Rehabilitation Building (a portion of which is also known as the 'Rush Building,' and now the headquarters of the Alcohol and Drug [1], Main Image Gallery: Spring Grove State Hospital, Spring Grove Hospital Center Alumni Museum, https://asylumprojects.org/index.php?title=Spring_Grove_State_Hospital&oldid=39468. The Sisters of Charity went on to establish another psychiatric facility, known as the 'Mount Hope Retreat,' which later became the Seton Institute. In view of the fact that a substantial sum of money ($18,000) was appropriated to the hospital in 1799, it seems unlikely that the whole of the new building was completed by the end of 1798. vii). This, in turn, caused the sewage to back up and pool in the stream's bed. May 15, 2022 at 5:11 p.m. EDT. Furthermore, it was not specifically designated to treat psychiatric patients and it was not publicly funded or operated (although it seems that it did accept indigent patients). In 2013, a consultant for the state health department documented serious assaults on hospital staff members at the Spring Grove Hospital Center in Catonsville, and two patients were killed by . In 1813 admission to the City Hospital could be ordered or authorized by the chancellor of an entity known as the 'Chancery Court.' Johns Hopkins, the wealthy Baltimore merchant and investor after whom both the university and the hospital are named, had been involved for two decades in the oversight of the Maryland Hospital for the Insane as a member of its Board of Visitors and as part of his many philanthropic activities. The 'lodges' themselves, two of which are still standing (see In the 1870s, the Hospital experimented with the use of colored lights and walls to treat or aid in the management of certain psychiatric conditions. Between 1908 and 1910 the local newspapers ran a series of stories that shed light on the often squalid conditions that existed in the county-run almshouses of the time. Preserving and promoting Baltimore's historic buildings and neighborhoods. The Among other advantages, the progressive setback arrangement of the components of the building allowed air to flow into each ward of the building through windows on all four sides. (The Pennsylvania Hospital did operate a free-standing affiliated psychiatric institute, the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, which was opened in 1841 and which closed in 1997.). This newer system allowed for greater flexibility in terms of grouping patients by diagnosis and level of functioning, and it also tended to make expansion and future growth easier. Andrew Allferls/Flickr. However, following the acquisition of funds from the sale of the Baltimore property in 1870, full-scale construction activities were resumed. Dr. James Smythe died in 1819, and Dr. Colin Mackenzie in 1827. However, the expansions and other changes did not allow the facility to keep up with demand, and overcrowded conditions continued. In the following year, 1808, the Public Hospital of Baltimore was renamed 'the City Hospital' after a pair of local physicians, Drs. This evidently inflated estimate may have been made in the face of the fact that in 1856 consideration was being given to the possibility of selling the property -- and the Board of Visitors may have been attempting to make it appear that the site was more valuable than it actually was. When the new board took charge, there were 281 patients in the hospital. By all accounts, the lottery was very successful, and at least one historian has noted that a number of the lottery winners donated their winnings back to the State so that they could be applied to the expansion of the hospital. ), as well as an excavation contractor. After World War II, Spring Grove, along with other state hospitals -- not only in Maryland, but across the country -- suffered from chronic overcrowding. It's one of the most beautiful places in Cincinnati and Ohio even if it has a reputation as being one of the most haunted. To view a copy of the 1817 equivalent of a modern patient discharge summary (signed by Drs. Sadly, the "Old Main" was demolished in 1964, and all that's left of the original complex is the Boiler House - the northern section of today's laundry building. The members, together with their President, Dr. R. S. Steuart, were reinstated when the Democratic Party returned to power in Maryland, three years after the war's end. Jointly operated by the City of Houston and Harris County, Jefferson Davis was the first publicly-owned hospital to accept low-income patients however, it only did so for the next 13 years. However, while the Retreat evidently did stand on the same parcel of land as the hospital that replaced it a few years later -- and although it must have been in close proximity to the 1798 hospital building (given the fact that the parcel of land in question wasn't particularly large) -- most historic evidence suggests that the building occupied by the Retreat was probably not the same building that housed the 'new' hospital that was founded by the Maryland Legislature in 1797. Other than A somewhat ironic, and perhaps stigmatizing, passage from report reads: 'Spring Grove is not, and never has been, and may never be, an Asylum for the Insane. Electric lights and a telephone system were added