Elizabeth T. Stone

“ I had friends that were dear to me, and I thought I should like to see them once more upon earth. The cruel mockery and ridicule that I had heaped upon me there was enough to cause any female to be sick of her life. They seemed to take delight in saying things to try me.—Miss Barber and Dr. Fox were in the gallery together, the Doctor stood laughing at me, for I was in violent distress and crying. ”

“ My old New Hampton school mates that I have met with since I was taken out of the Hospital, start back with surprise and say that they can hardly trace a look in me that I once had, and not a trait in my deportment that I once possessed. They say "that countenance that once was lit up with happiness is now marked with deep sorrow; those eyes that once sparkled with joy are now dead and sunken with grief, and the language, and the voice are so different that some destruction has come upon you;" ”

“ I was taken out by my brother William, from New York; but now I have no society, I cannot resort to God and to God's people for comfort, and take happiness in the service of God, for I have not happiness within myself, as it is the spirit of Christ that makes us happy, and enables us to look forward to never ending eternity of bliss. Now that spirit is taken from me by medicine, and it leaves my body in distress, from the crown of my head to the sole of my foot, without carnal love of this world, or the love of God. Of course without the spirit of Christ we cannot love God. ”

“ I cannot enjoy carnal nor spiritual things. I stayed in this gallery about a week, when Miss Barber came in one morning and said I must go down in the other gallery if I cried so. I told her to carry me, for it was the place of the greatest cruelty that I ever knew. How they could witness a poor female suffer as I did, and to be accessory to it, I thought of all the cruelty I ever read of I never read of any equal to this. She led me down among perfect maniacs, in a cold, dark, cheerless room, with no seat to sit on. ”

“ If I had lost my reason is it right to take the advantage of a crazy person and destroy happiness. Charlestown McLean Assylum is to a weak excited person as a grog-shop is to an intemperate man, or a house of ill-fame, to a licentious person; they can be completely ruined. I hope this will be looked into before another one is destroyed, and that those still remaining in that awful place of imprisonment, weeping their hours away, may be relieved by seeing their friends soon. May God awaken the mind of the public to the sufferings of the helpless. ”

“ Accordingly I was led on to another gallery. Here I found perfectly deranged people, and some appeared to be in a great deal of distress. Esther Benton, the attendant, at first, was quite kind to me, but soon she began to show her power. She knew well my situation, for she had seen others suffer similarly about their religion in that house, and I was regarded as a vagabond, as truly I am. But would I have willingly thrown myself away? Is it not a law in nature that every body desires happiness? But alas, for the want of a kind friend, I am lost to all happiness here and hereafter. ”

“ Kind reader, have you a wife, sister, or an unprotected daughter in this wide world, (however you may be situated, the same laws govern nature thro'ought the world,) would you see her deceived into a hospital the third day of leaving her work, having nothing done for her first, and then not permit her to see one of her kind friends? Because God saw fit not to give me the abundance of this world was I any the less incapable of happiness here and hereafter? Because I was a poor factory girl must I be treated in this brutal manner, in this boasted land of liberty? ”

“ Let there be a mighty cry made by the public, and search into the iniquity of Charlestown McLean Assylum. I know it is held up by what is called the popular class, but it is a combination of men, a system that is worse than slavery, and any crime can be done there and covered up under the garb of derangement, and no one interfere. Dear Christian reader, I have put forth this appeal to let the christian world know that this knowledge is known upon the earth, and it is in the hands of the wicked. Why is the public so silent upon the sufferings of a poor girl? ”

“ Is this the state of our country, that the rights of a poor female are trampled upon, and the laws of our country, where there has been so much blood spilt to work out the liberty of every free born son and daughter of America. And because I endeavor to make known to the world this crime, I am threatened with a second imprisonment, by my brother Eben. If it is a crazy story surely it will do no harm, and if it is not, why had it not ought to come out. Let a council of physicians be held upon my body and see if I am a person that can enjoy life. ”

“ If my brothers are innocent about my being ruined, I think they would do it, although it would not bring back to me my happy state; but it would expose the wickedness of the Doctors in the Charlestown Hospital, and save others from suffering the same. I was far from being deranged; but I grant that I was in a weak state. But because I was weak, from over exertion, was that any reason why I should be imprisoned, and medicine given me to harden my brain, to rack and torture me? To give a person an idea of the distress of my body every moment, would be impossible ”

“ Persecution to a christian is like water to a plant; what is called derangement by some, or delirious about religion, can be removed by medicine by the Dr.'s at the Charlestown Hospital. The pains and distress of the operation cannot be found upon the annals of cruelty of any nation, and then the distressed situation it leaves one in,—neither love to God nor fellow beings. Dear christian reader, what I tell you is the truth. ”

“ Is there a person this side of the grave for whom God has nothing more to do? But I did not know then that man had the knowledge to take the holy spirit from a person by giving them medicine; but she had already conceived the wicked deed in her heart, and knew where the awful crime could be done, and her very language expressed what she knew was about to be done to me, although I did not then suspect any evil. Had it been said to me in any other place but a brother's house, and by a female, I should have suspected I was about to be murdered, or some other brutal outrage committed upon [17] me. ”

“ My body was now, as it were, dead; my brain was becoming a mineral substance, all but my intellectual faculties. In the afternoon, Miss Barber came in, in her masculine manner, to all appearance to exult in human misery, and asked me to take her arm. I knew I was going on to another gallery. I said nothing, for it would be of no use; hearts that are so hardened in cruelty as they must be to do such crimes, would not listen to entreaty. ”

