most of the buildings on campus were connected by a confusing labyrinth of underground tunnels. 189. r/ParanormalEncounters. The Grafton State Hospital was built in 1901. Another difficult group to treat were those suffering from intemperance and dipsomania the nineteenth-century terms for substance abuse, or the ancient enemy, as administrators called it. If you wanted to find ghosts, this would be the place. Rand, Avery & Co. However, back in the day, when Session 9 first premiered, several locals from Danvers visited the location and posted pictures of it on social media. The Metropolitan State Hospital was built in 1927 and opened in 1930. The number of patients grew to over 2,000 while the size of the staff remained relatively the same. It was part of the countrywide concept - at least in the late 1800s - that people with psychological problems needed to be cured inside specially made facilities. sold the property for $108.5 M to the DSF Group. The Danvers State Hospital was a psychiatric hospital located in Danvers, Massachusetts. Arcadia Publishing, 2002American Biography: a New Cyclopedia, Volume 5. Many of the Commonwealth institutions for the developmentally delayed and the mentally ill at the time were designed with tunnel systems, to be self-sufficient in wintertime. Philadelphia: 1854.Third Annual Report of the State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity of Massachusetts. The following year, the hospital purchased 100 more acres to expand its farm and, in 1903, opened Middleton Colony, an addition that housed 300 long term female patients, down the street from the hospital in Middleton, Mass. The hospital is now a condo complex, but these tunnels are about a mile away. Definitely a surreal experience to be inside them!! In 1939, the medical community was looking for a permanent fix to the crisis facing mental health facilities. In the fall of 1990, the Massachusetts Association of Mental Health published a working paper suggesting that three state hospitals, Danvers, Metropolitan, and Northampton, were prime candidates for closure. Built in 1874, the Danvers State Hospital was known as the Danvers Lunatic Hospital until it changed its name to the Danvers Insane Hospital sometime before the turn of the century and then changed it again to the Danvers State Hospital in 1909. The design supposedly helped draw breezes through the entire facility. Danvers State Hospital was one of many hospitals built in Massachusetts during the industrial revolution. . In 1954, Dr. Clarence Bonner retired as superintendent. Many patients would just vanish. It wasnt until 1994 that the hospital was shut down. The Danvers State Hospital (also known as The Danvers Lunatic Asylum, The Danvers State Insane Asylum, and the State Lunatic Hospital at Danvers) is located in Danvers, Massachusetts. It was originally built to house 500 patients, but by the 1940s it had over 2,000 patients. Jun 13, 2014 - The tunnels under Danvers State Mental Hospital in Danvers, Massachusetts. Pennhurst State School and Hospital finally shut down in 1987. It eventually grew and became a state hospital after the 1920s. Boston: Cupples and Hurd, 1888.Cregg Probes Mystery Death, Danvers State Hospital. The Telegraph, 28 Sept, 1934, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Ah5AAAAAIBAJ&sjid=oqQMAAAAIBAJ&pg=7167%2C5832183Diesenhouse, Susan. It was a school for those pursuing a career in the medical fields as well. 2006, opacity.us/article44_state_vows_clean_sweep_to_keep_records_out_of_wrong_hands.htmMental Hospital Administrator Had Problems Back East. Moscow-Pullman, 20 Nov. 1990, news.google.com/newspapers?id=t5MrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vdAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6320%2C2763883Avert Panic of Mental Patients. The Telegraph, 13 Feb. 1941, news.google.com/newspapers?id=6oxAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=r6QMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5528%2C3083941Bonner, C.A. That must have been a terrible place to live. image credit Since then, the buildings management has been hit with a flood of complaints from tenants about the poor construction quality of the building, according to the websites Apartment Ratings and the Danvers State Insane Asylum. Session 9 belongs to the former category and it was filmed in the Danvers State Hospital in Danvers, Massachusetts. It was designed to be self-contained and somewhat self-sufficient in wintertime, thanks to its own steam power plant at the bottom of the hill. Join us as we head to Salem, MA to explore the old Danvers State Hospital and the patient cemetery in Danvers, Massachusetts. The administration building, which is located in Waltham, remains abandoned. Unfortunately, theres no way you can visit this iconic building now as it was demolished in 2006. . The Danvers State Hospital was an abandoned psychiatric hospital in Danvers, Mass that has since been partially demolished and re-purposed into apartments and condominiums.

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