I brought down my narrative in the preceding chapter to about August,
1864. All things went on in about the same monotonous manner, taking
medicine three times a day, eating three meals, working some in the
field and walking out with the attendants.
When September came, Sabbath school celebrations, and picnics of
various clubs were frequently held in groves near Utica. To these, some
of the patients had frequent invitations to go. I was generally invited
to go to these, and frequently went, but I cannot say that I enjoyed
them, I could enjoy nothing of this kind while known as a lunatic, in a
lunatic asylum.
Some from there seemed to enjoy themselves just as well as if they had
been the superintendents of the schools. There is a state of mind that
is not unfavorably affected by placing them in the asylum—such for
instance as one under the influence of hallucinations—there are many in
that institution who believe they own the asylum, they think they run
the institution with all its machinery!
As I was there during the war of the rebellion, I found many were
brought there through the war excitement; some believed they were
brigadier-generals; others believed they had been in the war and in
many battles, who never saw a battle-field, nor ever shouldered a
musket.
On one occasion, I recollect that a large number of patients
accompanied by the attendants were on the ground. While there, the
patients were allowed to stroll around the grounds and mingle with the
people about as they pleased, the attendants only taking care that
they did not leave the inclosure. I saw it was a good opportunity for
any who desired it to run away, and I had but little doubt but on our
return home our numbers would be less than when we came, and so it
turned out; this only shows that the great majority of the patients
are held there against their will—this, however, is no objection to the
institution itself.
Another incident I also recollect which happened on the ground at one
of these celebrations—a poor boy the son of a widow climbed a tree,
for the purpose of fastening a rope in its top for a swing for the
children, his foot gave way and he fell to the ground, breaking one
of his legs and receiving other very bad bruises. He was taken up of
course, placed in a carriage and sent to his anxious mother, with a
good contribution from the people to help repair the damage.
I did not run away, I felt some as Paul did when requested to leave
the prison and would not. I recollect that in this instance I was
rather one of the privileged. I rode to the ground in a buggy with the
Supervisor, the distance being about two miles. This was the second
time I had taken a meal outside of the institution since I entered it,
and it seemed quite refreshing; more especially so, as we had such a
dinner as is never got up in the institution. I remember of eating very
heartily.
There is one thing which, perhaps, I should have noticed before, but
it will come in quite as well at this stage of my narrative. About the
third day after I entered the asylum I was sitting alone in a very
melancholy state of mind, when I saw a man approaching me which I
recognized as an old friend in 1848 and 1849, in Columbia county. I was
shocked, I felt both glad and sorry to see him. I rose, he took me very
cordially by the hand and said, “Brother Chase, how do you do?” I felt
greatly embarrassed, choked up, turned either red or pale in the face,
could not tell which, did not know what to say—I dare not say I was
well, for I was in the asylum as a patient, and I did not feel sick, so
I stammered out—“_Col. Drier_.”
I had known him when under very different circumstances—I was the
pastor of the church in that neighborhood, he had often heard me
preach, he was also a Minister of the gospel, and now the steward of
the asylum, and was at the time I met him on the hall. He said a few
kind words to me, which I do not now recollect, neither do I recollect
what I said to him, if I said anything.
I wish here to record, that Col. Drier, the steward of that
institution, is a _man_, a _christian_, and a _gentleman_, always mild,
always sincere, patient to hear all the requests of the patients, and
though he could not gratify all their whims, he nevertheless so treated
them, that all loved him, and as soon as he appears on one of the
halls, the patients flock round him like hungry children round their
mother. I never asked him for a thing that he denied me. I never heard
of his doing a low or a wrong act in connection with that institution.
The fall passed away, and I began to be restless that I had heard
nothing from my family since my daughter left in July, except one
letter soon after she left; this was from Sandy Hill, where her mother
was living at that time. A letter soon came, however, from Illinois,
stating that her mother was with her in that country.
On receiving this letter my mind was greatly relieved; the mother was
now with her only child, and though widely separated, I felt perfectly
easy regarding the welfare of my family; I was only in distress that I
could not be with them.
How often did I think that could the doctors enter into my feelings for
one hour, and make them their own, that I should soon be dismissed from
the asylum. But I now made up my mind to never say anything more about
leaving, as the doctor once told me that my own opinion would weigh
nothing with them in relation to my own case. I saw that a patient was
a blank in all matters of opinion.
