Hudson County Hospital for the Insane

Hudson County Hospital for the Insane
Hudson County Hospital for the Insane
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Construction Began	1894
Current Status	Demolished
Building Style	Cottage Plan?
Location	Snake Hill, Secaucus, New Jersey
Alternate Names	;

History

The Hudson County Hospital for the Insane was located on what was then called Snake Hill, now Laurel Hill, which was a large igneous rock formation jutting some 150 feet from the floor of the otherwise flat swamps of the New Jersey "Meadowlands". Snake Hill first housed the counties Penitentiary and Almshouse, where the counties insane were maintained until the construction of an independent Asylum Institution in 1894. This new building was located adjacent to the almshouse and was built originally for 250 patients. The design consisted of a central administration building flanked on either side by a male and female wing which began as a single ward building each and connected to the administration via connecting "bridges". In 1916 it was recorded by the American Medico-Psychological Association; Committee on a History of the Institutional Care of the Insane, that a new wing on the male side was being constructed with modern treatment apparatus and planned was a similar expansion to the female side. The administration housed apartments for the superintendent as well as the hospitals offices.

It was recorded in the 1906 Annual Report that the hospital was maintained in a clean and orderly fashion however was over double capacity, housing 243 male and 327 female patients. As of 1916 the building is reported to have had accommodation for between 450 to 500 patients though it can be assumed, as with all hospitals at the time, that patient populations had since increased since 1906. By this time the municipal complex on Snake Hill included the Insane Asylum, the Penitentiary and it's quarry, Almshouse, Tuberculosis hospital, Isolation Hospital, and electric light substation.

As was the standard procedure at the time the county asylum provided housing for the chronic insane of the county, providing custodial care rather than real treatment. The acute cases and those deemed curable were sent to the State Insane Hospitals such as Trenton State Hospital or Greystone Park Psychiatric Center.

Later history of the asylum is unclear. While by 1962 the county had closed all institutions on Snake Hill and began a process of Quarrying which reduced the hill bu four fifths its size, aerial images from as early as 1931 show that while the new Almshouse and other buildings remain the Lunatic Hospital has been demolished, perhaps due to fire or purposeful relocation.

Snake Hill made headlines in 2002 when while digging for the new Secaucus Junction workers stumbled upon the former Snake Hill Potter's field which was long since forgotten. The bodies, almost 10,000, were removed and interred at the Hoboken Cemetery, North Bergen. This discovery prompted the making of the documentary "Snake Hill", released in 2007.