#danvers state insane asylum

[myhauntedsalem]

Danvers State Hospital Cemetery

Danvers, Massachusetts

Danvers State Hospital was built in the mid-1800’s and operated until 1992. From 1992 until 2007 it was abandoned and served as a beacon to thrill-seekers and ghost hunters. If you wanted to find ghosts, this would be the place. With its peaked towers, labyrinthine corridors and network of underground tunnels.

The hospital’s history also contributed to the legends about it being haunted. Built initially to house 600 people, at its peak Danvers had 2,300 inmates living in overcrowded conditions. Lobotomies and electro-shock therapy were common treatments. Danvers saw a lot of misery and unhappiness in its time. Where better to find restless souls? Staff who worked there claimed it was haunted even while it was open and paranormal researchers photographed glowing orbs on the hospital’s grounds after it was closed.

In 2001, the horror film Session 9 was filmed inside the abandoned hospital buildings. The movie tells the story of an asbestos remediation crew hired to start renovating an abandoned insane asylum. Needless to say, many bad things happen.

In 2005 the state sold the hospital to real estate developers who wanted to make an apartment complex. Despite protests from local historic preservationists they tore down most of the original buildings and built several new ones. In 2007, a fire of unknown origin destroyed most of the newly constructed buildings. All the video cameras that had been set up to monitor the site shut down before the fire began.

Real estate developers are even more persistent than ghosts, so eventually the Danvers site was successfully converted into an apartment complex called Avalon Danvers.

They did not remove the asylum’s cemetery which is located down the hill from the apartment complex.

Inmates who died in the asylum and whose corpses were unclaimed are buried here. The hospital staff marked their graves with numbered stones rather than headstones bearing their names which was a very institutional way of dealing with the dead. The numbered stone markers still exist. Some are small squares embedded in the ground, while others are stone posts. There were hundreds of markers.

[rschmidth]

Read PDF Crumbling Castles: The Lost Asylums at Worcester and Danvers EBOOK BY Tom Kirsch

Crumbling Castles: The Lost Asylums at Worcester and Danvers - Tom Kirsch

READ & DOWNLOAD Tom Kirsch book Crumbling Castles: The Lost Asylums at Worcester and Danvers in PDF, EPub, Mobi, Kindle online. Free book, AudioBook, Reender Book Crumbling Castles: The Lost Asylums at Worcester and Danvers by Tom Kirsch full book,full ebook full Download.

 Read / Download Crumbling Castles: The Lost Asylums at Worcester and Danvers

DESCRIPTION BOOK : The state of Massachusetts was home to many historic institutions; however, few compared to the size and elegance of the asylums built in Worcester and Danvers during the late-nineteenth century. Designed using the linear plan devised by Dr. Thomas Kirkbride, their curious forms were made to adhere to the principles of moral treatment. Here, the mentally ill were taken out of prisons and dungeons and placed into handsome buildings with bright, airy wards designed to dispel any reminders of their previous confines. The towering hospitals built in Worcester and Danvers were prime examples of the final evolution of the Kirkbride plan, where the layout of the building was stretched into monolithic proportions to house the burgeoning population of those seeking treatment. The theories of environmental determinism, regimentation and compassion did little to cure those deemed "insane" however, and these structures became increasingly obsolete and difficult to modify as their patient

 DETAIL BOOK :

Author : Tom Kirsch

Pages : 96 pages

Publisher : America Through Time

Language :

ISBN-10 : 1634991672

ISBN-13 : 9781634991674

 Supporting format: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, MOBI, HTML, RTF, TXT, etc.

Supporting : PC, Android, Apple, Ipad, Iphone, etc.

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[nickjgoodsell]

My Review: Project 17: by Laurie Faria Stolarz

My Review: Project 17: by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Publish Date: December 18th, 2007 Number of Pages: 248 Pages Publisher: Hyperion Genre(s): Young Adult, Paranormal, Mystery, Horror Total Star Rating: 3.75 Stars

Who hasn’t had the urge to break into an old building thats probably haunted? Why not? Let’s go film a movie, make some creepy scenes, put the hot girl right in the main shot to get views, and maybe ignore those footsteps we keep…

[evilbuildingsblog]

Danvers State Insane Asylum - Danvers, Massachusetts

[tallstales]

Day 11 Haunted Places in New England (13 Days of Halloween)

New England is home to some of America’s oldest colonies and so it only seems natural that it is home to some old spirits. Let’s take a tour state by state of 13 of the most popular haunted locations in New England.

Maine

The Wood Lighthouse - Saco Bay, Maine

In 1808 a lighthouse was built in Saco Bay, Maine at the request of President Thomas Jefferson. That lighthouse, though full of history is not the infamous haunt that stands today. After falling to disrepair, it was replaced by a stone and granite tower that still stands today. it is in this newer structure that a violent tragedy would take place.

Based on reports, in 1896 a tenant renting the lighthouse or possibly squatting there, was approached by the landlord regarding the subject of paying rent. An argument took place which resulted in the shooting and death of the landlord. After realizing what he had done or possibly panicking over the consequences of his actions, the tenant went into the lighthouse with his gun and killed himself.