It is the custom in the institution, when the doctor enters the hall,
for the inspection of the patients, for the attendant to walk by his
side; and unless the patient is an old fixture, and not accounted much
insane, the doctor asks the attendant the questions he wants answered,
instead of the patient. This is, no doubt, right in many cases,
but to apply the rule as it is generally applied, great injustice
is frequently done to the patient. The questions for instance are:
“How does he sleep nights?” “What is his appetite?” “Does he talk
much?” “What is the state of his bowels?” “Does he take his medicine
regularly?” The patient stands by, makes no reply; the attendant
answers all these questions. I have stood by and heard the attendant
answer these questions in relation to my own case. “Does he sleep
well?” “Pretty well,” is the reply of the ignoramus, looking blank at
the same time, and why should he not look blank? What did _he_ know
of the patient during the last night? The patient was locked up in a
room perhaps two hundred feet from the room of the attendant, and the
attendant fast asleep, while, perhaps, the patient laid and rolled from
side to side upon his couch, and never shut his eyes during the whole
night. I have heard this answer concerning myself, “_pretty well_,”
when I knew I had not slept one wink; and so with about all the
answers.
There are a good many little things in themselves, like this, that are
very annoying to a mind that is not insane, and yet somewhat sensitive.
Being always fearful that I might accidentally violate some rule and
thereby fall under censure, I was always on my guard, and I can now
recollect many things in which I was over particular.
One small affair I do not forget; it happened in the chapel on Sabbath
evening. The second attendant took charge of the patients on the first
hall that evening. He was an ignorant, self-conceited, over-bearing
little Irishman. I took my seat in the chapel as usual, and had always
supposed I knew how to behave in a church, as I had been a preacher
forty years. I threw my arm upon the back of the seat, and as service
had not yet commenced, cast my eye over my right shoulder; I had no
particular object in view; he saw it, and thundered out, “Chase, turn
yourself about, and sit up in your seat.” All in the room heard, of
course. I turned my head slowly around as though I did not hear, but I
felt; yes, I felt that if it had been any where else than in a lunatic
asylum, and he had said it, he would have wished it had not been him;
but I never mentioned it to him afterwards; and as he and the first
attendant soon after this had a falling out, he was discharged and went
to Canada.
This first attendant of the first hall is also supervisor of a number
of halls. His name is D. Pritchards, and a better man cannot be found
for the place he occupies. I never saw him in a surly or wrong mood of
mind, always cheerful, always kind, never over-bearing, never delighted
in afflicting a patient; if he had any fault, it was that he was too
fraid of afflicting or crossing a patient, or an attendant under him.
The whole house like him on all the halls. I feel glad to give him this
tribute of regard and respect, as he always treated me with a brotherly
kindness, and did all for me that lay in his power. I find he occupies
the same position in the institution still, and I hope the day may be
distant when he shall leave.
My object in writing this sketch, is not to find fault or pick flaws
with this institution, for there is no institution in the land of what
ever kind or character, but has its enemies—this is all understood;
but because this is so, it does not follow that an institution cannot
become rotten, and that the people have no right to investigate its
secret workings.
The winter came, the winter of 1864 and 1865, it was December, I had
been occupying a small room by myself for the last three months, there
were some reasons why I did not like it as well as some other rooms,
yet I did not mention it as I liked it much better than the dormitory
where I spent the winter.
Unexpectedly to me, the supervisor took me by the arm and led me to a
very fine room in the center of the hall, the best room on that floor,
having a fine clothespress and all other conveniences. He said to me I
was to have that room. I could not see the point; I felt encouraged,
for it seemed to me that they would not let me have that room long,
so I somehow conjured up in my mind the notion that they meant to
discharge me soon, and as another man wanted the room I had been
occupying, they would give me this as it was not occupied, for a few
days until I were discharged—this was a fine picture I drew in my mind,
and one that suited me—little thinking at the time that this room was
to be my home for just one year—which was the fact.
I put down my own carpet, had a good field bedstead and good rocking
chair; a washstand, bowl and pitcher, which the rooms did not generally
have—a good new bible was presented to me; a looking glass and a lock
on my clothespress. I could not complain of my accommodations, and
anywhere but in an asylum, I could have been quite happy.
As to the beds of the institution, no fault could be found with them.
First, a straw tick, always kept well filled; next, a good mattress,
three good cotton sheets and coverlids plenty, besides always next
to the sheets, thick woollen blankets for winter; the outside one
invariable a white counterpane; the pillows were not all of feathers;
they were mostly of hair; mine, for the last year, were feathers.
