We poked around the public Administration building and could find no feasible way to get inside without a ladder. Even then, we probably wouldn't have gone in due to the many asbestos warnings found posted all around the building. The huge pillars and ivy covered bricks made this a beautiful sight even in broad daylight and we had a blast exploring the exterior of the building.
Although the hospital wasn’t closed due to malpractice, there was one horror story to go along with it. A patient named Anne Marie Davee was murdered by another patient, Melvin W. Wilson. Although we tried to find more information on this murder, there wasn’t much to be found, apart from the fact that he buried her body somewhere on the property. In particular, one well-known building that was demolished was the Gaebler Children's Center for the mentally ill youths. Though we didn’t actually visit the foundation of the building, you can venture farther down the hiking paths and you will soon find it. There’s supposedly also a water tower, but we didn’t find that either.
After looking at the Administration building, we made our way across the street to find the Metfern cemetery. There are several trails branching off from the first parking lot next to the Administration building. To say the least we had some troubles finding the right path, regardless we found our way after accidentally traversing through a marsh. We suggest avoiding this marsh at all costs as we were stupid enough to mistake it for a dry field, and destroyed our shoes and shorts with the orange/brown water that came from said marsh in the process. We also strongly suggest using your phone as a guide map, and plotting out where the cemetery actually is on the hiking trails before you go. It will make your life much easier...
The trail brought us to the cemetery was much larger than we had expected it to be and we were appalled at the amount of graves in it. On each grave you will see either a “C” or a “P” followed by a number, but no names. The “C” marks those who were Christian and the “P’ marks those who were Protestant, though no other religions were recognized. We were also slightly disturbed by the mossy lumps that showed where all of the unmarked bodies lay.
Before we talk about our experience at the school, here’s some history for you. It was developed originally as a school for people with developmental disabilities and it worked as a well-run school for quite some time until it came under the rule of Walter E. Fernald. He changed the school to a more science based operation and it soon became a staple for pseudoscience and eugenics. If you don’t know what that is, it’s essentially the idea of selective breeding and sterilization on a genetic basis between superior and inferior people. A lack of Government funding, combined with the ideas of Fernald, turned this once nice school into the horror that many remember it as today. Many residents were abused and malnourished because of outnumbered staff and just absolutely terrible conditions. Some were even unknowing participants of medical experiments such as the “Science Club”: children who were fed radioactive isotopes in their food. Many of these experiments violated the Nuremberg Code on ethical medical procedures. If you’d like the read more about the history of this building you can read this article, where we got most of our information from.
Though the conditions used to be awful, it is no longer run like this in the present time. In the 1970’s the state granted more funding to the school and the conditions steadily improved. The state had tried to shut it down several times but it was always appealed by the patients that remained. Around 2003, there were still 320 patients, and that diminished to just 13 residents in 2014. Apparently it was officially shut down completely on November 13, 2014. After going there ourselves, we’re not so sure about this, though we have no “evidence” or anything like that.
Our unwise decision to visit this school came with some seriously creepy interactions. We did not do enough research before visiting this school and were under the assumption that it was abandoned - it wasn’t. Again, as a warning, DO NOT visit this school. It may still be a residency for the original mentally ill patients during the years when the school was active. If it’s still a residency, the remaining patients would now be in their late 70s and 80s but would have entered the school as children. Our observations led us to believe that there are still people living there even though our research stated otherwise. As we entered the complex, we were under the impression that this area contained a few buildings and a small school. It turns out the complex was enormous. We entered the complex and drove around for quite awhile because we found it very confusing and hard to navigate. We saw a few cars which we assumed were those of the staff who remained. We passed several destroyed buildings that looked like no one had touched them for fifty years, so we were a bit appalled at how it had still been operational until just recently. As we got deeper into the complex, we found small, run-down huts which were likely housing for the original residents but are now deserted - we hope! When we turned down the road with housing, we noticed that our two vehicles were being followed by a black car. As soon as we confirmed that we were being followed, we sped out of the complex, extremely shaken by our movie-like encounter. We regret, however, that we did not have the opportunity to take any pictures of our findings. This experience was not one we hope to repeat in our future adventures to any other surviving nightmares.
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