“ I then asked him if holiness was liable to become a disease and medical men knew it, ought they not to publish it to the world that every thing should be done for a person first by the people of God, before the medicine was given to them, and had such a crime ought to go under the garb of derangement, and poor creatures suffer forever in consequence of it. ”

“ But I was not the only sufferer on account of their cruel treatment. Others were suffering the like in different ways. I stayed in this gallery till about the last of July, weeping and rolling on the floor, in pain, not allowed to lay on my bed, and often stripped and showered, as I was told I should be, as a punishment for weeping, because I was in distress, and lost to eternal happiness, and deprived of my liberty, in the hands of tyrants. One day, while I was laying on the floor in agony, Dr. Bell came in and said that brother James had been there. ”

“ Their motive can be determined by their treatment and attention while there, and the manner of the treatment that I have received in hearing of my sufferings. For good motives always lead to good and kind actions. I have given in general a detail of the steps that were taken with me from the time of my leaving my labour on Saturday, before I was carried to the Hospital, on the Thursday following, and after I was there, their attention to me. I appeal to the public mind if this was good, kind and just treatment; if it was only my earthly happiness destroyed I should rejoice amidst it all. ”

“ Dear christian reader, I will show you by the Bible where I was when I was carried into Charlestown Hospital. When I was converted I had a strong hope to support me against the wind and tide of this world. As an anchor is to a ship so is a hope in Christ Jesus to a person in this world. They are saved from the pollution of the world through the washing of regeneration; saved from the corruption that is in their own heart and the temptations around them. There is but one religion that is good for any thing, or one's religion is as good as another's. ”

“ I had lost all idea of holiness, and I am utterly incapable of using good language. I thought of what I once was, and to be brought to this low degraded state, to suffer thus in a gospel land, grieved me.
It is the practice for physicians from other Assylums to visit there, and see all the patients. One day there was a Dr. Ray, with others from the Maine Assylum; Dr. Bell began to mock me about being married, knowing that all my affections were dead, to see what effect it would have upon me, holding my pulse at the time, and laughing at each other. ”

“ Would it not be well to have it a law that no person should be carried into an Insane Hospital without the advice of a council of physicians, and not have it left to the judgment of one person, for it is not an uncommon thing for persons to be put in there who are not insane, and they cannot help themselves. The public is completely deceived about the situation of their friends after they are there. ”

“ But, christian reader, it is knowledge that man has obtained of chemistry. By putting two substances together a third is produced unlike both. What the medicine is I know not, but I think I could tell it if I saw it.—Christian reader, you have never thought it to be very strange that a person could be poisoned to death. In that case it seperates spirit from matter; and in this case it seperates God's Holy Spirit from matter, for you know it is not only a belief, for the Devils believe and tremble. ”

“ Fox, the assistant physician, came in and began to converse with me; I told him it was not my reason that was effected, or any distress of mind, but I had undergone a cleansing or purifying by being washed in the blood of the Lamb; that I had tasted of the good word, and the powers of the world to come, and that I was weak and wanted some valerian tea, or something to calm me; he said that I must not think I was so filled with the spirit; any minister would laugh at me. I repeated some passages of the Scriptures to him; one was that St. Paul says, "Be ye filled with the fullness of God." ”

“ At the age of fifteen I resorted to the factories in Lowell, where I found employment and became expert at the business. Knowing that I had myself to take care of and no one to depend upon, I was ambitious and often asked my overseer for the privilege of tending double work, which was often granted; and as I had the means of providing for my own wants and some to spare, I became restless and often wished I had the means to go to school, as my mother often told her children to get learning—it was what the world could not take from us ”

“ God contrary to his views. He believes all will go to heaven whether they have in them the hope of glory or not. But he has a right to his belief. My religion would not have led me to be accessory to his imprisonment, and more especially to have medicine given him to rack and torture him. One day when the trustees were there, I addressed Mr Lowell about my situation; he gave a listening ear, when Dr. Bell stepped forward and said my physician said that I was a fit subject for the house. I told him I had no physician, for I never was sick but once in my life, and that was two years ago. ”

“ The floors are, as it were, the God that they worship; they must be washed every day, and the poor patients suffer in being neglected during the time, which is very frequently the case, and if a poor patient steps upon the floor for sometime after, they have to take a severe reprimand, and are locked up in their room all day as a punishment, because the attendant is afraid the floor will have a mark upon it. It is all well enough to keep clean; but the happiness of the poor patient is not regarded. ”

“ Remarks upon the Institution.—There is no dispute but what there should be such an institution as an Insane Assylum, but let it come under the jurisdiction of the Legislature, and not have all the power consigned into the hands of a few individuals, over a distressed class of beings, a money-making system, at the expense of happiness, in a great measure. If it was thought best to have all power put into the hands of one individual, then we should have a King in this country, but it is not thought best. ”

“ Each one of us had to do for ourselves; but they might have treated me with common humanity. I never thought labor dishonored any one, but while I was on a visit to see my brother Stephen, his wife requested me not to let any one know that I worked in a factory, which made me very unhappy; and because I went to Great Falls to work in the factory, brother Stephen sent my things in a fictitious name, not wishing any one to know that he had a sister that worked in the factory, which caused me to be suspected of being a loose character. ”

“ But now taken by the cunning craftiness of my relations, I was enclosed within bolted doors and grated windows, where I could not make my escape, nor my friends prevent the brutal outrage that they were committing upon me.—Reader, for a moment imagine yourself in my situation. If you are not a christian you do not wish to undergo pain, neither do you desire to be miserable, nor to be separated from your friends, with entire strangers that you never saw before, for it is contrary [24] to the laws that God has written in your nature. ”