Haunting Facts About New York’s Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane

Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane

The Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane opened its doors in 1869 near Seneca Lake, New York, and remained operational until 1995.

This massive complex housed over 50,000 patients during its 126-year run, becoming one of the largest psychiatric hospitals in the United States.

The Heartbreaking Suitcase Project

When Willard Hospital closed in 1995, staff found hundreds of patients’ suitcases stored in the attic. These belonged to people who entered the hospital between the 1910s and 1960s but never returned home.

The suitcases held their most treasured possessions – photos, letters, books, and clothes. Photographer Jon Crispin later photographed over 400 of these suitcases, helping preserve the memories of these forgotten lives.

A Self-Contained Community

Willard was like its own small city, with everything it needed to run on its own.

It had a post office to handle mail. A water treatment plant for clean water, and its own power plant for electricity. They also had farms and gardens to grow food. Patients did different jobs around Willard, like working on the farms and helping with maintenance.

The facility wanted to keep patients separate from the outside world, believing this was the best way to care for them.

One of the Therapies Was Manual Labor

Patients at Willard Hospital worked without pay on the hospital’s 475-acre property, and was supposedly part of their therapy. They worked in farms, barns, and greenhouses from sunrise to sunset.

In 1934, patients grew 580,000 pounds of vegetables and made 1,800 gallons of maple syrup. All this unpaid work saved the hospital $2.3 million in wages.

A Cemetery of Forgotten Identities

The Willard Hospital cemetery held over 5,700 patients who died between 1870 and 1995. They were buried with metal stakes showing only numbers, not names.

The oldest known burial belonged to Abraham Harrison, a 45-year-old farmer from Seneca County who died in August 1870, just one year after the asylum’s founding.

In 2011, volunteers found the patients’ names in old records and created a memorial to honor them properly.

One Patient’s 77 Years Inside

Margaret Dunleavy entered Willard Hospital in 1918 when she was just 30 years old. Doctors diagnosed her with ‘dementia praecox’ – what we now call schizophrenia.

She would spend the rest of her life there, working in the sewing room and sometimes going to hospital dances. Margaret stayed at Willard for 77 years.

The Hidden Tunnel Network

Nearly a mile of tunnels ran beneath Willard Hospital, connecting its buildings underground.

Staff used these passages to transport deceased patients away from the view of other residents.

The tunnels also had old railroad tracks for transporting supplies and coal throughout the hospital.

Willard’s Music Program

In the 1950s, Dr. Eleanor Summers started a new kind of therapy at Willard that used music to help patients.

Instead of standard treatments, patients played music together in groups and formed small bands. Patients who joined these music groups found it easier to communicate and handle their feelings.

The program was so successful that other hospitals started using music to help their patients too.

Some of the Treatments Were Harsh

The treatments used at Willard Hospital would be considered cruel and unethical today.

Doctors frequently performed lobotomies, electroshock therapy, and insulin shock treatments on patients, often without their permission or proper warnings about the risks.

One of them were Dr. Walter Freeman, known for promoting a type of lobotomy done through the eye socket.