Tewksbury Hospital

Tewksbury Hospital is a National Register of Historic Places-listed site located on an 800+-acre campus in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. The centerpiece of the hospital campus is the 1894 Richard Morris Building ("Old Administration Building").

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health currently operates a Joint Commission accredited, 370-bed facility at Tewksbury Hospital, providing both medical and psychiatric services to challenging adult patients with chronic conditions. The Public Health Museum in Massachusetts now occupies the Richard Morris Building. In addition to the hospital and museum, the Tewksbury Hospital campus also hosts eight residential substance abuse programs, serving up to 275 patients. Five Massachusetts state agencies also have regional offices at Tewksbury, including the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health and the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety. Casa Esperanza's Conexiones Clinical Stabilization Services (CSS), the Lowell House's Sheehan Women's Program, the Lowell House Recovery Home, the Middlesex Human Service Agency, and the Strongwater Farm Therapeutic Equestrian Center.

History

Almshouse

Authorized by an act of Massachusetts General Court in 1852, Tewksbury Hospital was originally established as a Tewksbury Almshouse (along with similar facilities in Monson and Bridgewater), opening in May 1854, under its first superintendent, Isaac H. Meserve. The original Tewksbury campus consisted of "large wooden buildings" which were considered "badly designed, poorly constructed firetraps."

The Salem and Lowell Railroad had a passenger station on its main line for the State Almshouse in Tewksbury. The Almshouse had its own spur line to a freight house, and coaling station to the power plant- both of which still exist today.

Almshouse to hospital

In 1866, a hospital was added to supplement the existing almshouse. In that same year, Tewksbury first began accepting what were known as the "pauper insane".

Anne Sullivan

thumb|Anne Sullivan statue at [[Tewksbury, Massachusetts|Tewksbury Town Common]]

From February 1876 to October 1880, Tewksbury housed its most famous inmate, Anne Sullivan, best known as the teacher and companion of Helen Keller. Her mother dead, and abandoned by her father, Sullivan was admitted to Tewksbury at the age of ten, along with her younger brother Jimmie. Sullivan was afflicted with trachoma, which was beginning to blind her; her brother was suffering from tuberculosis, which was to cause his death four months later.

In October 1880, Sullivan left Tewksbury, allowed by the intervention of a state official to transfer to the Perkins School for the Blind in Boston. Political factions, and newspapers aligned with them, seized upon the story, either highlighting the most lurid parts of the testimony, or denouncing Butler as a liar using false allegations for political gain. Marsh was succeeded by C. Irving Fisher in June 1883.

Butler later wrote in his memoirs that the "investigation was productive of great good because it called the attention of the whole people of the country in the several States to the condition of things in institutions, and investigations of like character into their affairs in the succeeding year were quite general and caused great reforms."

Construction and expansion

thumb|Female Asylum, Tewksbury, Architectural Drawing by John A. Fox, 1896

thumb|Tewksbury State Hospital in 1907

From 1894 to 1905, the Tewksbury campus saw extensive new construction, including several buildings designed by Boston architect John A. Fox—the Old Administration Building (1894), the Male Asylum (1901), the Women's Asylum (1903). In the first part of the 20th century, Tewksbury combined two roles, first, as a "last resort" facility for the elderly and the mentally ill, and secondly, as an isolation and care center for patients with infectious diseases, such as Smallpox, Typhoid Fever, and Tuberculosis.

In 1921, a School of Practical Nursing was added at Tewksbury, for financial reasons. Tewksbury Hospital's then-CEO, Raymond Sanzone said of the closure, "None of us is happy with this closing, but the school is no longer financially viable. [...] The main mission of this institution is to treat patients, not to train nurses"

WPA expansion

Tewksbury saw a second major expansion of its facilities during the 1930s under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) program. WPA-constructed buildings added during that decade included: the Married Couples Building (ca. 1930), Special Building (ca. 1930) (a dormitory building), the Dining Room/Kitchen (1934), Stonecroft (1935) (an agricultural building in the Craftsman style), and the Nichols Building (1939).

Modernization

Tewksbury's pre-Civil War "Long Asylum" and several other older buildings were demolished in 1971 to make way for new construction. Buildings demolished included the remaining buildings from Tewksbury's time as an almshouse, along with two Hartwell & Richardson designed hospital wards.

File:Tewksbury.Hospital for Consumption.1908.jpg|State Hospital At Tewksbury, 1908

File:Tewksbury.West Ward Men's Hospital.c1900.jpg|West Ward, Men's Hospital, c. 1900

File:Tewksbury.Hospital Sun Room.1892.jpg|Sun Room, Female Hospital, c. 1892

File:Tewksbury.Kitchen & Dining Hall.1903.jpg|Kitchen & Dining Hall, c. 1903

File:Tewksbury.Mens Dining Room.1903.jpg|Men's Dining Hall, c. 1903

File:Tewksbury.Male Employees Home.Candace Jenkins.1992.png|Male Employees Building

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References

External links

Tewksbury Hospital
Public Health Museum (at Tewksbury)
Tewksbury Almshouse Intake Records [1854-1884] at University of Massachusetts Lowell