A Stain on Athens Ohio’s Past: Athens Lunatic Asylum

On the outskirts of Ohio University, an old hospital casts the shadow of its gruesome past. 

It opened in 1874 with good intentions, but budget cuts and unethical patient treatment led to its dwindling reputation. 

So, this story starts like a few blog stories from before. When I was little, I saw an episode of Scariest Places on Earth about Athens, Ohio. The show dramatically brought up the cemeteries forming a pentagram and a college student who did a Satanic ritual gone wrong, but I’ll save that story for another day.  The other haunting that was brought up was an insane asylum that had a mark of a woman patient who was found dead. It also brought up the horrible procedure of lobotomy. All this gruesome talk fascinated a young Marisa that would haunt the back of her mind for years to come.

In Fall 2020, I decided to take a fall road trip on a whim. Ohio University was one place I always wanted to visit, as it was dubbed one of the most haunted college campuses. My destination was the Athens Lunatic Asylum.  Everything was closed at the time due to Covid, but I did get some photos of the exterior.

Last month I decided to take a trip back since everything was open. There was also some work being done on one of the campus buildings.

Ethical Treatment in the 1800’s

It was no secret back that back then, many people did not have the best view of the mentally ill. Most of the time, it was dealt with by locking away the patient from the world as they were deemed a danger to society. 

The Kirkbride's plan

The asylum opened on January 9th, 1874. Dr. Thomas Kirkbride's plan was implemented into how the facility's care operated. According to Dr. Kirkbride, one in five hundred people are deemed insane. He was a staunch advocate for the Moral Treatment of patients. He believed patients should not be locked in an isolated room and should have space for recreation.  Kirkbride’s plan went as such: his plan was to create a spacious environment for the patient where it was spacious with open light for patients. He believed this would help rehabilitate patients.  It would include recreational activities such as farming, gardening, exercise, labor and occupation on the premises.

Many patients were institutionalized for various reasons: epilepsy, depression, religious zeal, tuberculosis, postpartum depression, and menstrual disorders. One of the first patients to enter was a fourteen-year-old girl with epilepsy. Misunderstanding the diagnosis, her parents thought she was under some sort of demonic possession and just admitted her. 

In 1903, the Moral Treatment model was phased out and replaced by a custodial plan. Rooms were converted to dormitory-like setups, making the care system more notorious. 

Lobotomy 

António Egas Moniz is a name now infamous in the mental health world, but he was once celebrated. In 1949, he received a Nobel Prize for developing a new procedure called leucotomy, otherwise known as lobotomy. This procedure was implemented in many hospitals, with Athens Lunatic Asylum being no exception. 

The procedure would help patients with mental illness become more docile. By “docile,” they would often become catatonic after a surgical tool that resembled an ice pick would enter the frontal lobe via the eye socket and scramble the brain around. Many unfortunate patients who went through it would never have the function or capability to live independently ever again. To make matters worse, some procedures were done over something that was not a mental illness.  One example comes from a patient who survived a lobotomy procedure and published a book called My Lobotomy, where he mentioned his father and stepmother paid $200 to have him lobotomized to treat schizophrenia. Well, this “schizophrenia” was daydreaming and having the lights on in the room when it was daytime. It was more so things a normal kid would do. For some reason, this warranted a procedure, not a call to social services. 

If an adult with mental challenges got the procedure and had the mind of a preteen, to begin with, it would be reduced to that of an infant. Due to the controversies surrounding the treatment and side effects it started to decline until the 1950s. This was also due to the rise of more developed psychiatric medication. Another factor was public opinion somewhat began to shift about mental illness and does not necessarily mean a danger to society.

As years passed, many family members of victims of this inhumane procedure demanded the Nobel Prize committee to revoke Moniz’s award. It still has yet to be rescinded. 

Margaret Schilling

In 1978, one patient disappeared from the staff. Margaret Schilling was a 53-year-old patient.  Weeks later, a dead woman patient was discovered completely nude, laying on the floor with her clothes folded on the window sill at an abandoned ward in the asylum. It was Margaret. The outline of where she lay still appears on the concrete floor to this day. No matter how much it is, it still seems.  To this day, Margaret’s ghost is seen peering through the windows. 

Closure 

The asylum finally closed in 1993 and the last patients were transferred to Appalachian Behavioral Health Care facility. For the asylum, the property was given to Ohio University, where the college would use parts of the building and surrounding building properties. 

Part of the Asylum is used by the Ohio University campus police, while another part operates as an art museum. At the time of my visit, the art museum was closed due to the pandemic. Everywhere else in the building is either fenced off or “abandoned.” It’s debatable to call this place abandoned, as it’s not completely abandoned, yet some areas remain empty.  

The first room on the right of the foyer entering the art museum is dedicated to talking about the history of the asylum, including pictures of it before the interior remodeling. Entry to the art museum is free. The checkered flooring is one of the original interior things that was intact from the asylum. A lot of the rooms and corridors are renovated into art galleries.  I asked the students if they knew where Margaret’s stain was, but they were unsure. All they know is that the stain is supposed to be in the abandoned part of the asylum.

Cemeteries

On the side of a steep hill is a cemetery dedicated to the hospital's patients. In one part of the cemetery, a bunch of headstones are together in a row. These are tombstones of patients that the preservation society had difficulty looking for graves. A small plaque is dedicated to them covered in coins as a sign of respect for the lost souls.  A trail goes into the woods, where graves can be seen along the path. This is mainly dedicated to the asylum's early-year patients. Some of the cemetery goes into the woods. There is a group of grave markers of graves that historians are still looking for. Some plaques bring up the efforts to find the patients. 

While I was in the museum, a student told me there were two more cemeteries in the woods. They also mentioned that the college library holds records of all the patients who were at the asylum. One of her classmates, she alleges, was looking for a great-grandparent’s records. These cemeteries had more recent burials, with the last patient buried in 1972. 

Ghost Sightings

Many reported feeling cold around Margaret’s stain. Chains could also be heard being pulled around the asylum's basement. For the cemeteries, people have reported seeing shadowy figures. There is also the story of the cemeteries forming a pentagram around Athens, along with the asylum cemeteries, but that is a story for another day.