Keepers who have lived in the Wood Island Lighthouse since say that unexplained shadows frequently appear as well as unusual moaning sounds. Other reports say that sometimes locked doors fly open and gunshots are heard. The light was also know to turn on and off by itself. It became such a problem in fact, that in 1972 to save the lighthouse keepers from dealing with the possibly haunted light, it was replaced with an automated light.

Goose River Bridge - Rockport Harbor, Maine

A spirit with spirits can be found on The Goose River Bridge on Pascal Avenue near picturesque Rockport Harbor. The Goose River Bridge is allegedly haunted by William Richardson, a town resident who lived there around the time of the Revolutionary War. There are at least two stories about Richardson’s death that circulate to this day amongst the locals. The first is that British sympathizers murdered Richardson in 1783 because they were enraged by his drunken celebration of the American victory. The second is that he got so drunk celebrating the American victory that he fell from the Goose River Bridge to his death. Either way, if you catch a whiff of ale in the air by the bridge and happen to see this celebrating apparition, legend has it that he’ll offer you a drink from his pitcher. I wonder what the tab would be for 200 years worth of ale.

Vermont

Emily’ s Bridge - Stowe, Vermont

In Vermont there is another haunted bridge but one without a such a friendly spirit. If you travel through Stowe, Vermont it is likely that you will eventually pass over the Gold Brook Bridge. At least, that’s what your GPS will call it, but locals have renamed it something different. Emily’s Bridge has been nicknamed such after a tragedy befell the location. A girl named Emily had planned to meet her lover at the covered bridge, where they would then run away together to elope. According to the story, her beau man never showed, and a brokenhearted Emily commited suicide. The method has changed over time and story teller, some saying she hanged herself from the rafters of the bridge, others saying that she drove off the bridge in her carriage and others still saying that she flung herself from the bridge.

One thing that remains consistent are the experiences. Visitors have reported long scratch marks appearing on their vehicles, hearing footsteps and spotting a white apparition. Some pedestrians have even reported experiencing scratches along their skin. The most common thing among these witnesses? They apparitions and disembodied footsteps seem to be experienced by all types, but the scratches always seem to be inflicted upon men. Maybe Emily is still blaming her lover after all these years. Or maybe, her lover did show up on the bridge that day and Emily didn’t kill herself at all. We’ll likely never know.

University of Vermont - Burlington, Vermont

Established in 1791, the University of Vermont was the fifth university founded across New England. The school welcomes thousands of new students every year, but according to legend it seems like many of them never actually leave.

Over the years, many homes were bought and absorbed into the campus. One of these homes is now the Counseling Centre. Once owned by Captain John Nabb, the building still seems to house his spirit. Staff of the Counselling Centre say that he is still there and makes himself known by knocking over buckets and slamming doors and windows. The nearby Public Relations building is also said to be haunted by its former resident John E Booth who is said to make various banging noises all over the building. But it doesn’t end there. The most haunted house on the campus is said to be The Bittersweet House where many people have reported seeing full body apparitions. It is believed that one of the ghosts there is Margaret Smith who was widowed at a young age and spent the rest of her life as a recluse until she died in the house in 1961.

Not all of the ghosts at the University of Vermont are former residents, there is reported to be a far more tragic spirit in the Converse Residence Hall. A young med student called Henry is reported to have committed suicide in the building in 1920 and many say he is still there, manifesting himself in the form of poltergeist activity.

With all of these separately haunted buildings on campus, I would say this makes the university of Vermont the most haunted place to visit in Vermont and probably a paranormal investigators dream!

New Hampshire

The Mount Washington Hotel - Bretton Woods, New Hampshire

The Mount Washington Hotel was built by Joseph Stickney from 1900 to 1902 and for a time was the largest wood structure in New England. Sadly, Stickney wouldn’t get to spend much time in his hotel as he died a year after completion, but surprisingly he is not who is reported to haunt the place. Instead the hotel is allegedly haunted by his widow Carolyn.

Soon after the death of Carolyn in 1936, hotel staff began seeing strange things around the hotel. Reports were made of her descending the stairs for dinner, as well as lights inexplicably turning on and off all over the hotel. Photographs have also been taken by the staff with the shadowy figure of an elegant lady looking through the windows or standing behind them. Carolyn’s old room, number 314, is reported to be the most haunted room in the hotel. This isn’t at all surprising considering some of her furniture including her four-poster bed is still in use in the room.

The Chase House - Portsmouth, New Hampshire

The Chase House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire was built as a home for orphaned children. As you can probably guess, it has some spooky tales to tell regarding the ghosts of little orphans some may be more gruesome than you’d expect. The most reported ghost to haunt the premises isn;t the result of a tragic illness or accident but of a poor young girl who hanged herself in her bedroom. Her apparition is seen wandering the hall and in her old room and there have also been reports of disembodied screams from within the room. Doors in the building have also been known to lock or unlock on there own and the electricity allegedly turns on and off as well.

Massachusetts

Danvers State Hospital - Danvers, Massachusetts

The Danvers State Hospital opened in 1878 as the Danvers State insane Asylum. The impressive Gothic architecture shapes the building like a bat with expanded wings and makes for a sufficiently eerie exterior. Underground tunnels weave beneath the building to up the creep factor of the interior as well. But what’s really scary here is the history. Typical of asylums for the period, Danvers housed more patients than they should have causing poor treatment and overcrowding. Historians belief that Danvers may have been the birthplace of the prefrontal lobotomy. Unfortunately that’s not where the mistreatment of patients ends. There was a distinct lack of adequate care and treatment with those actually receiving any sort of treatment being subjected to brutal methods such as shock therapies, drugs and straitjackets from the staff as well as your more average human violence like beatings and rape from inmates and staff alike.