About this time a tall, white-haired, well dressed man came on to
the hall, acting very cheerful, and I saw all hailed him as an old
acquaintance. He seemed to be perfectly at home. I soon learned, by
his conversation, that he had come of his own accord alone; he had
been there the year before as a patient, and having wintered well, and
got quite fleshy, he left; but he thought the asylum would be a good
place to winter in again. So he came back; put himself under the care
of the doctor; gave him his check on the bank for nine hundred dollars
as security for his keeping, and commenced operations under high
encouragements.
It was not long before he began to complain that they would kill him
with medicine; this was something he had not bargained for, as he was
not sick but came to spend the winter in a quiet way with those he
knew, as he had no family, his wife had died and he was left alone. He
remonstrated against taking the medicine, but all was in vain. I told
him it was “good enough for him, if after he had been there once and
knew what he knew about the institution, to come here again of his own
accord, was a mark of madness.”
He would take the medicine, then swear, and curse the doctor for
forcing him to take medicine which he did not need. He finally made up
his mind that they meant to kill him with medicine, as they had got
his money. It was most aggravating it is true, for the man needed no
medicine, but either the medicine or the thought of it threw him into
great agitation of mind, and not having a very strong mind he became
nearly distracted.
Fearing that they meant to kill him by dosing him, he shut himself
into his room, put his bed against the door, and barred it the best
he could. The attendants found the next morning his door barred, and
all fast, they of course burst it open, and such an outcry was never
heard! He thought then of course he was a gone case. He roared and
blubbered—but there was no use, he had to take the medicine.
He was now removed into the dormitory with other patients, in the same
room. He finally concluded to take the matter into his own hands—he let
me into the secret. It was to take the medicine in his mouth and walk
carelessly away to his room or to the washroom and spit it out; he was
very successful in this. I suppose for three months he did not swallow
a table spoonful; yet it was given him three times a day. In the spring
his son came and took him away: he went cursing the institution.
The asylum was now very full; some enlargements were made for patients.
Some time in the fore part of this winter, as near as I can now judge,
I saw a poor skeleton of a man come into the hall leaning on the arm of
a man on one side, and on the other on the arm of a lady; he looked
haggard, and I thought he was in the last stages of consumption.
They led him to one of the dormitories and placed him on a bed. I
thought it strange that they would leave such a man on the first hall,
as the sick and feeble were generally assigned to other apartments;
I soon learned the cause of this. He was a merchant from West Port,
Essex county, and a man of some means; his disease was dyspepsia. He
was advised to go to Utica asylum for a cure, as the doctors there were
so very skillful. He thought it like any other hospital, that he could
stay as long as he pleased, and if things did not work favorably he
could leave when he pleased; and as his friends brought him there, and
he paid his own bills, they wanted him left on the first floor.
His friends left, and he was left there weak and feeble as a child; I
think I never saw before a man's limbs so very small. I pitied him;
I knew he and his folks were sold, but I dared not tell him so. His
appetite was very poor, and what he did eat distressed him, and he was
in the habit of vomiting it up. He had a habit, when his food hurt him,
of placing his head down lower than his body, which he thought helped
him to vomit.
The doctor forbade his using any means to assist him to vomit. He was
sly, and would vomit out of the window to prevent detection. He was
soon after removed to another hall; and on passing through that hall a
few days afterwards, I found him bound down to his seat with straps, to
prevent his getting his head down. He looked wishfully at me. I pitied
him, but dared not say anything to him; here he stayed for a long time.
At length he was brought back upon the first floor. His wife came to
see him, but the doctor did not permit them to meet. He wrote to his
family and read the letter to the doctor, representing things all
right, but had a slip of paper prepared, counteracting what was in the
letter; in this slip he begged them to come and take him away; this
slip he put into the envelope with the letter.
His wife came, and demanded to see him; she did see him; she resolved
to take him home, but the doctor remonstrated and she left him. This
afflicted the man. He finally got some better, and walked out with
me; for at this time I had my liberty to go out alone, when I pleased
and where I pleased. He could not walk far at a time, but was anxious
to walk out every day. At length he would stay out after I went in,
sometimes for half an hour—he began now to lay his plans to run away,
as the doctor would not give his consent to let him go. He one day
stole the keys, and came very near effecting his escape, when he was
detected. He did not deny the fact, but told them that he did it to
get away; that he had done nothing to forfeit his liberty; that he was
under no obligations to them; that he paid his own way.
