Embark on new adventures with me in this brand new series about the real world in which I live.
Walk, hike, bike, take a motorcycle ride and a road trip, go wine trailing, hit a brewery, come kayaking, jet skiing, walk through woods and cemeteries. Visit the house of Harriet Tubman, see one of the oldest state run asylums, or marvel at the many waterfalls and gorges. Through my words and a lens, see the beauty of the Finger Lakes and other fascinating places in New York and beyond!
From The Window of my Secret Childhood Fort-Episode One of Dreemit's World
A brief history:
source 1 source 2Construction of The Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane began in 1866, the proposal coming from New York State's Surgeon General Dr. Sylvester D. Willard in response to the squalid conditions of Almshouses. It is said that Abraham Lincoln signed off on the proposal himself a mere six days before his death.
The first patient, Mary Rote, arrived at Ovid Landing in 1869. Deformed and demented she’d been chained for ten years without a bed or clothing in a cell at the Colombia County almshouse. Three men arrived later that day, all in irons and one in what looked much like a three and a half square foot chicken crate. The almshouses dealt with difficult patients by flogging, dousing and hanging them by their thumbs. In light of these conditions, the Willard Asylum was a paradise; with regular meals, bathing and clean rooms.
By 1877 it housed more than 1500 patients and was the largest asylum in the whole of the United States.
The name was officially changed to Willard State hospital in 1890,its function to house mental patients from the acute to the chronic. Somewhere around this time came the addition of Hadley Hall which is still standing today (as you will see below), a building created for the sole purpose of recreational activities-home to a movie theater and a small bowling alley.
As pleasant as this all sounds, the common treatments of the time included severe electroshock therapy and ice baths...and there were many whispered stories of abuse, as well as mysterious deaths, and a number of suicides.
But the scariest stories of all were of the patients themselves.
My dad worked at Willard Hospital as a Nurse Administrator for the last five or so years before it was closed down in 1995. During the first week of his employment he came home and told my mom about the patient files he’d read. There was one in particular I overheard and will never, ever forget. It was of a woman who had murdered her son with an ax, chopping him into pieces. In her statement she said the only thing she remembered about the incident was “his eyeballs rolling around on the table”.
Due to this story and others, this asylum is renowned for hauntings and has been placed on lists such as this one:
http://theghostdiaries.com/9-haunted-insane-asylums-you-should-never-spend-the-night-in/
My parent’s home, which appears in my second episode of dreemitsworld
Is roughly three quarters of a mile from the former asylum.
Some of the buildings are still in use but many are abandoned. And of course with abandoned buildings of an insane asylum there are inevitably ghost stories. My friends and I used to bike up through these buildings, and in the bright light of day they never bothered us, but there were evenings, when the sun was going down, where we'd get to the edge of the property and a decidedly eerie feeling would settle over us.
I found several of the older pictures online at:
https://inmatesofwillard.com/
http://theghostdiaries.com/9-haunted-insane-asylums-you-should-never-spend-the-night-in/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/390616967650456508/
All of the photos in color were taken by me, with the exception of the Grandview Basement, the inside of Hadley Hall, and the room with the eerie writing.
Basement of Grandview
And here is where I began my journey through the grounds:
Willard hospital is now a state run correctional facility for non-violent offenders. It offers a six month Boot Camp style rehabilitation.
Willard Asylum: The history and strange encounters
In the next episode of dreemitsworld we will explore the mass burial ground dedicated to the thousands of patients from the Asylum from over the course of a century. (Just over a quarter mile from my parent's house on a small stretch of road with no houses...) So stay tuned!
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