The hospital was closed in 1985 and was left completely abandoned. People interested in the paranormal would try to enter the building but with no success. As of 2005 you can now live on the property in renovated or completely new apartments and condos. That being said there are still graveyards for patients. if you walk down a hill you will come across many markers, most of them remain nameless. Hopefully the rent is cheap?

Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast - Fall River, Massachusetts

“Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.” So goes the catchy rhyme that anyone from New England is sure to have memorized. Whether or not Lizzie actually killed her parents is a matter that is still debated today, but you can stay in the very house where the couple met their gruesome fate. The Lizzie Borden house is now a bed and breakfast and museum and is also said to be very much haunted.

Guests lucky enough to snag a reservations at this constantly booked up B&B can sleep in John V. Morse room, where Lizzie’s mother was murdered. Downstairs visitors can see the couch where her father died. Overnight guests get an extensive tour that lasts about an hour and half of the house including the basement and a full of history and the murder case. To those who don’t want to sleep in the room where someone was ax murdered, the museum also offers a 50 minute tours visitors.

Those who have decided to stay the night have reported hearing a woman crying, heard unexplained noises and have even woken up with scratches all over their bodies. Also frequently reported are the apparitions of Lizzie herself as well as the murdered John and Abby wandering the home.

Hawthorne Hotel - Salem, Massachusetts

The Hawthorne Hotel in Salem, Massachusetts has been ranked as one of the top 10 haunted hotels in the United States. It was also recently investigated by The Atlantic Paranormal Society, better known as TAPS or The Ghost Hunters.

Since its opening 1925, the Hawthorne has collected numerous ghosts. Witnesses have reported hearing what sounds like a child crying incessantly when there are no children around. Guests in room 325 have felt the sensation of someone’s hand touching theirs when no one is there.

The ghostly figure of a woman is also known to wander the 6th floor hallway. Others claim to have seen the woman enter different rooms as well and more still report a feeling of unease on the entire 6th floor and a restless presence that appears to pace the room according to guests who have stayed in Suite 612 of the hotel. Other guests in 612 that have not seen the pacing spirit report to hear footsteps in the room as though someone is pacing back and forth.

A more comedic report, at least to me, is from a guest who claimed someone had managed to get into his room when he heard the sink running and the toilet flush in his bathroom. After being shown there was no way anyone could get into his bathroom the man was resigned to the notion it was a ghost, and he was ok with that notion. I don;t know if I would be ok with that notion but to each their own. It is Salem after all and though this building is relatively young, the history of the city cannot be overlooked.

Connecticut

The Sterling Opera House - Derby, Connecticut

Built in 1889, The Sterling Opera House in Derby, CT is said to be one of the most haunted places in New England. The hauntingly beautiful Opera House remained open until 1945 and served as host to a slew of famous performers such as Bob Hope and Harry Houdini. Today, all that are left to perform or attend are the spirits.

There have been a number of paranormal investigations in the opera house over the years and the evidence gathered during them has included children talking or singing, shadowy spectors, light anomalies and the sudden appearance of child-sized handprints. Although most of the activity seems to center around children, some say that the building is also haunted by the spirit of Charles Sterling who the building was named for.

Dudleytown - Cornwall, Connecticut

Unlike some of the other hotspots on our list, this haunting consumed an entire town! Dudleytown was a village that was once said to be under a terrible curse. The Village was founded in 1738 by The Dudley Family who is the one who were the victims of the apparent cursed. You would think the curse would have ended when all of the Dudleys died soon after settling in Dudleytown, but it is said that the curse went on to infect the rest of the village. After the last Dudley died, the population of the town began to rapidly decrease with death... and it wasn’t a plague or sickness.

No, the deaths were violent in nature. Accidents and suicides wreaked havoc as well as a higher than average number of cases of insanity. The village was completely abandoned in the 1800s and now all that remains are the foundations and some stone ruins. Though access is rarely granted to the remains of this village by its current owners, guests to the ruins report that many of the former residents are still there in the form of ghosts. Many say that when entering the village there is a strong sense of dread. Some have seen orbs of light and unexplained shadow figures in the area.

To add to the strangeness, all visitors seem to notice the same unsettling thing. Though this is an area of overgrown forest, there are no birds or animals to be seen or heard. I think that’s enough warning for me to stay out!

Rhode Island

We’ve already visited my home state of RI on our haunted location hunt this week but here are two bonus locations for our tour of New England!

The Breakers Mansion - Newport, Rhode Island

The Breakers is one of the most popular tourist attractions and wedding venues on Aquidneck Island, but it has a haunted history. This mansion was originally the summer home of Cornelius Vanderbilt II, who was a member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family. It is said that Vanderbilt’s wife, Alice, was known to roam throughout the building, even after her death in 1934. Her spirit has been seen on multiple levels of the house in fine dresses from the golden age. other witnesses have reported the feeling of being watched or followed by something they couldn’t see.

