Part One of a three-part series
Sarah Woods was about 39 years old when she left Yazoo County to arrive at the place that would be her home for the next four decades. There are no records to indicate how she lived, what her hobbies were, or what skills she may have possessed.
Looking over hundreds of records, Sarah Woods’ story is like so many others who were admitted to the then-Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
She was a patient but mostly a number.
Sarah Woods’ discharge from the state hospital arrived on March 15, 1916, at 79 years old. But it wasn’t because she was cured of her ailments. It wasn’t because she “recovered” enough to rejoin society. Instead, she was discharged because of death, succumbing to blood poisoning or septicemia.
Of the patients from the Mississippi State Insane Asylum who died at the facility, thousands were buried on the hospital grounds. The discovery of some of those remains would lead to the now active Asylum Hill Project, following an interrupted expansion of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, which is housed at the former state hospital’s site.
But what is the Yazoo connection? How is the discovery of patients, perhaps forgotten in life and even death, relative to our local history? Perhaps more than you think. Let’s take a deep dive into the history behind mental illness in Mississippi, the discovery of forgotten remains and those connections with Yazoo County.
A tract of land, which is now part of the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, was slated to become a new road in a construction project in 2012. As the project progressed and dirt continued to be removed from the site, workers unearthed more than just soil. Multiple graves were discovered, pine boxes were uncovered with no grave markers identifying the burials. Naturally, construction work stopped. And history unfolded before the country.
In January of 1855, the now-campus of UMC was then known as the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum. According to records and newspaper clippings, the facility was considered “cutting edge” for its time. It was the state’s first institution for the mentally ill. After a decade-long construction period, often delayed with legislation struggles and a yellow fever epidemic, the facility would open its doors.
The institute would remain open from 1855 until 1935. It was renamed the State Hospital for the Insane in 1900 and remained in operation until the more modern, and present, Mississippi State Hospital was opened in Whitfield on March 4, 1935.
The Asylum Hill Project reports that archaeological studies undertaken by UMMC indicate that there are as many as 7,000 graves located on the remaining undeveloped part of the main campus.
“Further examination of historical records indicated that a cemetery had once existed at the location during the time when the asylum was in operation,” according to the Asylum Hill Project. “Patients who died at the institution and who did not have family members to claim remains were buried there in pine coffins. After the asylum closed in 1935, the state-owned land lay untouched for two decades. The simple wooden markers which were thought to have marked each grave deteriorated over time and the existence of the cemetery was forgotten.”
Following the discovery of the graves on the hospital’s campus in 2012, Dr. Ralph Didlake, UMMC professor of surgery, vice chancellor for academic affairs and director of the Center for Bioethics and the Medical Humanities, formed the Asylum Hill Research Consortium for scholars and other partners to exhume, study and memorialize those buried on the campus. Those project efforts continue to this day.
Nan Harvey, a Mississippi Department of Archives and History volunteer, researched thousands of death certificates of about 4,380 patients from the Mississippi State Insane Asylum between November of 1912 and March of 1935 who were buried on the hospital grounds.
Of those buried on the grounds, 109 patients were from Yazoo County. Racially, the total included 98 African American patients and 11 white patients. Based on gender, there are 52 males and 57 females.
The leading cause of death for those patients was tuberculosis with about 23 patients. The second leading cause was pellagra, a vitamin deficiency, with about 20 patients. Other leading causes included cerebral hemorrhaging, heart conditions and epilepsy. Rare conditions included inflammation of the kidneys, syphilis, stomach cancer, burns and even “maniacal exhaustion.”
The patient with the shortest tenure at the Mississippi State Insane Asylum until their death was a man named Jonas Whitus, 50, who passed away on June 21, 1931. He was an African American male who was only a patient of the hospital for only 16 hours before his death. His cause of death was listed as “burns.” Details of his death could not be found.
The Herald attempted to find reports of any fires that could have happened at the state hospital at that time. No accounts could be uncovered. The last major fire at the facility was reported in 1892, which destroyed much of the facility’s major building and claimed one patient’s life. It was speculated that the fire was caused by coal oil lamps and candles used for lighting.
As mentioned before, Sarah Woods was the longest tenure of patients from Yazoo County at the hospital during that time. Records show that she arrived at the facility around 1876 at the age of 39 years old. She remained a patient at the facility for 40 years, three months and two days before passing away from septicemia on March 15, 1916.
Perhaps the youngest patient admitted to the hospital from Yazoo County was that of eight-year-old Annie Henning. She passed away on Feb. 27, 1928 at the age of 15 from pellagra.
Over the next two editions, The Herald will take a closer look at the history of the state hospital and the treatment of mental illness during the early 1900s. With the 109 names of Yazooans recorded as being buried on the campus, it might be difficult to uncover their stories in their entirety. But we can get an idea of what the atmosphere was like at the facility during these Yazooans’ tenure.
What were the conditions for admittance of some of the patients? Knowing what we know of modern medicine, were some of the mental illnesses merely physical conditions that could have been properly treated during another era? We will take a closer look.
For years, the Yazooans recorded might have only been known by their numbers. Perhaps they are among the remains uncovered on the campus. If so, hopefully they are being properly memorialized through the Asylum Hill Project efforts.
But they are more than a number. They are people who deserve remembrance. Hopefully, we will be able to share some of their stories.