in the 1890s. African-American patients were identified in the records by the notation 'col' or 'colored.' Judges of the various Maryland county circuit courts and the Baltimore City Criminal Court were empowered by law to commit indigent mentally ill individuals to the hospital. To see a summary of the Hospital's 1951 Report to the Governor (includes information about treatments, staffing levels, new construction, and census) click HERE. appropriated $30,000 to make major repairs to the hospital.. However, other reports indicate that many, or even most, patients were kept in 'strict confinement' -- either in individual 'cells' or behind the hospital's high walls. The property, itself, has greatly enhanced in value, and can be sold for more than the land and improvements have cost the State, (from is commencement in 1797,) by which means, the treasury may be protected from the future cost of the completion of the new Asylum, now under construction, by Commissioners, who have that work in hand, and from whom we learn, the work may be regarded as one half completed and capable of full completion in one year, if appropriations are sufficiently large, and made at an early date. The same law also Spring Grove Hospital Center, Department of Psychology 55 Wade Avenue- Tuerk Building Catonsville, MD 21228 (410) 402-7830; Robyn.Davidson@maryland.gov For questions related to the program's accreditation status, please direct your inquiry to the Commission on Accreditation at: Office of Program Consultation and Accreditation In 1877, the following report was made by the Hospital's Board of Managers: 'There is separate care and treatment of the colored insane other than has been provisionally made in this Hospital. Please enable JavaScript in your browser. Few additional details about the Retreat are known. In the two years between 1834 and 1836, the patient population grew to 54 individuals -- 42 psychiatric patients, and 12 general patients. Other sources suggest that the new building may not have been completed until two years later, in 1800. Entrance in 1863. ], Dipsomania [Alcoholism - 48 of the hospital's 138 admissions that year. As noted above, an interesting part of the hospital's history is the fact that, despite its designation as a hospital for the care and treatment of 'lunatics,' a primary impetus to the State's decision to fund the facility in 1798 seems to have been a yellow fever epidemic that led to the death of 1,200 people in Baltimore that same year. However, there is clear evidence that African-American slaves were admitted as patients. The May 19 assaults at Spring Grove were two of the 68 at the hospital from January through June, according to records obtained by The Baltimore Sun under a Maryland Public Information Act. However, it may be of some interest to note that Everett Dayhoff, the man after whom the Dayhoff Building (c. 1961) is named, served as the school's 'Instructor of Bandaging.' While the problems cited in the 'Maryland's Shame' articles existed in all of the state hospitals and custodial institutions (such as facilities for the mentally retarded) the problems seems to be particularly severe at Spring Grove -- in part because approximately a third of its patient population was being cared for and treated in the aging Main Building, a structure that in 1949 was nearly 100 years old and considered by all to be a firetrap. The Board of Managers was abolished and its authority transferred to the new superintendent appointed by the commissioner of Mental Hygiene. In 1901 the women's Sewing Room made 60 Masquerade Suits for a fancy dress ball (Annual Report, 1901). Actual construction of the Main Building began in 1853. Between 1798 and 1807, according to at least one source, Captain Yellott and his associates may have continued to manage the hospital, under an agreement with the City of Baltimore. Also by the middle 1890's a house telephone system was in place. His recommended plan for hospital design called for a monumental 'centre building' (in accordance with the classical tastes of the time). By the middle 1890s, Spring Grove was able to boast of electric lights, the power for which was generated in the Boiler House, now part of today's Laundry Building. In the same tradition, in 1906 a separate building, constructed in back of the Main Building, was opened as a 'Cottage for Colored Women' (see above). He has been called 'the true founder of [the] Spring Grove Asylum' because he was highly instrumental, not only in the selection and purchase of the Spring Grove site, but he also was central to the efforts to secure funds for the construction of the new hospital building. Two years later, in 1840, the connection between the hospital and the Sisters of Charity was severed, following what evidently was a power struggle between the Sisters of Charity and the hospital's resident physicians. The hospital's orchards yielded more than 100 bushels of apples, cherries, pears and peaches every year. 1. Instead, it appears that that structure was built specifically for the purpose in 1798 (see 'Founding of the Hospital,' below). ', According to historic information obtained from Johns Hopkins Hospital, the old buildings of the Maryland Hospital for the Insane at Baltimore were mostly