The family currently living there says that Alice is a near constant presence but they will not allow any ghost tours or investigators because they believe she has a right to her own home and they don’t want to disturb her.

Seaview Terrace - Newport, Rhode Island

Closing out our list is the Seaview Terrace in Newport, Rhode Island. Also known as the Carey Mansion, Seaview Terrace is located on Ruggles Avenue in Newport, RI. This historical landmark dating back to 1907 and was a filming location for the gothic horror TV show, Dark Shadows. But it doesn’t just look creepy, the mansion is said to be one of Rhode Island's most haunted locations. Many believe the hauntings that take place here are attributed to whiskey magnate Edson Bradley and his wife Julia. Witnesses have reported apparitions, strange sounds, temperature drops, disembodied footsteps and the sound of a broken organ playing on its own. These odd happenings earned the mansion its own episode of Ghost Hunters.

Though several ghosts are thought to remain in the mansion, the most prominent spirit said to haunt the property is the original owner’s wife Julia Bradley.

Julia loved her home and had no desire to leave it. When Edson wanted to move to from Washington DC to Newport, they had the entire mansion disassembled and rebuilt in Rhode Island, a process that took nearly two years to complete. Julia passed away only a few years later and it seems she still doesn’t want to leave. Her ghost is often seen playing her favorite Estey organ.

One year after Julia’s death, the mansion became an exclusive all-girl summer boarding school, renamed Burnham-by-the-Sea where incidences of smoke detectors going off for no reason, bottles flying off desks and radios turning on and off by themselves were often reported. Others have experienced various strange noises like phantom footsteps, disembodied voices, banging, and even shadows jiggling door handles.

[blackbloodunderthemoonlight]

31 Days of Halloween - Low Budget Horror 🎃  - 3/31

Session 9 (2001) dir. Brad Anderson

A tale of terror when a group of asbestos removal workers start work in an abandoned insane asylum. The complex of buildings looms up out of the woods like a dormant beast. Grand, imposing… abandoned, deteriorating. The residents of Danvers, Massachusetts steer well clear of the place. But Danvers State Mental Hospital, closed down for 15 years, is about to receive five new visitors…

RT & IMDb

[oddthingsiveseen]

[OTIS PODCAST] Episode 24: Running [to] the Asylum

My obsession with Danvers State Hospital (aka Danvers Insane Asylum) started with the horror movie Session 9 back in 2001, which was filmed inside the then 120-year-old abandoned asylum. Over the next two decades, I visited the site, found the asylum cemetery, watched Session 9 on the site where it was filmed, and, just a few months ago, returned to find the second asylum cemetery. This is the whole story... (listen now)

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[plastiicparasite]

headcanon 001.

This isn’t so much original ideas, but organization of the information provided by the show.

Steve’s “Haunting of” series includes the following 10 titles (and what they’re likely about):

“The Haunting of Hill House” - The story of the Crain Family in the notoriously haunted Hill House in Massachusetts. 

“The Haunting of Danvers” - Danvers State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital, in Massachusetts with your typical use of inhumane medical treatments: lobotomies, shock therapy, straitjackets...

“The Haunting of Fairfield Hills” - Psychiatric hospital in Newton, Connecticut. Of course, its treatments included hydrotherapy, shock therapy, and frontal lobotomies and it was eventually closed due to deinstitutionalization. 

“The Haunting of Williamsburg” - On one of America’s oldest and most historical towns found in Virginia, it covers colonial ghost stories originating from the 18th century that are still experienced today. 

“The Haunting of Queen Mary” - The RMS Queen Mary is a British ocean liner that took part in WWII. It is docked in Long Beach, California, and is a well known haunted attraction. 

“The Haunting of Battery Point” - A charming lighthouse in California turned museum is still plagued by the supernatural.

“The Haunting of Ranchos Los Amigos” - Full title: Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center or the “Downey Insane Asylum.” Located in Downey, California, it was once a “poor farm” that took in the impoverished and mentally ill, eventually developing into a community. The supernatural presence is attributed to the numerous bodies buried there.

“The Haunting of Rockhaven Sanitarium” - Yet another location in California, it follows the story of a small, independent psychiatric hospital for mentally ill women whose founder wanted change after witnessing the abhorrent mistreatment of patients. 

“The Haunting of Mendocino Hotel” - Historical hotel in California, associated with spookiness.

“The Haunting of Alcatraz” - Alcatraz Island, featuring a historical federal prison in beautiful San Francisco.

The first book of “The Haunting” series was “The Haunting of Hill House” which earned Steve his fame and success. I believe that “The Haunting of Alcatraz” is his most recent, given the book-signing scene with Nell! I believe the general order of his novels follow as Steve travels along the east coast from Massachusetts to Connecticut to Virginia. Once he moves to California with his wife, 6 years before the show’s timeline, he focuses entirely on California content. 

NOTE: I did a little research on all of these locations but will need to look at them more in depth! I personally think I’d have liked to read his Danvers novel, haha. 

[flashnewsita-blog]

Il MISTERO dietro questa FOTO vi farà gelare il sangue..