His mind was now intent on leaving; he had written home for money,
and it had been intercepted by the doctor; he resolved to go without
money. He walked out with me as usual; he prepared himself by putting
on all the clothes he could. I knew nothing of his plan; he lingered;
I went in; he did not come in, and has never been in since. He went
down to the depot by a back street, went to Troy, found friends there
to help him on, and got home safe. I doubt whether he will ever go to
Utica again to be cured of dyspepsia.
And though this man has a perfect dread of the asylum, there are men,
however, who like the institution, and think it the best place in the
world. It has been urged that those who so dislike the institution are
those whose minds are not right; they are a little insane still, that
if they were perfectly sane they would like it—that those who like it
are sane men.
Let us see how this matter stands; they that like it are sane men,
and those who dislike it are insane. I know a man who likes the
institution, who has been in it as a patient for fifteen years; this
man is known very widely, in Utica, in Hoosick and elsewhere; his name
is Mosely. Is he a sane man? What does he say? He says: “It is the best
institution on the globe, and that Dr. Gray and himself and his Bible,
and the State of New York, the asylum, his farm in Hoosick, and his new
house, are all one thing; that they all perfectly agree, and that it is
the best institution on the globe.” Now who can resist such an argument
as this? Such are the kind of sane men who like the institution.
That there are men who work in and around the institution, and have for
years, who see nothing very exceptionable in any of its departments,
may be all true. So there may be men who are employed in and around
State prisons, who see nothing very exceptionable in them. But this
proves nothing at all.
There is a vast difference between skinning or being skinned. Let
those who have been in and around the institution, and think they know
all about it, let them go in as patients, let them go through all the
degrees of initiation, until they get a diploma, then ask them whether
they can recommend it to the world as the best institution on the globe?
As I wish to give credit for every good thing which happened during my
stay in the asylum, and as I have passed over one thing, I wish, before
I enter upon my last summer's history; to notice it.
The thing referred to, which was passed over in its proper connection,
was our Thanksgiving dinners of 1863 and 1864. I was on the fourth
hall at the dinner of 1863. I think it was about the 20th of November.
I thought it a grand dinner; fifty turkeys were dressed, stuffed and
cooked for that dinner for the patients.
I took a kind of philosophical view of it when it came on the table.
The first thought was, after taking a glance at the whole thing, _what
a contrast_. Now it must be understood that our common every day fare
was a very stereotyped edition. It was bread and meat, and meat and
bread, with a little butter, twice a day, and cheese, pickle, and pie,
Sundays only; and I was always glad when Sunday came, for the sake of
the pickle and cheese, though the cheese was a very small piece. I am
not fault finding, only noticing the contrast. There was a fine roasted
turkey on each end of the table, bread, butter, cheese, pickle, pie of
the richest kind, roast beef; then came on nuts, confectioneries in
abundance, with raisins and apples.
I think I must have been a little “luny” just at that time, for I
confess I was so afraid that some of us would over-eat of this rich
dinner, that ten to one if we did not have half a dozen deaths in less
than eight and forty hours afterwards; for this dinner was not confined
to one or two halls, but was general. At all events, I was so afraid
of making myself sick, that I was foolishly reserved in eating; I ate
scarcely any of the turkey, and, by the way, I never liked turkey; I
ate no pie, I thought it was too rich; I made my dinner of stuffing,
sauce, bread, butter, and confectioneries. I was not sick, and I heard
of no deaths on that account.
The next Thanksgiving dinner, of 1864, was on the first hall. It did
not make so deep an impression on my mind as the first, for it was not
exactly like it, we had no turkey, nor butter for that dinner; but we
did have a very good dinner, with a dessert and confectioneries to
close up with.
Another spring now came, the spring of 1865; I had made up my mind to
go no more out to work; I had got above work by this time, though I was
better able to work now than I was the year before; yet if I had been
ordered out, I suppose I should have went, but very little would have
been the work I should have done; as it was, however, I was not ordered
out.
I had quit the dining room six months before this, except to eat my
meals, as the Supervisor had told me I need not work there longer
unless I pleased; so I quit it, and took to sweeping the hall for
exercise every morning after breakfast. There were a number of men on
the hall who were excessive eaters, but not one chore could be got out
of them, except to make their beds and sweep their rooms.
