by Audrey Anderson
Hometown Weekly Reporter
Recently, Richard DeSorgher, a popular local historian and former Medfield history teacher, spoke on the history of the Medfield State Hospital to a full-capacity crowd gathered at Farthest Star Sake, located off North Meadows Road.
The Bellforge Arts Center is currently holding programs outside at the Medfield State Hospital, but it looks forward to holding events in a renovated hospital chapel and building artists’ studios in a renovated hospital infirmary. As the town moves toward the new uses of these buildings, it was respectful and informative to look back on the hospital that was located on the site for close to 120 years.
DeSorgher related that the Medfield Insane Asylum opened in 1896 on 425 acres with 25 buildings and a barn. The hospital staff expected to house 1,000 insane people in 18 of the buildings. Among the other original buildings were an administration building and St. Jude’s Chapel. The hospital was the first one in Massachusetts to be built in a cottage style. Bedrooms were upstairs to allow for light and ventilation. Work rooms and sitting rooms were on the ground floor. Within 10 years, the number of residents increased to 1,554.
In 1905, the name of the hospital was changed to the Medfield State Asylum. Hundreds of acres at the site were farmed. Silos at the hospital stored hundreds of tons of corn, and its herd of 1,000 cattle “was called second to none in the state.” The farm grew carrots and other vegetables, and its dairy herd produced milk. Worked by patients, the farm at the asylum supplied food to all the state hospitals in the eastern part of the state.
In 1914, the name of the asylum was changed to Medfield State Hospital. In 1916, the asylum added 167 acres of land. The Infirmary was also built that year, and it housed the laboratory, pharmacy, treatment clinic, dental clinic, X-ray, and operating room. The 2nd floor was filled with recovery beds.
In the period of the 1930s-1940s, the resident population increased to 2,300. Tufts Medical Center sent nurses and medical students to the asylum for practical experience. Conditions were getting overcrowded. During World War II, residents took on the responsibilities of male workers who left to fight in the war. They cared for patients, worked in the laundry, food services, and housekeeping.
Due to the advent of new drugs in the 1950s, medical care for residents changed. More patients were discharged. In the 1960s, a new federal law required that the mentally ill be treated in the “least restrictive environment possible.” In the 1970s, most residents moved to community-based halfway houses. The resident population at the asylum was reduced to 200 people.
In 1990, some criminally insane inmates were moved from the Bridgewater State Hospital to Medfield. In 1999, the town raised concerns about the deterioration of the buildings at the asylum. In 2003, the facility closed for good, and the town of Medfield purchased part of the property in 2014.
A resident burial ground was opened off Route 27 in 1918, during the flu epidemic. 814 residents were buried there from 1918 to 1988 in graves marked with a stone and a number, but not a name. According to DeSorgher’s 2011 article in Patch: ‘In 2005, the Medfield State Hospital Cemetery Restoration Committee was formed. Boy Scouts undertook Eagle Scout projects to clean out the brush and debris. The Restoration Committee brought awareness of the cemetery’s shameful condition to the community and to the state. With appropriated monies, granite stone markers were placed on each of the 841 hospital grave sites. Research was done and the people’s names, along with their birth and death dates, were placed on the granite markers. A contest was held to come up with an appropriate quote to be used on a stone marker to be placed at the cemetery’s entrance. The political science students at Medfield High School took part and came up with a variety of quotes. The one selected read: “Remember us for we too have lived, loved and laughed.” That is now located on the impressive granite stone at the entrance to the cemetery.’
In answer to an attendee’s question about the lives of the residents, DeSorgher said that not much is known about how residents came to the hospital or about their personal stories, except for some instances of mistreatment and violence that were noted in the press and dealt with in Boston trials.
A former nurse at the Brigham Hospital said that when she was first employed there, among her colleagues were nurses who did clinical rotations at the Medfield State Hospital. People agreed that there must be some stories that can be collected to offer more insight into the lives of the residents.
At the conclusion of the program, attendees enjoyed viewing artist Ann Bell Robb’s peaceful, small paintings of the grounds of the Medfield State Hospital.
