The Willard Asylum For The Chronic Insane
FlickrOne of the many abandoned rooms of the asylum.
It’s easy to get lost in the scenic beauty of Seneca Lake, New York. Thousands of tourists travel to the Finger Lakes region every autumn specifically to marvel at the changing foliage. But hidden amongst the colorful tourist attractions lies something a little more ominous: the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane.
The institution opened its doors in 1869. Willard and other asylums like it hoped to offer more humane treatment for those with mental illness than what was common at the time. Back then, anyone without family or means was simply relegated to almshouses which were overcrowded and underfunded.
Abraham Lincoln himself signed off on New York Surgeon General Dr. Sylvester D. Willard’s proposal for the state-run hospital and did so six days before he was assassinated. The first patient was a woman named Mary Rote, who was described by staff as “demented and deformed.”
Rote spent 10 years in an almshouse and unfortunately didn’t find much of an improvement in her quality of life upon her arrival. The asylum did more than neglect its patients — one girl was shackled in her cell since childhood, and another patient arrived at Willard in a chicken crate.
With mental illness still very much misunderstood, many patients suffered from afflictions as trivial as “nervousness” or “feeblemindedness.” Others were described simply as suffering from “chronic” or “acute” insanity and “lunacy.”
The facility was divided by gender, and each side of the hospital was further divided between violent and non-violent patients. Since the land was originally intended to be farmed, the Willard Asylum grew its own crops and allowed patients to tend to them.
The unrestricted nature of treatment included patients freely walking about, with activities like sewing classes being offered and amenities ranging from a gym and bowling alley to movie theater. Unfortunately, mandatory activities like electro-shock therapy and ice baths rounded out the electives.
The on-site cemetery is filled with thousands of former patients, with only numbers marking their graves. Willard Asylum's history was so chilling that Geraldo Rivera exposed the institution's inhumane past in a 1972 exposé, which led to its official closure in 1995.
Before it became abandoned, however, The Willard Suitcase Project was born. The endeavor began with a cleaning person who found hundreds of old suitcases in the attic — confiscated from patients upon their arrival at Willard. The project hopes to match these mementos to the families of their owners.
