History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II, Part 79

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1196

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II > Part 79

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The condition of the unfortunate persons of unsound mind who were com- mitted to the crude and often heedless if not cruel guardianship which the earlier resources of the counties provided for their panpers and criminals, was truly piti- able. One of those who most fully appreciated it, and were most profoundly touched by it, was Doetor William Maclay Awl, M. D., of Columbus. Doctor Awl was a native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, born May 24, 1799. After having studied medieine with Doetor Samuel Agnew at Harrisburg and received an hon - orary professional degree from Jefferson College, he shouldered his knapsack at the age of twentyseven, and set out on foot for Ohio. First settling at Lancaster, in 1826, he removed a year or two later to Somerset, Perry County, whence, in the spring of 1833, be transferred his residence and professional labors to Colum- bus. During the first year of his residence in the capital, says his biographer,'

He had an opportunity of proving his professional zeal and knowledge in combating an epidemic of cholera which raged during July, August and September. He, in common with the other physicians of the city, was kept busy night and day during this period of suffering and alarm ; among other things he tried saline venous injections in one case, but relied mainly on calomel.

[591]

592

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

On Jannary 5, 1835, a convention which Doctors Awl, Drake and others had invited " all the regular and scientific physicians of the State " to attend, met in the First Presbyterian Church. Its attendance numbered about seventy. Its president was Peter Allen, of Trumbull; its secretaries were M. Z. Kreider, of Fairfield, and William M. Awl, of Columbus. Among the subjects discussed were these : Erection of commercial hospitals by the National Government on the Mis- sissippi, the Ohio and Lakes; propriety of petitioning the legislature to legalize the study of anatomy ; vaccination : intemperance ; medical ethics, and, as the event proved, most presageful of all, the establishment of a school for the blind and an asylum for the insane. Consideration of these two latter subjects was the princi- pal purpose which Doctor Awl had in mind when he became the leading spirit among those who had summoned the convention and it was chiefly at his instance that the assembled physicians decided to memorialize the General Assembly to establish the two public charities in behalf of which he had taken such an active interest. The memorial, as it was afterward presented, was signed by Doctors R. Thompson, T. D. Mitchell, William M. Awl, John Eberle and E. Smith as members of a committee, and by Doctor Peter Allen as President and Doctor M. Z. Kreider as secretary of the State Medical Convention.

So strong was the argument made by the memorialists that, on March 7, 1835, the General Assembly passed "an act providing for the erection of a Lunatic Asylum," to be erected on a tract of not less than fifteen nor more than thirty acres of land, distant at least one mile and not more than four miles from the city of Columbus. For the purchase of the site the act authorized an expenditure of not more than two thousand dollars. The duty of acquiring the necessary grounds was lodged in a board of three directors, who were further required to obtain, by visiting the best institutions for the insane in other States, or otherwise, all need- ful information as to the best plan for equipping and organizing snch an institu- tion, and to report the results of their investigations, together with estimates of cost, to the next General Assembly. The directors appointed were General S. T. MeCracken, of Lancaster, and Doctors William M. Awl and Samuel Parsons, of Columbus.

These gentlemen, after visiting Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and other cities signed a report on December 10, 1835, recommending for the Ohio institution the general plan of " the Massachusetts Lunatic Hospital at Worcester." In setting forth the details of the plan proposed for adoption the report says :

The structure will consist of a centre building and two wings, all extended upon the front, and measuring 266 feet. The centre, or principal edifice, will be eightyone feet long by fortyfive feet in width, three stories and an attic in height, and ornamented in front with a plain portico supported by four Ionic columns. The wings will extend to the right and left of the centre building. They are each ninety feet six inches in front by one hundred feet in the rear, thirtynine feet wide and three stories high. They recede twentyfour feet from the front line, and are so united to the opposite ends of the centre structure, by onehalf their width, that the corresponding half, or nineteen feet six inches, will fall beyond its rear. This arrangement disconnects half the end of each wing from the rear of the centre of the building, entirely. permitting, by means of a large window, the free circulation of the exter- nal air throughout the long wings. . . . The centre edifice, together with the wings, is to be built of brick, upon a basement of stone work seven feet high.