[loretranscripts]

Lore Episode 6: Echoes (Transcript) - 18th May 2015

tw: mental illness, abuse, rape, death, mistreatment of mentally ill people, lobotomies, body horror, medical procedures, ableist language - generally, be very careful with this one

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

The setting of a story is everything – it creates mood and atmosphere, it triggers memories, and helps our minds fill in the blanks, adding tension and suspense where there was only words and images. What would The Shining be like without the long hotel hallways of the Overlook, or The Legend of Hell House without the dusty bones of the old Belasco House, and how can anybody ever look at an old cabin in the woods without a chill running down their spine? Not me, that’s for sure. One of the most iconic and most visceral settings from any horror story, without a question, has always been the insane asylum. These days we refer to the institutions that treat mental disorders as psychiatric hospitals. They’re hard places to work – I know this first hand thanks to a colourful college internship that featured a double amputee who enjoyed streaking down the hallway on his knees. Mental health professionals do amazing work, but a lot more than just the name has changed than the name of these hospitals of the mind. In the late 1800s and through to the 1850s, asylums were a very different place. They were filled with sick people in need of help, but frequently they were only offered pain and suffering. When H. P. Lovecraft wrote The Thing on the Doorstep in 1933, he imagined a place that he called “Arkhum Sanitarium”. Arkhum is the seed, it’s the first of its kind; through it, Lovecraft brought the asylum into the horror genre, and others quickly caught on. The famous super-prison and mental hospital of the Batman universe, “Arkhum Asylum”, is a blatant and direct call-back to Lovecraft’s invention. Arkhum was a real place, though, known as the Danvers State Hospital. In fact, the remains of it stand just 8 miles from my front door, and even before construction began in 1874, the hospital’s story was already one of fear and suffering, a theme that continued unchecked well into the 20thcentury. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and the is Lore.

Before the days of institutional care for the mentally ill, the job was left largely to independent contractors – people who were hired by the state to look after others, but that was a system with far too many opportunities for failure. Patients were routinely placed in cages or stalls, and they were chained and beaten into submission. Violence, rape and death were everyday occurrences. Thankfully, people began to look for a better way, a more humane way of caring for these individuals, and those conversations led to the establishment of a new, state-of-the-art mental hospital. Plans started off on the wrong foot, though. The site that was chosen for the construction was the former homestead of John Hathorne, one of the nine magistrates who oversaw the witch trials of Salem in 1692. Hawthorne was known for his vicious, harsh attitude towards those who were accused of witchcraft, and he pushed hard for their execution. He was so well-known for his violent and hateful personality that his great-great-grandson, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, changed the spelling of his last name, adding the “w”, to distance himself from that reputation. And it was there, on Hathorne Hill, that the foundations of the hospital were laid. The chances are pretty high that no one made the comparisons at the time, but hindsight is always 20/20, and looking back over the last century and a half, it’s clear that Hathorne’s legacy lived on atop that hill.

The Danvers State Hospital was actually intended to be a beacon of hope. There was a specific plan behind its design, one that was based on the work of Dr. Thomas Kirkbride. He designed the building with four radiating wings on each side of a central structure. His reason was simple: with more of the rooms exposed to sunlight and proper ventilation, more of the patients would experience recovery. All told, the hospital was designed to house 500 patients, covering a wide spectrum of mental illness, who were served by a team of roughly one dozen staff. When the doors finally opened in 1878, it was originally called the State Lunatic Hospital, and there was no other place like it in the country. It was set up to be a leader in the humane treatment of patients, and became the model for countless other facilities like it, and rightly so - this place was amazing. The ornate interiors, private rooms, sunny corridors, all connected to the central Kirkbride building. The patients were encouraged to exercise and participate in the community gardens outside. The small farm there even produced enough food for the hospital kitchen to feed the patients home-grown meals. Over time, though, the hospital expanded. There were separate Tuberculosis buildings, housing for staff, a machine shop, a medical building, and a pump house to pull water from the reservoir. All of these locations were connected underground by a network of dark, brick-lined tunnels, arranged in the shape of a wagon wheel to allow easy movement during the harsh New England winters. Bur the hospital campus wasn’t the only thing that was expanding.

As with all good things, the bright days of the Danvers State Hospital didn’t last long. More and more patients were admitted each year, and the staff continued to struggle with keeping up. In addition, decreased state funding prevented them from hiring more help. By the 1920s, the population had grown to almost 2000 patients, four times what the facility was designed to hold. One eyewitness reported that in November of 1945, the evening shift at the hospital consisted of nine people, and they were expected to care for the needs of nearly 2300 patients. You’ll have to pardon the expression, but things at the Danvers State Hospital had begun to get crazy. Patients were frequently sick and filthy. It was not uncommon for some to die unnoticed, only to be found days later. It was nearly impossible for the staff to manage so many patients, and so they turned to the acceptable tools of their time: straight jackets, solitary confinement, even restraints. However barbaric they may seem to us today, were mild compared to some of the other methods used by the staff. Patients were regularly subjected to hydrotherapy and electro-shock therapy, and yet it somehow still managed to get worse, and that’s where the lobotomy enters this story.

