I brought down my narrative in the preceding chapter to about August, 1864. All things went on in about the same monotonous manner, taking medicine three times a day, eating three meals, working some in the field and walking out with the attendants.

When September came, Sabbath school celebrations, and picnics of various clubs were frequently held in groves near Utica. To these, some of the patients had frequent invitations to go. I was generally invited to go to these, and frequently went, but I cannot say that I enjoyed them, I could enjoy nothing of this kind while known as a lunatic, in a lunatic asylum.

Some from there seemed to enjoy themselves just as well as if they had been the superintendents of the schools. There is a state of mind that is not unfavorably affected by placing them in the asylum—such for instance as one under the influence of hallucinations—there are many in that institution who believe they own the asylum, they think they run the institution with all its machinery!

As I was there during the war of the rebellion, I found many were brought there through the war excitement; some believed they were brigadier-generals; others believed they had been in the war and in many battles, who never saw a battle-field, nor ever shouldered a musket.

On one occasion, I recollect that a large number of patients accompanied by the attendants were on the ground. While there, the patients were allowed to stroll around the grounds and mingle with the people about as they pleased, the attendants only taking care that they did not leave the inclosure. I saw it was a good opportunity for any who desired it to run away, and I had but little doubt but on our return home our numbers would be less than when we came, and so it turned out; this only shows that the great majority of the patients are held there against their will—this, however, is no objection to the institution itself.

Another incident I also recollect which happened on the ground at one of these celebrations—a poor boy the son of a widow climbed a tree, for the purpose of fastening a rope in its top for a swing for the children, his foot gave way and he fell to the ground, breaking one of his legs and receiving other very bad bruises. He was taken up of course, placed in a carriage and sent to his anxious mother, with a good contribution from the people to help repair the damage.

I did not run away, I felt some as Paul did when requested to leave the prison and would not. I recollect that in this instance I was rather one of the privileged. I rode to the ground in a buggy with the Supervisor, the distance being about two miles. This was the second time I had taken a meal outside of the institution since I entered it, and it seemed quite refreshing; more especially so, as we had such a dinner as is never got up in the institution. I remember of eating very heartily.

There is one thing which, perhaps, I should have noticed before, but it will come in quite as well at this stage of my narrative. About the third day after I entered the asylum I was sitting alone in a very melancholy state of mind, when I saw a man approaching me which I recognized as an old friend in 1848 and 1849, in Columbia county. I was shocked, I felt both glad and sorry to see him. I rose, he took me very cordially by the hand and said, “Brother Chase, how do you do?” I felt greatly embarrassed, choked up, turned either red or pale in the face, could not tell which, did not know what to say—I dare not say I was well, for I was in the asylum as a patient, and I did not feel sick, so I stammered out—“Col. Drier.”

I had known him when under very different circumstances—I was the pastor of the church in that neighborhood, he had often heard me preach, he was also a Minister of the gospel, and now the steward of the asylum, and was at the time I met him on the hall. He said a few kind words to me, which I do not now recollect, neither do I recollect what I said to him, if I said anything.

I wish here to record, that Col. Drier, the steward of that institution, is a man, a christian, and a gentleman, always mild, always sincere, patient to hear all the requests of the patients, and though he could not gratify all their whims, he nevertheless so treated them, that all loved him, and as soon as he appears on one of the halls, the patients flock round him like hungry children round their mother. I never asked him for a thing that he denied me. I never heard of his doing a low or a wrong act in connection with that institution.

The fall passed away, and I began to be restless that I had heard nothing from my family since my daughter left in July, except one letter soon after she left; this was from Sandy Hill, where her mother was living at that time. A letter soon came, however, from Illinois, stating that her mother was with her in that country.

On receiving this letter my mind was greatly relieved; the mother was now with her only child, and though widely separated, I felt perfectly easy regarding the welfare of my family; I was only in distress that I could not be with them.

How often did I think that could the doctors enter into my feelings for one hour, and make them their own, that I should soon be dismissed from the asylum. But I now made up my mind to never say anything more about leaving, as the doctor once told me that my own opinion would weigh nothing with them in relation to my own case. I saw that a patient was a blank in all matters of opinion.

