Difference between revisions of "Portal:Featured Article Of The Week"

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|Title= Taunton State Hospital
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|Title= Westborough State Hospital
|Image= Taunton44.jpg
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|Image= hop017.jpg
 
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|Body= It took Massachusetts until 1833 to establish its first "lunatic system" located in Worcester. By 1851 it had grown so dangerously overcrowded that the Legislature appropriated $100,000 for the construction of a new hospital. The Legislature appointed a commission to choose the site and oversee its construction. Interestingly, many communities across the state petitioned to have the institutions located in their towns. After a lengthy search the commission chose the City of Taunton who had raised $13,000 to buy a one hundred and fifty-four acre farm situated in the north of town.
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|Body= The Brigham Farm, later the Peter Farm, was purchased in 1846 for the State Reform School, later the State Hospital (1885). The Westborough State Hospital was established by Chapter 322 of the Acts of 1884 as the Westborough Insane Hospital. In a major departure from other state hospitals, its trustees were not directed to find a new site and make plans for new buildings, but rather to develop a scheme to reuse the structures recently vacated by the State Reform School for Boys. The site, which by then totaled 275 acres, had been developed around the 180-acre former farmstead of Lovett Peters, Esq., and adjacent acreage owned by the Rice family.
  
The commission's site search was driven by specific criteria, and their vision, when the building and grounds were completed, was to "render it a spot fitted to interest and tranquilize the minds of those who need as well the soothing influences of external nature as the healing remedies of art." It was believed at the time that a bucolic setting of soothing topology would compliment and aid treatment. To that end, the commission settled on the farm in northern Taunton whose more than sixty acre grove, bounded by the river, extended to within a half a mile of the center of town. One advantage of the site was that the river acted as a natural barrier against the encroachments of an increasing town population, so that the institution would not gradually find itself in the heart of a large city.  [[Taunton State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
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George Clough of Boston was engaged to remodel the building which had housed 400-500 boys and had been declared unfit for reform school purposes due to its large size and jail-like appearance. To adapt the building for occupancy by 325 "insane" patients, Clough demolished the center of the existing building, which dated from 1876, and replaced it with a gambrel roof section housing a congregate dining room on its first floor with a chapel above. The alterations began on May 18, 1885, and were apparently complete by December 1, 1886, when a reception was held for Governor George D. Robinson. A few days later, the first 204 patients (almost all chronic cases who were able to pay for their treatment) were received from Worcester, and then Danvers, Taunton, and Northampton. In the meantime, Dr. N. Emmons Paine, formerly assistant physician at the State Homeopathic Asylum for the Insane in Middletown, New York, had been appointed Superintendent and had begun to formulate the hospital's unique program of treatment along with the Board of Trustees. Two years later, Dr. Paine was appointed as lecturer in insanity at the Boston University Medical School.  [[Westborough State Hospital|Click here for more...]]
 
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Revision as of 04:09, 26 June 2022

Featured Article Of The Week

Westborough State Hospital


hop017.jpg

The Brigham Farm, later the Peter Farm, was purchased in 1846 for the State Reform School, later the State Hospital (1885). The Westborough State Hospital was established by Chapter 322 of the Acts of 1884 as the Westborough Insane Hospital. In a major departure from other state hospitals, its trustees were not directed to find a new site and make plans for new buildings, but rather to develop a scheme to reuse the structures recently vacated by the State Reform School for Boys. The site, which by then totaled 275 acres, had been developed around the 180-acre former farmstead of Lovett Peters, Esq., and adjacent acreage owned by the Rice family.

George Clough of Boston was engaged to remodel the building which had housed 400-500 boys and had been declared unfit for reform school purposes due to its large size and jail-like appearance. To adapt the building for occupancy by 325 "insane" patients, Clough demolished the center of the existing building, which dated from 1876, and replaced it with a gambrel roof section housing a congregate dining room on its first floor with a chapel above. The alterations began on May 18, 1885, and were apparently complete by December 1, 1886, when a reception was held for Governor George D. Robinson. A few days later, the first 204 patients (almost all chronic cases who were able to pay for their treatment) were received from Worcester, and then Danvers, Taunton, and Northampton. In the meantime, Dr. N. Emmons Paine, formerly assistant physician at the State Homeopathic Asylum for the Insane in Middletown, New York, had been appointed Superintendent and had begun to formulate the hospital's unique program of treatment along with the Board of Trustees. Two years later, Dr. Paine was appointed as lecturer in insanity at the Boston University Medical School. Click here for more...