First pioneered by Dr. Walter Freeman in 1936, the lobotomy was a complicated procedure. The surgeon would literally cut the patient’s brain, severing the connection between the frontal lobes and the thalamus. The goal was to reduce symptoms and make patients more manageable. The results were mixed. Some patients died as a result of the procedure, while others would commit suicide later. Freeman, though, quickly grew tired of how long it took to complete the procedure. He heard of a doctor in Italy who had operated on his patients through their eye sockets. Working without drilling or cutting presented an opportunity that Freeman simply couldn’t pass up. He called his technique the “transorbital lobotomy”. It’s fairly easy to describe, but its not for the faint of heart. Freeman discovered that the only surgical tool he really needed was an ice-pick. According to his son, Franklin Freeman, in a PBS interview in 2008, those first ice-picks came right out of their kitchen icebox, and they worked like a charm. By inserting the ice-pick into the inner corner of a patient’s eye, Freeman could punch through the skull to reach the brain. Then he would essentially, um, stir the frontal lobe until it was no longer functional. Oh, and one more thing: he did all of this without anaesthetic.

And he got good at it, so good, in fact, that he took his show on the road. He literally toured the nation in a van that he called the “lobotomobile”, stopping at mental institutions, where he would educate and train the staff in his own technique. While he was there, he would perform as many lobotomies as they needed for the low, low cost of just $25 per patient. It sounds like Freeman was delivering the solution to a desperate industry, but that was pretty far from the truth. His patients often lost the ability to feed themselves or use the bathroom unassisted, and those skills would have to be retaught, if it was even possible. While many patients recovered, about 15% died from the procedure. Relapses were common, and sometimes the lobotomy would have to be reattempted. Once, in 1951, at Iowa’s Cherokee Mental Health Institute, Freeman stopped in the middle of a lobotomy, ice-pick clutched in his hand, so that he could pose for a photograph. The instrument penetrated a bit too far and the patient died. He never wore gloves or a mask, and he apparently had no limits. In fact, of the 3500 lobotomies that he performed in 23 states, 19 of those patients were minors - one of them, a four-year-old child. Ironically, some people still don’t believe in monsters.

The horror of institutional lobotomy ended in 1954 when a new drug was brought to the market. Thorazine was marketed as a chemical lobotomy, and the need for the surgical procedure dropped dramatically. But the nightmare never really stopped at Danvers State Hospital. During the 1980s, reports began to filter out about missing teenage patients. One account I managed to find said that upwards of 115 patients had disappeared in the space of about three months. The hospital never spoke about it publicly because their closure was already looming on the horizon. They knew that it was happening. When the staff was questioned they all pointed toward a new doctor on staff. In each case, they said these patients had been assigned to this new doctor upon admission, and then vanished. Scraps of paper were found in several of the patients’ rooms that mentioned a tall man in the woods. Some were drawings of the man, and some were simply too illegible to make out at all. As the pieces were slowly put together, it became clear that this doctor had been taking patients outside of the building, without permission, for unknown reasons. Eventually the police were called, and when they arrived to take the man into custody, they found that he, too, was gone, and his patients were never found.

But this was just one more tragedy in a long string of bad news that had wrapped itself around the Danvers State Hospital, beginning in the 1960s. Massive budget cuts, building closings and structural damage had all conspired to slowly push the doors closed. By 1985, nearly every building on campus was abandoned, and the Kirkbride administrative building itself even closed in 1989. The last remaining patients were moved to the medical building onsite, but were all eventually moved to other facilities with the help of the national guard and 80 ambulances. The hospital was officially abandoned in the summer of 1992, and stood vacant and derelict for nearly a decade. The rooms that once played host to mindless victims of Dr. Freeman and his ice-pick became the home of homeless squatters. They built their lives around the decaying medical equipment, the wheelchairs, the bedframes… It’s probably the healthiest inmate population the building had known for decades. In 2005, the property was bought by a developer, and much of the campus was demolished to make way for a sprawling apartment complex. But they left the front façade of the Kirkbride building, with its soaring Gothic towers and intricate brickwork. But the hospital, it didn’t go quietly. In April of 2007, four of the apartment buildings, as well as a handful of construction trailers, mysteriously burnt down. It was a fire so big that it was visible from Boston, 17 miles to the south. There was an investigation, but it turned up no evidence other than webcam footage from the construction site, which inexplicably cut out just before the fire began.

The image of an asylum will forever hold a place in our hearts as something to be feared and avoided. Whether new and sunny, or ancient and decaying, the asylum is a setting that causes people to back away, a ball of terror rising in their stomachs. But why? On a rational level, these were places of hope for many people. Still, the very concept of a residential hospital for the mentally ill, complete with 19th century décor and equipment, is the stuff of nightmares. Perhaps what we really fear is losing control over ourselves. Restraints, locked rooms, medication and irreversible medical procedures represent for many of us the opposite of freedom. We fear losing our dignity, losing our well-being, losing our very minds. Death, however, is chasing all of us. The curse of mortality is that we are already handing those things over, day by day, until the time when there’s nothing left to give. Perhaps the stereotypical asylum simply reminds us of the inevitable truth that is our own death.