demolished by the time that John Hopkins died, on Christmas Eve, 1873 - although reportedly Mr. Hopkins never saw formal plans for the hospital that would eventually bear his name. Today, the hospital operates 425 beds [1] and has approximately 800 admissions and discharges a year. Today, Spring Grove treats around 300 patients, a fraction of its 1960 population. ), It is perhaps interesting to note that the current 'Spring Grove Hospital' may technically be the third hospital located at the Catonsville site. In 1899 a separate Industrial Shop for men was built behind the Main Building. floor plans of the building, c.1853, indicate that indoor plumbing and 'water closets' (flushing toilets) were part of the original design. Spring Grove Hospital Center, formerly known as Spring Grove State Hospital, is a psychiatric hospitallocated in the Baltimore, Maryland, suburb of Catonsville. The report went on to say that, it was noted that at that time (1836) there were 22 patients that required 'close' (i.e. This facility dates all the way back to 1911, when it opened as the Hospital for the Negro Insane of Maryland. The facility was often referred to in documents from this period as 'The Maryland Hospital for the Insane, at Spring Grove,' 'The Spring Grove Asylum,' or, just as it is today, simply 'Spring Grove. The Main Building's design was based upon the work of Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride, who served the Pennsylvania Hospital as superintendent from 1841-1883. In a report dated January 12, 1870, Dr. R. S. Steuart, the hospital's chief executive officer, summarized the bases of the decision to sell and abandon the Baltimore site and to move all of the hospital's operations to the 'new Hospital' as follows: (Taken from the Forty-First Report of the President and Visitors of the Maryland Hospital for the Insane, Baltimore, for 1868 and 1869). The Hillcrest Building (1921), the To learn more about Spring Grove and its history, visit the Private patients typically paid between three and five dollars a week ($150 and $260 per year) and this helped defray the costs of caring for the public patients. 55 Wade Avenue, Catonsville, Maryland 21228 USA410.402.6000. This house built in 1739 is said to be haunted by two families. (Maryland Hospital for the Insane. Colin Mackenzie and James Smythe, persuaded the Baltimore City Council to lease the hospital to them for a period of 15-years. The State of Maryland pledges to provide constituents, businesses, customers, and stakeholders with friendly and courteous, timely and responsive, accurate and consistent, accessible and convenient, and truthful and transparent services. Service lines include adult and adolescent acute psychiatric admissions, long term inpatient care, medical-psychiatric hospitalization, forensic evaluation services, inpatient psychiatric research, and assisted living services. On October 7, 1872 the Maryland Hospital for the Insane officially relocated from its original site in Baltimore to its current site at Spring Grove. The oldest general hospital in America is the Pennsylvania Hospital, which was founded in Philadelphia in 1751. In 1965 some 400 acres, most of which had been farmland tilled by Spring Grove patients, were transferred from Spring Grove to the University of Maryland to allow for the establishment of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County campus (UMBC). Many of the patients are forensic court ordered with the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene testifying before the General. It has also been noted that Mr. Pratt donated, in addition to his time, several gifts to the Maryland Hospital over the years. Fancy dress balls and 'cake walks' were organized, and records from the period speak of patients going out to shoot partridges for the Superintendent's dinner. According to a 'History of Baltimore, Maryland', published in 1898, the 1794 Retreat was considered to have been 'the first hospital established in Baltimore.' Among his other gifts was a piano. Records indicate that the Catonsville facility was originally intended to house 200-250patients (Acts of 1852), but, by the time of its completion, it was said to have been able to comfortably accommodate a maximum of 325. Although the funds were appropriated by the State, and although ownership of the property rested with the State, the funds were placed in the hands of the Mayor of Baltimore, who, along with Captain Yellott and his associates, had served as member of the committee that selected the site. Not only were there insufficient funds to allow for the completion of the Hospital, there was not enough money to repay debts incurred to pay for some of the work that had already been completed. However, upon closer inspection both the basic structure and the interior were found to have been in 'ruinous' condition by the middle 1830's. Furthermore, any renewal of the lease was subject to the execution of a commitment by Drs. private) confinement, while there were only 18 'cells properly warmed and fitted up for such lunatics as require close confinement.' Tuerk Building (originally known as the 'Nurses' Home' prior to the addition of its east wing.) Before the Civil War, free and enslaved African Americans were also patients