The cooking and laundry departments and the workshops for patients were assigned to the basement, the offices, medical dispensary, library and reception rooms to the central building, the dining rooms to the rear part of each floor in the wings. Through the centre of each wing extended a corridor fourteen feet wide, with apartments for patients on each side. Heat was derived from furnaces in the basements. Arrangements for ventilation, including ready facilities for communication with the external atmosphere, were carefully planned. A separate

O.P. Hendrixson Md.

593

CENTRAL ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE.

stairway from the corridor of each wing communicated with a courtyard enclosing about onethird of an acre. The grounds selected and purchased for the site com- prised an area of thirty acres, now known as East Park Place " The report of the directors thus described it :

The site for the asylum is in the immediate vicinity of this city, about one mile in a northeast direction from the State House; the grounds are within full view and command a handsome prospect of the surrounding country.3

The price paid for this ground was $66 per acre; the aggregate, $1,980. The central building was set back about 200 yards from Broad Street toward which it fronted, looking south. The estimated cost of the entire structure was $40,767, of which sum about $18 000, the directors believed, could be saved by the labor of convicts. A reason given for locating the institution at no greater dis- tance from the city was: " To enable the patients in certain states of disease to have ready access to objects and scenes that may interest them, and such as are calculated to induce a new train of thought and consequent change in the oper- ations of the mind." Pursuing this subject the directors say :

Solitude not only disposes to insanity, but enables the mind, when deranged, to dwell upon the original cause of alienation, and thereby to perpetuate the disease itself. In recent or violent cases of mania the location is not material ; the patients in such cases require a more active medical treatment, and need no other accommodations as to insulation, than safe, commodious and well-ventilated apartments. But after the acute stage of the disease is past, and the patients are convalescent, or the disease has assumed a chronic form, or in cases of partial derangement, in all which the treatment will be chiefly moral, such a situa- tion as before named is found from experience of the best institutions to give additional effect to the ordinary occupations and amusements of the patients in exciting and perma- nently impressing new ideas upon their minds. Considering the subject of a location in this light, the directors procured a site for the asylum in the vicinity of the city instead of one more remote in the country.

Thirty years later, fortunately for the city, and also for the institution, the progress of medical science with respect to the treatment of insanity justified a view just the opposite, in most respects to that here taken.

In March, 1837, the General Assembly granted, by almost unanimous vote, an appropriation to erect the asylum buildings in substantial accord with the plans and recommendations submitted by the directors. N. B. Kelley, afterwards architect of the Capitol, was appointed superintendent of construction. Excava- tion began at once, and on April 20, 1837, the first stone of the foundation masonry was laid by one of the convict laborers from the Penitentiary at the northwest corner of the west wing.

Doctor William M. Awl was appointed superintendent and chief physician of the institution in the spring of 1838, and spent the ensuing summer in a study of hospitals for the insane in the Eastern States. On November 10, 1838, the asylum buildings were declared to be complete, and final settlement was made with the superintendent of their construction. Their total cost up to that time had been a little over forty thousand dollars. So pressing had been the need for the institu- tion, owing to the condition of the insane throughout the State, that the General Assembly humanely gave it preference over the Capitol in the appropriation of surplus convict labor. The number of the insane in Ohio at the time the asylum was first opened was about 300; the institution had capacity for but 140. More than half of those who needed care were therefore still left in the poorhouses and jails. A necessity for enlargement of the buildings was therefore felt almost from the beginning. Accordingly, the west wing was begun in 1843, and completed in 1845. The cast wing, begun in 1844, was completed in 1846. In 1847 the cen-

38*

594

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

tral wing was erected. These additions increased the frontage of the building to 370 feet, its depth to 218 feet, the total number of its rooms, exclusive of the base- ment to 440, and its total cost to $153,821.84. The number of its rooms at the disposal of patients was 219 besides twentynine lodges. The building in its enlarged form was quadrangular, and covered precisely an acre of ground. The completeness of the institution, and its efficiency under Doctor Awl's manage- ment, at this time attracted wide attention. On reading its report for 1842, Lydia Huntley Sigourney, the New England poetess, was inspired to write the following :

ADDRESS TO OHIO.