The Danvers State Hospital is nearly gone today, but reminders still linger of its presence. Besides the brick façade of the Kirkbride building, one of the roads there is even called “Kirkbride Drive”. The reservoir that provided the facility with its water can be found behind the apartment buildings, and that vast network of ancient tunnels is still there as well, snaking its way beneath the modern structures, and the people who live inside them. One final reminder awaits people who come for a visit, though. The old asylum cemetery. Its where the staff buried patients who died and went unclaimed by family. There are no tall tombstones, though. Instead, each grave is marked by a small, square stone with a number engraved on it, and there are hundreds of them. Anyone looking for the cemetery will know that they’ve found it when they see a large boulder that marks the entrance. It was placed there in recent past to explain why all those small, square stones are there. But it’s the message engraved on it, and not the grave markers themselves, that communicates everything we need to know. It simply reads: “The echoes they left behind”.

Lore is a biweekly podcast and was produced by me, Aaron Mahnke. You can find out more about this episode, including the background music, at lorepodcast.com, and be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook at lorepodcast. Your ratings and reviews on ITunes make all the difference for this show, so please take a moment today to fill one out. You can find links to help you do that at lorepodcast.com/support. Oh, and if you enjoy scary stories, I happen to write them. You can find a full list of my supernatural thrillers, available in paperback and ebook formats, at aaronmahnke.com/novels. Thanks for listening.

Notes

1. I just wanted to note that the story of “the tall man in the woods” is in fact inaccurate, and based on an edit someone made to the Wikipedia page on Danvers State Hospital, which was based on a creepy pasta they had written. It was only up for a week, but that happened to be the week during which Aaron was researching.

[myhauntedsalem]

New Hampshire State Hospital Concord, New Hampshire

New Hampshire State Hospital in Concord was originally known as the decidedly more creepy name ‘New Hampshire Asylum for the Insane’ when it first opened and it has a very similar history to some of the other asylums in New England, such as Danvers State Hospital in Massachusetts.

In short, the conditions hear were brutal and patients were neglected, abused, tortured and even experimented on.

Like so many asylums of the time, New Hampshire State Hospital was closed down amidst allegations about the lack of care given to patients. However, not before this pain and suffering left a permanent scar on the building!

Although the hospital now lies abandoned it is certainly not empty…

Those who have come to visit report hearing phantom footsteps and disembodied screams.

They have encountered cold spots and seen objects pushed off of tables or shelves by unseen hands.

The elevators have also started working all on their own and anyone who visits says that they feel a constant feeling that someone is watching them very closely.

It is not at all surprising that this old asylum is one of the most haunted places in New Hampshire.

[rschmidth]

Download Danvers State Hospital BY Katherine Anderson

Danvers State Hospital - Katherine Anderson

READ & DOWNLOAD Katherine Anderson book Danvers State Hospital in PDF, EPub, Mobi, Kindle online. Free book, AudioBook, Reender Book Danvers State Hospital by Katherine Anderson full book,full ebook full Download.

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DESCRIPTION BOOK : Perched high on the top of Hathorne Hill in what was once the village of Salem, Danvers State Insane Asylum was, for more than a century, a monument to modern psychiatry and the myriad advances in mental health treatment. From the time it opened its doors in 1878 until they were shuttered for good in 1992, the asylum represented decades of reform, the physical embodiment of the heroic visions of Dorothea Dix and Thomas Story Kirkbride. It would stand abandoned until 2005, when demolition began. Along with a dedicated group of private citizens, the Danvers Historical Society fought to preserve the Kirkbride structure, an effort that would result in the reuse of the administration building and two additional wings. Danvers has earned a unique place in history; the shell of the original Kirkbride building still stands overlooking the town. Though it has been changed drastically, the asylum?s story continues as do efforts to memorialize it.

 DETAIL BOOK :

Author : Katherine Anderson

Pages : 128 pages

Publisher : Arcadia Publishing

Language : eng

ISBN-10 : 1467127663

ISBN-13 : 9781467127660

 Supporting format: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, MOBI, HTML, RTF, TXT, etc.

Supporting : PC, Android, Apple, Ipad, Iphone, etc.

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[unchsl]

The Letters of Dorothea Dix

Dorothea Dix (1802-1887) was a 19th century political activist involved in the reform of mental asylums.  Though institutions already existed in the US at the time, Dix realized the need for change in the treatment of those deemed “insane”--especially as 19th century views of mental health considered certain mental disorders and conditions to be incurable.  Dorothea Dix raised awareness about the need for humane treatment of the mentally ill, and was also responsible for a campaign that funded state mental hospitals across the United States.

A prolific letter writer, Dix’s correspondences helped to change patient care practices in mental institutions.  One of her letters--[Letter] July 26, 1879, Danvers [Mass.] [to] Mrs. Lowell, Albany D.L. Dix--can be found in UNC Health Sciences Library Special Collections.  Though Dix wrote on  a number of issues related to institutional reform, this particular letter details the steps necessary to establish a “...reformatory for unfortunate, degraded women.”

[thedeviantsrp-blog]

Congratulations Jules! We are so excited to have you apply for another character at Deviants! Your application for Spirit looks awesome and we cannot wait to see her FC of Emeraude Toubia as Ophelia Rae Graves come to life on the dash! You know what to do: please follow the checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! 

OOC Information

Name: Jules Age: 25 Preferred Pronouns:She/Hers Timezone: Central Time Zone Any Triggers: RFP Level of Activity: Alot more than recent,i promise!   Anything Else?: I love the color orange, cause it makes me think of Halloween and October and that’s my favorite Holiday/month cause it makes me feel the most happy.