here. Timothy Learys got nothing on Baltimore! The north wing was called the "Male Department," and the south wing was called the "Female Department." The . New buildings provided stables and other farm buildings; a laundry; upholstery, shoe, tin, and metal shops; dormitories; and employee housing. In 1814, during the War of 1812, some 234 sick and wounded soldiers were taken to the hospital from the battles that occurred around Baltimore, including the Battle of North Point. (By some accounts the old Maryland Hospital buildings, or at least certain parts of them, were temporarily used to house the Johns Hopkins Hospital until the new buildings at the site could be finished. It should be noted that some of the patients at Spring Grove during the first half of the twentieth century did not suffer from what would necessarily be considered mental illnesses today. In addition, yellow fever patients were treated at the hospital during the several epidemics that occurred between 1798 and 1819. In response to the identified need for more and better treatment for psychiatrically ill African Americans in Maryland, and because of the racist beliefs of the time, a new state hospital, intended exclusively for African-American patients was founded in Crownsville, Maryland in 1910. Read more 0 Evidently, the agreement was that the Inebriate Asylum could operate in the completed north wing of the Spring Grove site until the rest of the building could be completed and the psychiatric patients from the Maryland Hospital for the Insane at Baltimore could be transferred to into it. (One other source places the cost at, or around, $140,000.) The For example, he served as one of a series of principal architects who were responsible for the design of the (The lease was later extended.) In the 1890s, that meant locating the new hospital farther away from the City of Baltimore than relatively nearby Catonsville. The center section and the east wing of the building were completed and occupied first (July 5, 1920); the west wing wasn't added until 1926. (This represented more than a four-fold increase in the size of its acreage when compared to its original size of 136 acres. Dayhoff Building (originally known as the 'Active Treatment Building,' for males) was built in 1961; the The farm, which was purchased for $12,226, was known as 'Sunnyside.' The first three Preston Complex buildings (Hill, Mitchell, and Sullivan) had been built a year or so earlier in anticipation of the demolition of the Main Building, and many of the remaining patients in the Main Building were moved to the Preston Complex (and other buildings on campus) during 1962 and 1963. Although today it is difficult for some of us to understand why the historic significance and architectural merit of the Main Building didn't save it from the wrecking ball back in 1963, the fact is that, in 1963, the building was structurally unsound, was justifiably considered to have been a "firetrap," and was felt to have been beyond reasonable repair. The Saratoga County Homestead sits idly on a hill in the tranquil yet remote hamlet of Barkersville, New York, some fifteen miles outside of Saratoga Springs. The Hospital then reformed in 1973 as Spring Grove Hospital Center (Chapter 740, Acts of 1973). In any case, the arrangement for gratuitous physician coverage lasted only about one year. In addition, several buildings that were built at the site a matter of only several years after the Main Building opened are still extant. The lights have been attached to the present gas fixtures, with the addition of some new fixtures. The hospital is now officially known as Spring Grove Hospital Center (renamed in 1973) and under the governance of the Mental Hygiene Administration, the facility operates 330 beds and provides advanced inpatient psychiatric services to approximately 1000 patients every year. In 1838 the hospital was again renamed, this time to 'The Maryland Hospital for the Insane,' one year before the General Assembly passed legislation that specified that the Maryland Hospital was only to accept psychiatric patients. At the time, most of Maryland's seriously mentally ill, as well as those persons who were referred to as 'inebriates' (alcoholics) or as being 'feeble-minded' (mentally retarded), were kept in local jails and almshouses -- if they were poor or indigent, or were not able to be cared for at home. It held 362 patients by 1880, and 461 by 1893. However, it is most probably a newly-built building that was constructed in 1798 and opened that same year to house what would eventually become 'Spring Grove Hospital Center.'. We travel to different venues and event spaces to host parties and private functions. The building and grounds became the property of the City of Baltimore in May, 1798, when Captain Yellott consummated the purchase. (The Annual report of that year suggests that, unlike any of the other units in the hospital, the single African-American ward served both male and females patients.) Although there were several major expansions of the building in later years, originally it had 18 patient care units or "wards" (later called "Halls") three floors, with three units en echelon on each floor of each wing. 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