Williamsburg Public Hospital

When Francis Fauquier, Governor of Virginia, stood to give a speech in 1766, colonists expected him to hit on all the classic colonial grievances (molasses taxes, stamp taxes…other taxes). But his speech took an unlikely turn when he introduced a subject typically pushed to the backburner: the mentally ill.

Born from this speech was North America’s first hospital for people with mental illnesses. Built in Williamsburg in 1773, the time and place could not have been more dramatic. Three three after its founding, independence was declared and war with Britain came to the thirteen colonies. The hospital survived the British occupation of Williamsburg and landed in the hands of the newly formed United States.

The hospital matured alongside the new nation, and by the mid 1800s, it was one of the country’s leaders in embracing moral treatment. Superintendent Dr. John Galt believed mental illness required healing and understanding rather than confinement and introduced approaches like talk therapy and recreation.

But the Civil War brought a crisis to the hospital. As the Battle of Williamsburg raged nearby, parts of the hospital were raided for supplies and repurposed to treat wounded soldiers. The conflict took with it Dr. Galt, who died in 1862 during the Union occupation of the city.

Thankfully, no more wars were to come to Williamsburg, though fires and changing attitudes towards mental illness turned the hospital into a shell of its former self. In 1985, the Williamsburg Public Hospital was rebuilt in its original colonial design and turned into a museum. Its balanced Georgian proportions resemble the public buildings of colonial America, suggesting that people with mental illness belong within society’s institutions, not outside them.