Danver State Mental Asylum

[Kyl_Turbo]

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Looming over Danvers Massachusetts is one of the most exquisite mental institutions ever built; The Danvers State Insane Asylum.

Construction began in 1874, and the 70,000 square foot Kirkbride building was opened four years later. It's Gothic peaks and spires looming over the solid red brick are an incredible sight of beauty and a symbol of grandeur and fortitude, but at the cost of over $1 million to build, local residents resented the beautiful castle on the hill being given to the "insane" while they were living meagerly. Danvers was a model for humane treatment at the time, with no restraint policies invoked and the hospital instituted a pathology laboratory that was held in very high regard in the medical field.

The hospital soon filled with such varied types of patients that it soon became a problem; geriatrics, the mentally disabled, alcoholics, drug addicts, the criminally insane and all other people with varied degrees of mental illness were mixing together under one roof. By the 1950's Danvers State was reported to be just as bad as Byberry, using various shock therapies, lobotomies, and other methods to keep the overcrowded hospital under control. The original Kirkbride building had a recommended maximum capacity of 600 patients, and although some additions had been constructed, the hospital housed around 2,400 patients at one point!

Upon the steady decline of patients that most nearby psychiatric facilities were experiencing, the Kirkbride building was abandoned in the early 1970's; the remaining patients were moved to the Bonner Medical Building across the lawn. Danvers State Hospital officially closed it's doors in the summer of 1992 in response to the many allegations of overcrowding, abuse and neglect in court. The movie "Session 9" was filmed on location in 2001, and brought a lot of attention to the old hospital. Security has since been increased to 24 hour patrols, and the boarding of all windows. A fire was started inside in 2004, forcing firemen to enter the dangerous building to prevent the whole Kirkbride from being engulfed in flames. Since then, the place has been on total lockdown - constant patrols 24/7 with mandatory checkpoints, and the arrest of anyone caught anywhere on the grounds (they are publishing the arrests in newspapers to get their point across). An article about trespassing on the grounds states that over 120 people have been arrested since 2000!

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The Castle on the Hill. The Palace on the Hill. The Haunted Castle. The Witches' Castle. The Kirkbride.

The massive red-brick gothic landmark that stands atop Hathorne Hill has been given many names during the past 129 years. These names stand as evidence of the special place the building, and Danvers State Hospital, holds in the minds and mythology of the people of Danvers, the North Shore and beyond.

Many believe it to be haunted. Others are simply intrigued by its history, its unusual architecture and grand scale, with its fortress-like central "tower" section and eight branching wings.

An internet search of "Danvers State Hospital" quickly yields a long series of web sites. The hospital grounds hold a prominent place in the online pages of New England-area paranormal research groups. It is also a staple in many web sites dedicated to "urban exploration" - a type of subculture dedicated to sneaking into abandoned facilities.

The building has long been a favorite target of area youth, many of whom travel there seeking a good scare in its rotting hallways or in the deserted tunnels running underneath the hospital grounds.

In 1992, when the hospital closed, the National Guard helped by sending 80 ambulances to move the last of the patients to other facilities. Since then, the hospital has been a draw for other people, including dozens who have been arrested for trespassing on the abandoned hill.

A dozen people had been arrested as of mid-October this year.

Today, the Kirkbride stands out like a towering, red-brick beacon, regularly attracting the state's allowed maximum of 20 people to the twice-monthly, two-hour tours of the grounds.

Among the 15 or so people who visited this Tuesday could be found a mix of those people enthralled by the intricate detail of the Kirkbride and those who are drawn to it because they believe it to be haunted.

Frank and Colleen Short had traveled from New York. Frank is an avid horror movie fan and was familiarized with Danvers State through "Session 9," which was filmed at the hospital. His wife, a mental health professional, was interested in the building due to its history.

" I just think it's amazing," Frank Short said as he gazed at the Kirkbride. "It's 10 times bigger than I thought."

Most visitors on Tuesday were architecture enthusiasts, eagerly snapping pictures of the building's many right angles, its gray slate roof, the green copper roof trim, its spires and many gables.

There were also those who came up in search of ghosts, like Rose Peters, a Middleton writer working on a book on haunting.