Hail! Sister, of the beauteous West, Throned on thy river's sparkling tide, Who still seeks, with pitying hreast, The sick to heal, the lost to guide.

Still o'er thy wounded children bend, With bounteous hand, and kindness true, Intent thine utmost skill to lend The broken mind to build anew.

The care, the cure to thee are dear, Of ills to which the world is blind, Or, sunk in apathy severe, To torture and despair consigned.

Clothed and restored to Reason's sway Thou joy'st thy suffering ones to see, And hear them pour the votive lay To Heaven, and happiness, and thee.

Say, is a nation's truest praise In pomp of lordly power to shine, The o'ershadowing pyramid to raise, Or hoard the treasure of the mine ?

No, no ! with sympathising heart From sorrow's grasp the prey to wrest ; And thou hast chosen that better part ; God bless thee, Sister of the West !'

The asylum received further commendation from Miss Dorothea L. Dix, the Massachusetts authoress and philanthropist, who visited and inspected it in 1844. On Tuesday, November 17, 1868, the board of trustees met at the asylum and received reports from its different departments. According to these reports the condition of the institution at that time was superb. The system of administra- tion was admirable, and the success in treatment very gratifying. Pleased with the condition of things, the board adjourned and its members departed to their homes." On Wednesday evening it was usual for the patients to assemble in the amusement hall for recreation. They were thus engaged on Wednesday even- ing, November 18, and the last quadrille in the customary dance had been called, when, a little after nine o'clock, an attendant came into the hall and informed the superintendent, Doctor Peck, that a fire had broken out in the sixth ward. Hastening to that ward, which was in the northeast part of the east wing, Doctor Peck found it already filled with dense smoke, forbidding all entrance, An alarm

595

CENTRAL ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE.

was at onee telegraphed, and about fifteen minutes later the three steam fire- engines then owned by the city were throwing water from the cisterns. The steam pump at the asylum was also at work. One of the city steamers, the John Miller, had been engaged with the fire but a short time when it was disabled. The Ridgway, an old engine lately from the repair shop, took the Miller's place, but soon failed and was also retired. Within half an hour after the pumping began the water in the asylum cisterns gave out. Wells and other cisterns of the neighborhood were resorted to, but in vain. The fire made steady progress along the great wing, pushing its advance under shelter of the heavily-sheathed tin roof, and devouring everything before it. Its fiereeness set the feeble resources of the fire department at defiance ; its smoke repelled all who sought to penetrate its lair.

The asylum contained at this time about 330 patients. The most violent of these, about sixty in number, were lodged in a hospital, detached from the main building. They were safe. The entire official and working force of the institu- tion, together with scores of helpful citizens who came rushing to the scene, therefore bent their entire efforts to the rescue and removal of the insane from the burning building. This was accomplished in various ways. Some were lifted through holes eut in the roof and ceiling, others were taken out through the windows, from which the strong iron gratings were wrested. Women with hair dishevelled, almost naked, and shrieking with terror were borne by strong arms through the glare of the flames along the steep roof. A thrilling story is told of a physician who rushed to the rescue of a robust female maniae, who, as soon as he entered her room, shut the door, threw herself against it, and with the fury and strength of wild delirium, defied all attempts to open it. The flames which hissed, erackled, and darted their red tongues gave her no fear; she scorned them with a demoniac laugh. Fortunately for the imprisoned man an attendant came to his reseue, and together they removed the frantic woman to the amusement hall, where she vented her remaining fury by dancing on the piano until it was completely ruined.

The ward where the fire first appeared contained thirtytwo women. Six of these were canght in the smoke before help could reach them, and were suffocated to death.5 Their lifeless bodies were snatched from the flames and stretched upon the grass, then rapidly whitening with falling snow. The patients who were assembled in the amusement hall when the fire broke out were locked up there to prevent their escape. Thus imprisoned they indulged their wild fancies in many fantastic modes. A few, not confined to the hall, eseaped from eustody in the confusion and broke away through the dismal night on foot for their homes. As rapidly as possible the patients confined in the amusement hall and those rescued from their rooms were removed in omnibuses and carriages to the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. Meanwhile the fire moved resistlessly on, and on, through- out the night until it passed through the central building and reached the last extremity of the western wing. It halted only because no further food for it lay within its reach. The eentral wing, midway between the eastern and western one, was saved almost entire; the rest, when morning dawned, was blackened, roofless walls.