IC Information

Character’s Given Codename: Spirit Real Name: Ophelia Rae Graves Faceclaim: emeraude toubia or shelley henning Age: 29 Hometown: Salem, Ma Previous Occupation: Writer/WWE Interviewer Ability: Necromancy Description: Ophelia Rae Graves was already doomed to deal with death and decay since the day she was born to a mentally ill mother in a insane asylum that made Danver’s State Hospital look like a wonderful place to be. Ophelia spent her first three years of life, there witnessing death more often than life although eventually she would be whisked away from it all. On the day before her fourth birthday she was suddenly taken from her mother, and told she was being adopted by a lovely couple who wanted a kid. The couple were the Graves, an they showed her love that she never would have gotten from her mother or people in the mental asylum in any way. They lived in Salem, so yet again Ophelia was raised around death, ghost, and all things spooky an as she grew up she learned to love it. Of course also during this time she totally forgot about her mother, and being raised in the asylum for a short time. And her new parents planned to keep it that way, never mentioning her mother or the place they took her from again.

So Ophelia spent the next couple years of her childhood being a actual child, playing pretend and enjoying living in spooky Salem. It did take her awhile to become outgoing, but once she did the girl had plenty of friends and was always out doing something. Of course this sent her down a slightly dark path, Ophelia always felt like something was missing and when she talked to her parents about it they said she was crazy. So she turned to drinking, drugs and partying like it was 1999 to take away the pain and the feeling like something was missing from her life. This eventually caught up to her, and during the summer before she was going into highschool during a drunken binge one night she stumbled out into oncoming traffic. Ophelia later learned when she woke up that she had walked out into traffic was hit by a car, and flew several feet hitting a pole… technically she should be dead. The event changed her, and she spent the rest of the summer in rehab getting over her addictions but she fed a new one while in there. See while she was in the hospital barely hanging on for life, she died for a few seconds and actually saw her body on the operating table.  It created a monster so to speak, and during Ophelia’s whole time she dug up anything she could find on ghosts, life after death, near death experiences you name it.

This didn’t slow down in high school either, while she kept up good grades an joined the school newspaper an soccer she would spend most of her time checking out haunted places. All she wanted was to actually speak to a ghost ,  learn about the afterlife but she always came up short either she would debunk the noise she heard or it was local kids just playing around. She graduated an soon got a job as a writer/interviewer for one of her more normal hobbies wrestling well to be more accurate WWE. This kept her pretty busy an consumed most of her time, and soon she was traveling all over the world with WWE totally leaving her odd addiction to the wayside. Then it happened a month after her 29th birthday her parents died in some freak accident , and she was heartbroken then angry when she learned the truth. That they weren’t her real parents , and that her real mother had probably died in the insane asylum she was born in. Taking a few weeks off work, she tracked down the old asylum and went to find the files about her mother and herself. Breaking in she nearly made it to the files area, when suddenly she fell through a decayed spot in the floor and when she looked up she saw it… the black shadowy mass that was moving towards her. She blinked thinking her eyes were playing tricks on her, till she heard screaming an suddenly the black mass was gone an nurse who had to be from a different time was standing over her.  "You should be more careful , he likes to hurt young girls like you.” The ghost whispered to her, before disappearing right in front of her eyes.

Ophelia would have been normally freaking out, and at first she thought that she had hit her head to hard. But when another spirit appeared in front of her, saying she remembered playing with her Ophelia realized what was really going on. Scrambling out of the place she never did find the files, but she went an visited so called haunted places around Salem before she had to leave back to work. The voices of the dead were so loud , she had to go and lock herself in her car a few miles outside of Salem to calm down. That’s when she realized she had to do something, so she made her way to a place she had heard rumors about; STAR. Hoping that they could help her, and maybe find that missing piece she was still yearning for. 

Ethos: Ophelia is very caring, and will take care of anyone before taking care of herself. She is also a very good listener which comes from doing her former job for so long.

Even though she used to be  outgoing, that isn’t the case anymore she doesn’t talk much about her life or her past she keeps it guarded. She also keeps hidden the fact, that she is using drugs to keep the voices at bay sometimes. She keeps a lot of secrets because that’s what has been done to her.

[essayprof]

The history of Danvers State Insane Asylum Hospital Asylums and what treatment practices and what type of client they served. How many years of operations were they

The history of Danvers State Insane Asylum Hospital Asylums and what treatment practices and what type of client they served. How many years of operations were they

The history of Danvers State Insane Asylum Hospital Asylums and what treatment practices and what type of client they served. How many years of operations were they

The history of Buffalo State Hospital Asylums and what treatment practices and what type of client they served. How many years of operations were they in? 2. The history of Danvers State Insane Asylum Hospital Asylums and what…

[oddthingsiveseen]

[OTIS VISIT] "There is Another": Danvers Asylum Cemetery 2

I've taken you to the condo'd remains of Danvers State Hospital (aka, Danvers Insane Asylum). Shown you the asylum cemetery on the property. Took you with me as I watched a horror movie on the premises that was filmed...on the premises. And then I thought I was done with the place. But a few months back I learned there was another Danvers Asylum cemetery a couple miles from the main property. So I went to find it... (read more)

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