The floor of the hall had to be scrubbed and washed every Monday
morning; this gave us a little good exercise. The cleaning of house
came on this spring, as usual; this is quite a business; the patients
can have employment in this for a number of days. While this is going
on no visitors are received. The windows are all taken out and washed,
the mouldings and casings all scoured, the bedsteads all taken out of
their rooms, the beds put into a pile and the bedsteads scoured and
thoroughly saturated with kerosene, to prevent the vandals from eating
up the patients. All the rooms are then whitewashed.
The bedsteads are prepared with strips of sheet-iron instead of cords
to lay the beds on; this, perhaps, is an improvement.
One particular incident I cannot pass over without recording. Some time
in the course of the fall or winter of 1864-5—I cannot be particular
here as to the exact time—Dr. Gray came on the hall accompanied by a
man in regimentals; a dark, curly black-haired man, rather slim, but
carrying a decided look and apparently a firm will, and, as I inspected
him from a distance, he looked to me, as though he could hew a man in
pieces with all the _sang froid_ of a Roman gladiator.
The doctor introduced him as Dr. Shantz, a surgeon from the army, and
from this time was to be the attending physician on this side of the
house. I had dreaded the one we had before, but now I thought we had
got a Rehoboam, who declared “his little finger should be thicker than
his father's loins; that whereas his father had chastised them with
whips, he would chastise them with scorpions.”
Such were the views I had of Dr. Shantz when I first saw him. He
commenced his rounds of visitation, but I shunned him as far as I was
able to do so, till some observed it, and thought I treated the doctor
with great coldness. I was afraid of him.
At length we came in contact. I found he had a good mind, penetrating
and scientific; I found he loved books, and was a good observer of
nature, and withal was not an infidel; my fears fled. I soon found that
he could not only reason, but was willing to hear others. After I had
thoroughly weighed him in my own mind, I resolved on an experiment. For
more than a year and a half I had now taken medicine three times a day,
and was now, besides this, drinking strong beer before every meal, as
to the medicine I had no doubt but it injured me, and I felt that I was
like a candle burning at both ends, the pressure of the asylum on the
one hand and the medicine on the other.
And so I contrived to evade taking it, by spitting it out. I confess I
did this for more than three months, and I knew I felt the better for
it. I will not stop now to argue the question of the right or wrong of
my course, as I was not treated as a moral agent. I simply state facts
as they were.
I told the doctor I would like to have an interview with him in my room
if he would admit it. He said he would do so, and not long after this
he came to my room and gave me a fair opportunity to tell him all that
was in my heart.
I gave him a brief history of my coming into the asylum, the causes
that led to it as far as I knew, what my feelings and state were
before, and at the time I came there; how matters had gone on with
me since I had been there; what my appetite was, my general state of
health, and how I felt at that time; and closed by telling him that it
appeared strange to me, that the manner of doctoring here should be
different from the manner out of the institution.
In this particular I referred to the continuance of medicine of the
same kind for a year or more, three times a day, without reference to
the state of the patient. I told him that it appeared to me that when a
man was well and appetite good, he did not need medicine; and finally
begged him to take it all off.
The medicine was dropped off, and oh! how I rejoiced, not that I had
swallowed it for the last three months, yet the idea that it was no
longer offered me was a great relief. The bloating of my bowels and
limbs ceased, and I felt much better. When it was no longer offered
me, I felt like a new man, and hope sprang up in my mind. The beer was
still continued; after a while I introduced this subject to the doctor.
I told him I felt quite well, and I could not see that I needed beer
for my health, and begged him to take it off. He thought I was mistaken
about its not benefitting me, but said he would take off the beer and
substitute a little sherry, with an egg, three times a day. I begged
to be excused from taking the wine; so he took off the beer, and from
that time until I left the institution, which was perhaps three or four
months, I took nothing, and I know I felt the better for it.
So I found in Dr. Shantz a “man, a gentleman and a friend.” I could
not have been more kindly treated by an own brother than by him. When
I left the institution, I felt that I had left behind a friend and a
benefactor. I think him just the man for such an institution. I have
had one very agreeable visit with him since I left the asylum.[C]
[C] Dr. Shantz said to me, at the time of this interview, that I ought
never to have been sent to the asylum, and that if he had been one of
the physicians who examined my case before I was sent there, he should
not have admitted it.
He left the institution at Utica since I left there, went to Minnesota
and founded an asylum in that State, of which he takes the charge.
I understand he is doing well. If I am so unfortunate as to go to a
lunatic asylum again, I beg my friends to take me to Minnesota and
place me under the charge of Dr. Shantz, but never take me to Utica.