It is the custom in the institution, when the doctor enters the hall, for the inspection of the patients, for the attendant to walk by his side; and unless the patient is an old fixture, and not accounted much insane, the doctor asks the attendant the questions he wants answered, instead of the patient. This is, no doubt, right in many cases, but to apply the rule as it is generally applied, great injustice is frequently done to the patient. The questions for instance are: “How does he sleep nights?” “What is his appetite?” “Does he talk much?” “What is the state of his bowels?” “Does he take his medicine regularly?” The patient stands by, makes no reply; the attendant answers all these questions. I have stood by and heard the attendant answer these questions in relation to my own case. “Does he sleep well?” “Pretty well,” is the reply of the ignoramus, looking blank at the same time, and why should he not look blank? What did he know of the patient during the last night? The patient was locked up in a room perhaps two hundred feet from the room of the attendant, and the attendant fast asleep, while, perhaps, the patient laid and rolled from side to side upon his couch, and never shut his eyes during the whole night. I have heard this answer concerning myself, “pretty well,” when I knew I had not slept one wink; and so with about all the answers.

There are a good many little things in themselves, like this, that are very annoying to a mind that is not insane, and yet somewhat sensitive. Being always fearful that I might accidentally violate some rule and thereby fall under censure, I was always on my guard, and I can now recollect many things in which I was over particular.

One small affair I do not forget; it happened in the chapel on Sabbath evening. The second attendant took charge of the patients on the first hall that evening. He was an ignorant, self-conceited, over-bearing little Irishman. I took my seat in the chapel as usual, and had always supposed I knew how to behave in a church, as I had been a preacher forty years. I threw my arm upon the back of the seat, and as service had not yet commenced, cast my eye over my right shoulder; I had no particular object in view; he saw it, and thundered out, “Chase, turn yourself about, and sit up in your seat.” All in the room heard, of course. I turned my head slowly around as though I did not hear, but I felt; yes, I felt that if it had been any where else than in a lunatic asylum, and he had said it, he would have wished it had not been him; but I never mentioned it to him afterwards; and as he and the first attendant soon after this had a falling out, he was discharged and went to Canada.

This first attendant of the first hall is also supervisor of a number of halls. His name is D. Pritchards, and a better man cannot be found for the place he occupies. I never saw him in a surly or wrong mood of mind, always cheerful, always kind, never over-bearing, never delighted in afflicting a patient; if he had any fault, it was that he was too fraid of afflicting or crossing a patient, or an attendant under him. The whole house like him on all the halls. I feel glad to give him this tribute of regard and respect, as he always treated me with a brotherly kindness, and did all for me that lay in his power. I find he occupies the same position in the institution still, and I hope the day may be distant when he shall leave.

My object in writing this sketch, is not to find fault or pick flaws with this institution, for there is no institution in the land of what ever kind or character, but has its enemies—this is all understood; but because this is so, it does not follow that an institution cannot become rotten, and that the people have no right to investigate its secret workings.

The winter came, the winter of 1864 and 1865, it was December, I had been occupying a small room by myself for the last three months, there were some reasons why I did not like it as well as some other rooms, yet I did not mention it as I liked it much better than the dormitory where I spent the winter.

Unexpectedly to me, the supervisor took me by the arm and led me to a very fine room in the center of the hall, the best room on that floor, having a fine clothespress and all other conveniences. He said to me I was to have that room. I could not see the point; I felt encouraged, for it seemed to me that they would not let me have that room long, so I somehow conjured up in my mind the notion that they meant to discharge me soon, and as another man wanted the room I had been occupying, they would give me this as it was not occupied, for a few days until I were discharged—this was a fine picture I drew in my mind, and one that suited me—little thinking at the time that this room was to be my home for just one year—which was the fact.

I put down my own carpet, had a good field bedstead and good rocking chair; a washstand, bowl and pitcher, which the rooms did not generally have—a good new bible was presented to me; a looking glass and a lock on my clothespress. I could not complain of my accommodations, and anywhere but in an asylum, I could have been quite happy.

As to the beds of the institution, no fault could be found with them. First, a straw tick, always kept well filled; next, a good mattress, three good cotton sheets and coverlids plenty, besides always next to the sheets, thick woollen blankets for winter; the outside one invariable a white counterpane; the pillows were not all of feathers; they were mostly of hair; mine, for the last year, were feathers.