" I find it fascinating there are so many people who claim to have experienced or seen something up here," Peters said.

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Haunted
Jeralyn Levasseur's family would hear footsteps in the second story hallways of their home when nobody was upstairs. Doors would open and close, lights would flicker on and off.

Levasseur grew on the grounds of Danvers State Hospital, in a house lent to her father, hospital administrator Gerald Richards.

Now 52, Levasseur clearly remembers one day in her youth when her sister and a brother were playing upstairs in the attic and saw an apparition of an older woman angrily scowling at them. They were too scared to move until their mother ordered them to come down, Levassuer said.

Levasseur was in high school when her bedcovers were pulled completely off her bed. Nobody was in the room. She was petrified, but said she always had the feeling no real harm would come to her.

Today, Levasseur works as an assistant to the chief nurse executive at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, a career she said was inspired by her father's teachings about the importance of caring for the mentally ill and sick, as well as to the experiences she had growing up at the mental hospital.

While Levassuer generally had a good experience there, she admitted there were some unsavory practices that took place - most often the result of misguided efforts to treat patients, such as primitive electric shock therapy and hydrotherapy.

" If you think back to the beginnings of medical science and the things done to people, not because they thought they were doing bad, but because they were trying to do right, you have to wonder, did people think they were being tortured?" Levasseur said. She believes it is the tortured spirits that knew Danvers State as their home that linger on the grounds.

Historical reasons
Certainly the history of the hospital grounds lends itself to haunting lore. Jonathan Hathorne, who is perhaps the most fanatical judge of the witchcraft delusions that saw 19 innocents killed in the 17th century, is said to have lived in a house built by his father in 1646 on the spot where the Kirkbride was later constructed.

The Kirkbride and Danvers State Hospital started as an enlightened attempt to bring patients out of their delusions through beautiful surroundings, complete with plenty of fresh air and sunshine. By the early 1900s, this enlightened ideal was being subverted by overcrowding and under-funding, a problem that grew steadily worse as the century progressed, according to Michael Ramseur, a technical adviser to "Session 9" and perhaps the foremost expert on the site's history.

A social worker by trade who works currently at Balpate Hospital, Ramseur's interest dates back to a chance visit in 1986, when he delivered a patient from a halfway house in Haverhill. Enthralled with the building's foreboding architecture, Ramseur began a 17-year quest to unravel the history of the place, through careful study of hospital records and interviews with former patients and staff. He shortly expects to publish a 300 page online book on the subject.

The hospital was designed for a maximum of 600 patients, Ramseur said. In November 1945, one evening shift of nine people was expected to care for more than 2,300 patients, he said.

Faced with overcrowding and understaffing, hospital staff depended on the primitive, and often brutal, psychiatric treatments of the day, including early-style shock treatments, hydrotherapy and lobotomies, to control the burgeoning population, Ramseur said.

It was the pain born of these treatments and the decay that accompanied overcrowding and tight budgets that caused the haunting that exists today, agreed all the believers in haunting who were interviewed for this article by The Herald.

There are more than a few stories from people who believe Danvers State Hospital to be haunted, and plenty of anecdotes from those who believe they felt or heard something go bump in the night.

It is "one of the crown jewels in the paranormal history of Massachusetts," said Chris Balzano, of the Massachusetts Paranormal Crossroads, one of the groups that lists Danvers as haunted. Balzano said there isn't much information on spiritual activity on the site because the police and the private security agency hired by the state keep it well locked down.

The site is listed as haunted on the web-pages of several paranormal research groups. One of these, the Rhode Island Paranormal Research group, claims to have done a study of the site in 1997, but refused to share their findings for an article.

[Kyl_Turbo]

Pictures of the place





picture during 1887


recent pictures

[Kyl_Turbo]

more pictures

[Kyl_Turbo]

this place was featured in the movie SESSION NINE

[k9]

dili lang ko sure pero mao ba ni na feature sa SCARIEST PLACES ON EARTH?

[Kyl_Turbo]

[Kyl_Turbo]

dili lang ko sure pero mao ba ni na feature sa SCARIEST PLACES ON EARTH?

i think usa ni siya ... we can have a research on that

[tokidoki]

very classy. I like it