asylum

As Title 42 has expired and an influx of migrants are expected in New York, several Upstate local governments agencies have declared a state of emergency.

Hundreds of suitcases, abandoned by patients who didn't live to claim them, tell the haunting tale of a New York asylum that was anything but a refuge.

In this episode Phil guides the explorers to the downtown Utica at Rutger Park to explore Utica's grandest mansion of the 1800's, a place where Senators, Civil War Generals and even the President of the United States came to visit and helped shape the nation. A place that still experiences the haunting echoes of that past today.

In this episode Phil guides the explorers to the town of Steuben in northern Oneida County near Remsen to uncover the legend of the Witch Doctor of Steuben and the Starr Hill ghost that is believed to be the legendary doctor who died in the early 1800's and still attempts to help strangers along the road today.

Originally founded as the town of Fraser in 1850 as a farming community, with many homes, a school and a church, the main street of the town was known as Happy Valley Road and remains as one of the few traces left today after the area was abandoned during the Great Depression.

One of the interesting facts about Central New York, that is usually pretty unknown, is the area’s contribution to the evolution of humane care in asylums. Utica’s psychiatric center was the home of the straight jacket and the Utica crib, Willard Asylum was the first place in NY to provide long-term mental health care, and the Newark State School, as it was initially called, was developed to provi

Steeped in history and legends, New York is filled with stories of the forgotten, eerie and the weird that influence us everyday. The Old Oneida County Home, also known as the Oneida County Poor Farm, opened its doors in 1829 in Rome but while it is closed today several of the buildings are still in use.

During the 1800s in America, the mentally ill were not treated kindly. For the most part, if unable to afford expensive private care they were forced into poorhouses. While these poorhouses were designed to provide the mentally ill and disabled with care and support, often times they were mistreated, increasing the number of problems these patients had.