About this time a tall, white-haired, well dressed man came on to the hall, acting very cheerful, and I saw all hailed him as an old acquaintance. He seemed to be perfectly at home. I soon learned, by his conversation, that he had come of his own accord alone; he had been there the year before as a patient, and having wintered well, and got quite fleshy, he left; but he thought the asylum would be a good place to winter in again. So he came back; put himself under the care of the doctor; gave him his check on the bank for nine hundred dollars as security for his keeping, and commenced operations under high encouragements.

It was not long before he began to complain that they would kill him with medicine; this was something he had not bargained for, as he was not sick but came to spend the winter in a quiet way with those he knew, as he had no family, his wife had died and he was left alone. He remonstrated against taking the medicine, but all was in vain. I told him it was “good enough for him, if after he had been there once and knew what he knew about the institution, to come here again of his own accord, was a mark of madness.”

He would take the medicine, then swear, and curse the doctor for forcing him to take medicine which he did not need. He finally made up his mind that they meant to kill him with medicine, as they had got his money. It was most aggravating it is true, for the man needed no medicine, but either the medicine or the thought of it threw him into great agitation of mind, and not having a very strong mind he became nearly distracted.

Fearing that they meant to kill him by dosing him, he shut himself into his room, put his bed against the door, and barred it the best he could. The attendants found the next morning his door barred, and all fast, they of course burst it open, and such an outcry was never heard! He thought then of course he was a gone case. He roared and blubbered—but there was no use, he had to take the medicine.

He was now removed into the dormitory with other patients, in the same room. He finally concluded to take the matter into his own hands—he let me into the secret. It was to take the medicine in his mouth and walk carelessly away to his room or to the washroom and spit it out; he was very successful in this. I suppose for three months he did not swallow a table spoonful; yet it was given him three times a day. In the spring his son came and took him away: he went cursing the institution.

The asylum was now very full; some enlargements were made for patients. Some time in the fore part of this winter, as near as I can now judge, I saw a poor skeleton of a man come into the hall leaning on the arm of a man on one side, and on the other on the arm of a lady; he looked haggard, and I thought he was in the last stages of consumption.

They led him to one of the dormitories and placed him on a bed. I thought it strange that they would leave such a man on the first hall, as the sick and feeble were generally assigned to other apartments; I soon learned the cause of this. He was a merchant from West Port, Essex county, and a man of some means; his disease was dyspepsia. He was advised to go to Utica asylum for a cure, as the doctors there were so very skillful. He thought it like any other hospital, that he could stay as long as he pleased, and if things did not work favorably he could leave when he pleased; and as his friends brought him there, and he paid his own bills, they wanted him left on the first floor.

His friends left, and he was left there weak and feeble as a child; I think I never saw before a man's limbs so very small. I pitied him; I knew he and his folks were sold, but I dared not tell him so. His appetite was very poor, and what he did eat distressed him, and he was in the habit of vomiting it up. He had a habit, when his food hurt him, of placing his head down lower than his body, which he thought helped him to vomit.

The doctor forbade his using any means to assist him to vomit. He was sly, and would vomit out of the window to prevent detection. He was soon after removed to another hall; and on passing through that hall a few days afterwards, I found him bound down to his seat with straps, to prevent his getting his head down. He looked wishfully at me. I pitied him, but dared not say anything to him; here he stayed for a long time.

At length he was brought back upon the first floor. His wife came to see him, but the doctor did not permit them to meet. He wrote to his family and read the letter to the doctor, representing things all right, but had a slip of paper prepared, counteracting what was in the letter; in this slip he begged them to come and take him away; this slip he put into the envelope with the letter.

His wife came, and demanded to see him; she did see him; she resolved to take him home, but the doctor remonstrated and she left him. This afflicted the man. He finally got some better, and walked out with me; for at this time I had my liberty to go out alone, when I pleased and where I pleased. He could not walk far at a time, but was anxious to walk out every day. At length he would stay out after I went in, sometimes for half an hour—he began now to lay his plans to run away, as the doctor would not give his consent to let him go. He one day stole the keys, and came very near effecting his escape, when he was detected. He did not deny the fact, but told them that he did it to get away; that he had done nothing to forfeit his liberty; that he was under no obligations to them; that he paid his own way.