The origin of the fire was never ascertained with certainty. It was first detected in the attic at the northwest corner of the east wing. No fire was in use in that part of the building, nor were there any flues there from which ignition was at all probable. Doetor Peck thus stated his own theory :

The origin of the fire was in the clothing room of the number six ward. This room con- tained all the clothing of thirtytwo patients, and the sudden filling of the ward with such a dense, stifling smoke was the natural result of the burning of so much clothing made of both cotton and wool. How did the fire find its way into that room ? In answer to this question

596

IHISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

I have but one theory. While the patients were being put to bed, some one of the mis- chievous ones must have lighted at the gas burner some combustible material like paper, or cotton, or cloth, and thrown it over the transom of the clothing room door into the clothing room. . . . While writing this article, a conversation with Doctor G. H. Stewart, who has been in charge of all the patients sent to the Newburg Asylum, has established in my mind my theory of the origin and cause of the fire. One of the patients of that ward was a snb- ject of periodical attacks of maniacal excitement. While passing through these periods her impulses were various, but she was almost always mischievous, often violent, and always perfectly reckless. At the time of the fire she was in an excited state. After she arrived at the Northern Asylum, it became necessary to use restraint by confining her hands. While Doctor Stewart was making his morning round a few days since she urged the removal of the restraint, and while he was hesitating to do so she remarked to bim: "I know the reason why you do not take off these mittens; it is because you are afraid I will burn up this asylum as I did the other." She added further that she lighted paper in the gas and threw it over the door into the room.

Immediate rehabilitation of the institution was universally concurred in, but with respect to reconstruction of the burned buildings there arose a wide difference of opinion. A proposition to remove the asylum for the insane to a farm somewhere in the vicinity of Columbus, and erect upon its Broad Street site an institution for the blind was ably advocated in the General Assembly hy Hon. James Scott. This plan was reinforced by declaration officially adopted by the asylum trustees that it would be inexpedient to rebuild on the old site unless it should be enlarged by the purchase of at least fourteen acres of additional ground. The trustees further de- clared that enlargement of the buildings and material changes in their plans would be imperatively necessary. In advocating removal Judge Seott pungently stated that on its Broad Street site the asylum was " a nuisance to the city and the city a nuisance to it." The writer of these lines and others who happened to be at that time colleagues of Judge Seott in the House of Representatives heartily seconded this view, and did all we could to insure its acceptance, but in vain. On April 23. 1869, the General Assembly passed an act providing for the erection of a new building on the old grounds, and, so far as possible, with the old material. This act made an appropriation of $100,000, required that the new building should be large enough to accommodate 400 patients, and limited its maximum cost to 8400,000. Nothing was done under this act until September, 1869, when contracts for work and materials began to be let. Levi F. Schofield was chosen as the architect, bis plans were accepted, and on an inclement day in October, 1869 - twentythird - the ceremony of breaking ground for the new building took place. The spot selected for this ceremony was that where the northeast corner of the new structure was intended to rest. A considerable number of ladies and gentlemen were present, one of the most notable members of the party being the Governor of Ohio, Hon. R. B. Hayes. After brief remarks by Doctor S. M. Smith, one of the trustees, an invocation was offered by Rev A. G. Byers. Governor Hayes then lifted the first shovelful of earth into the barrow. This aet was repeated by Doctor Smith, Judge W. B. Thrall and others. Demolition of the old walls began at the same time, and continued during the few weeks which remained prior to the close of the season.