His mind was now intent on leaving; he had written home for money, and it had been intercepted by the doctor; he resolved to go without money. He walked out with me as usual; he prepared himself by putting on all the clothes he could. I knew nothing of his plan; he lingered; I went in; he did not come in, and has never been in since. He went down to the depot by a back street, went to Troy, found friends there to help him on, and got home safe. I doubt whether he will ever go to Utica again to be cured of dyspepsia.

And though this man has a perfect dread of the asylum, there are men, however, who like the institution, and think it the best place in the world. It has been urged that those who so dislike the institution are those whose minds are not right; they are a little insane still, that if they were perfectly sane they would like it—that those who like it are sane men.

Let us see how this matter stands; they that like it are sane men, and those who dislike it are insane. I know a man who likes the institution, who has been in it as a patient for fifteen years; this man is known very widely, in Utica, in Hoosick and elsewhere; his name is Mosely. Is he a sane man? What does he say? He says: “It is the best institution on the globe, and that Dr. Gray and himself and his Bible, and the State of New York, the asylum, his farm in Hoosick, and his new house, are all one thing; that they all perfectly agree, and that it is the best institution on the globe.” Now who can resist such an argument as this? Such are the kind of sane men who like the institution.

That there are men who work in and around the institution, and have for years, who see nothing very exceptionable in any of its departments, may be all true. So there may be men who are employed in and around State prisons, who see nothing very exceptionable in them. But this proves nothing at all.

There is a vast difference between skinning or being skinned. Let those who have been in and around the institution, and think they know all about it, let them go in as patients, let them go through all the degrees of initiation, until they get a diploma, then ask them whether they can recommend it to the world as the best institution on the globe?

As I wish to give credit for every good thing which happened during my stay in the asylum, and as I have passed over one thing, I wish, before I enter upon my last summer's history; to notice it.

The thing referred to, which was passed over in its proper connection, was our Thanksgiving dinners of 1863 and 1864. I was on the fourth hall at the dinner of 1863. I think it was about the 20th of November. I thought it a grand dinner; fifty turkeys were dressed, stuffed and cooked for that dinner for the patients.

I took a kind of philosophical view of it when it came on the table. The first thought was, after taking a glance at the whole thing, what a contrast. Now it must be understood that our common every day fare was a very stereotyped edition. It was bread and meat, and meat and bread, with a little butter, twice a day, and cheese, pickle, and pie, Sundays only; and I was always glad when Sunday came, for the sake of the pickle and cheese, though the cheese was a very small piece. I am not fault finding, only noticing the contrast. There was a fine roasted turkey on each end of the table, bread, butter, cheese, pickle, pie of the richest kind, roast beef; then came on nuts, confectioneries in abundance, with raisins and apples.

I think I must have been a little “luny” just at that time, for I confess I was so afraid that some of us would over-eat of this rich dinner, that ten to one if we did not have half a dozen deaths in less than eight and forty hours afterwards; for this dinner was not confined to one or two halls, but was general. At all events, I was so afraid of making myself sick, that I was foolishly reserved in eating; I ate scarcely any of the turkey, and, by the way, I never liked turkey; I ate no pie, I thought it was too rich; I made my dinner of stuffing, sauce, bread, butter, and confectioneries. I was not sick, and I heard of no deaths on that account.

The next Thanksgiving dinner, of 1864, was on the first hall. It did not make so deep an impression on my mind as the first, for it was not exactly like it, we had no turkey, nor butter for that dinner; but we did have a very good dinner, with a dessert and confectioneries to close up with.

Another spring now came, the spring of 1865; I had made up my mind to go no more out to work; I had got above work by this time, though I was better able to work now than I was the year before; yet if I had been ordered out, I suppose I should have went, but very little would have been the work I should have done; as it was, however, I was not ordered out.

I had quit the dining room six months before this, except to eat my meals, as the Supervisor had told me I need not work there longer unless I pleased; so I quit it, and took to sweeping the hall for exercise every morning after breakfast. There were a number of men on the hall who were excessive eaters, but not one chore could be got out of them, except to make their beds and sweep their rooms.

The floor of the hall had to be scrubbed and washed every Monday morning; this gave us a little good exercise. The cleaning of house came on this spring, as usual; this is quite a business; the patients can have employment in this for a number of days. While this is going on no visitors are received. The windows are all taken out and washed, the mouldings and casings all scoured, the bedsteads all taken out of their rooms, the beds put into a pile and the bedsteads scoured and thoroughly saturated with kerosene, to prevent the vandals from eating up the patients. All the rooms are then whitewashed.

The bedsteads are prepared with strips of sheet-iron instead of cords to lay the beds on; this, perhaps, is an improvement.

One particular incident I cannot pass over without recording. Some time in the course of the fall or winter of 1864-5—I cannot be particular here as to the exact time—Dr. Gray came on the hall accompanied by a man in regimentals; a dark, curly black-haired man, rather slim, but carrying a decided look and apparently a firm will, and, as I inspected him from a distance, he looked to me, as though he could hew a man in pieces with all the sang froid of a Roman gladiator.

The doctor introduced him as Dr. Shantz, a surgeon from the army, and from this time was to be the attending physician on this side of the house. I had dreaded the one we had before, but now I thought we had got a Rehoboam, who declared “his little finger should be thicker than his father's loins; that whereas his father had chastised them with whips, he would chastise them with scorpions.”

Such were the views I had of Dr. Shantz when I first saw him. He commenced his rounds of visitation, but I shunned him as far as I was able to do so, till some observed it, and thought I treated the doctor with great coldness. I was afraid of him.

At length we came in contact. I found he had a good mind, penetrating and scientific; I found he loved books, and was a good observer of nature, and withal was not an infidel; my fears fled. I soon found that he could not only reason, but was willing to hear others. After I had thoroughly weighed him in my own mind, I resolved on an experiment. For more than a year and a half I had now taken medicine three times a day, and was now, besides this, drinking strong beer before every meal, as to the medicine I had no doubt but it injured me, and I felt that I was like a candle burning at both ends, the pressure of the asylum on the one hand and the medicine on the other.

And so I contrived to evade taking it, by spitting it out. I confess I did this for more than three months, and I knew I felt the better for it. I will not stop now to argue the question of the right or wrong of my course, as I was not treated as a moral agent. I simply state facts as they were.

I told the doctor I would like to have an interview with him in my room if he would admit it. He said he would do so, and not long after this he came to my room and gave me a fair opportunity to tell him all that was in my heart.

I gave him a brief history of my coming into the asylum, the causes that led to it as far as I knew, what my feelings and state were before, and at the time I came there; how matters had gone on with me since I had been there; what my appetite was, my general state of health, and how I felt at that time; and closed by telling him that it appeared strange to me, that the manner of doctoring here should be different from the manner out of the institution.

In this particular I referred to the continuance of medicine of the same kind for a year or more, three times a day, without reference to the state of the patient. I told him that it appeared to me that when a man was well and appetite good, he did not need medicine; and finally begged him to take it all off.

The medicine was dropped off, and oh! how I rejoiced, not that I had swallowed it for the last three months, yet the idea that it was no longer offered me was a great relief. The bloating of my bowels and limbs ceased, and I felt much better. When it was no longer offered me, I felt like a new man, and hope sprang up in my mind. The beer was still continued; after a while I introduced this subject to the doctor.

I told him I felt quite well, and I could not see that I needed beer for my health, and begged him to take it off. He thought I was mistaken about its not benefitting me, but said he would take off the beer and substitute a little sherry, with an egg, three times a day. I begged to be excused from taking the wine; so he took off the beer, and from that time until I left the institution, which was perhaps three or four months, I took nothing, and I know I felt the better for it.

So I found in Dr. Shantz a “man, a gentleman and a friend.” I could not have been more kindly treated by an own brother than by him. When I left the institution, I felt that I had left behind a friend and a benefactor. I think him just the man for such an institution. I have had one very agreeable visit with him since I left the asylum.[C]

He left the institution at Utica since I left there, went to Minnesota and founded an asylum in that State, of which he takes the charge. I understand he is doing well. If I am so unfortunate as to go to a lunatic asylum again, I beg my friends to take me to Minnesota and place me under the charge of Dr. Shantz, but never take me to Utica.