Fortunately for the institution, and for the city, the opening of the season of 1870 brought with it an entire change of programme. On April 18 of that year the General Assembly authorized the Governor, State Treasurer and Attorney- General to sell the grounds of the old asylum, then comprising seventytwo and onehalf acres, for not less than $200,000, and to purchase a new site, in the vicinity of Columbus, at a cost of not over $100,000. Pursuant to this authority a sale was effected in May, 1870, for $200,000, the sum of $60,000 to be paid in cash down, and the residue in nine equal annual instalments. The purchasers were William S. Sullivant, Andrew D. Rodgers, John G. Mitchell, Richard Jones, John and T. Ewing Miller, Orange Johnson, Frederick J. Fay, James Watson, S. S.

597

CENTRAL ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE.

Rickly, Charles Baker, D. W. H. Day, W. B. Hawkes, John Joyce, John L. Win- ner and W. B. Hayden. By this syndicate the grounds were handsomely platted into streets, avennes and parks, and named East Park Place.

After examining various lands offered, the committee decided to purchase for the new site the farm of William S. Sullivant, west of the city. The tract contained three hundred aeres ; the price paid for it was $100,000. The new institution was planned on a vast scale, and on May 16, 1870, its erection was ceremoniously inaugurated . Hitherto, the elevation on which the new buildings were staked out had been known as Sullivant's Hill ; at the suggestion, it is said, of Mrs. Doc- tor W. L. Peck the trustees decided to name it Glenwood.7 On July 4, 1870, the cornerstone of the new asylum was laid, with Masonie ceremonies, conducted by officers of the Grand Lodge of Ohio. A street parade in the city, preceding the ceremonies, was participated in by the fire department, State officers and visiting Masonic bodies. Governor R. B. Hayes presided at the grounds and delivered an address. Hon. Bellamy Storer, the orator of the occasion, delivered a disquisition on Masonry. In the course of his remarks Governor Hayes made the following historical statements :

Prior to the legislation of the last session of the General Assembly the law made a broad distinction between cases of chronic insanity and cases of recent origin. Those who had been insane more than two years and those who had been returned from an asylum as incurable were not entitled to the benefit of the provision made by the State for the insane, but were left to such care as their families, or the counties of their residence, were prepared to give. Last winter the General Assembly took a great step in advance of all our previous legislation on this subject. The second seetion of an act passed April 12, 1870, is as follows :

"The chronic insane shall be admitted to the several lunatic asylums of the State upon the same terms and in the same manner that other insane persons are admitted thereto, and no discrimination shall be made against those whose cases may be adjudged chronic, nor shall any preference be given to those whose cases may be regarded as curable."

In order to carry out the wise and humane object of this section, extensive additions to existing asylums, and to the asylums now building, were authorized. The Central Asylum here building was required to be enlarged so as to accommodate six hundred patients at an increased cost of $200,000. .. . With this legislation a new era begins in the history of the treatment of the insane in Ohio. Hereafter the policy, the purpose will be to make as speedily as practicable ample provision for all of this unfortunate class of our people.

Additional remarks were made by Doetor Peck, in the course of which he paid a high tribute to Doetor William M. Awl as the founder of this great charity. In behalf of the trustees, Henry B. Curtis presented the cornerstone, which was then laid under the direction of Grand Master Alexander H. Newcomb, assisted by Deputy Grand Master Philip M. Wagenhals. In a cavity beneath the stone vari- ous documents and other articles were deposited.

The first patients regularly received by the asylum were an instalment, 180 in number, transferred to it from the Dayton institution on September 7, 1877. Doctor Richard Gundry, an eminent expert in the treatment of insanity, was the superintendent in charge. He had been transferred to the Central Asylum from the one at Athens. During the spring of 1878 Doctor W. W. Ellsbury was chosen to supersede him, but after coming to Columbus to assume his duties he resigned, whereupon Doctor Gundry was offered reinstatement, but declined it. The emi- nent qualifieations of Doctor Gundry did not, however, fail of due appreciation. for the superintendency of the Maryland Institution for the Insane at Spring Grove. near Baltimore, was tendered him, at a salary of $2,500 per annum, and was accepted. On February 10, 1881, a few months before his death, Doctor Gundry wrote to the author in response to some inquiries. His letter contained the follow- ing passage :

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II, Part 79

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1196

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1196