Sad Story from Owingsville, KY. 1899

CHICAGO CLIPPINGS is going to be free for five days beginning this Thursday, September 3.  The more people who get a copy on the 3rd the better.  Ranking in the top 100 free books will get it noticed and that's a good thing!

This week I'm going to write about a touching story I read in a September 1899 Oregon newspaper.

Two of the most remarkable children ever born in Kentucky are those of Mr. and Mrs. C.L. Cartmill, of Owingsville.  They are Della May, aged 3, weight 180 pounds, and Willie, aged 4, weight 210 pounds.  At birth the elder weighed 8 pounds and the younger 7.  They began to grow in about a week’s time and grew so rapidly that people for miles came to see them.  Doctors and scientists from everywhere where their rapid growth was known came to study them.  They are perfectly healthy, but sleep more than half the time.
  Mr. and Mrs. Charles Cartmill are people of ordinary size.  Mr. Cartmill is quite tall but his weight is not more than 160 pounds.  He is a huckster, and although he attempts to reduce them by dieting they continue to grow.

I wondered what happened to these poor children so searched for them online.  I learned from a Kentucky newspaper that Delia May, not Della May, had died in January of 1899, which is quite a few months before the story appeared in the Oregon newspaper.  Delia May was the lucky one.

Poor Willie lived from 1895 until 1945 and spent the last 13 years and 10 days of his (or maybe her)  life in the Eastern Kentucky State Hospital.  Learning this led me to an interesting article about a man looking for a spot for a community garden in Lexington, KY, who ran across a few gravestones which led to the discovery of a mass grave of Kentucky State Hospital patients – 7000-8000 people buried in a plot the size of a normal back yard!  Most of them will never be identified.

      Name            Died         Buried at      Length of stay  Birth                                          Parents

Apparently the hospital didn't know who his parents were but we do thanks to www.files.usgwarchives.net.  This is the site of Local Vital Records from Newspapers of Bath County, Kentucky by Eric C. Nagle.  If you are in need of a major distraction, I highly recommend going here.  I couldn't quit reading it and include a few of the clippings.  I put the clippings from two different papers (both with differing information) about Delia May in bold.

September 25, 1884:  Late last Friday evening, Samuel Clay of Bath County stabbed his niece, Miss Sallie Oldham, five times.

October 2, 1884:  Obediah Dooley, a wealthy Clark County farmer, committed suicide last Sunday morning while the family were absent at church by hanging himself.  On the following day, and on Dooley's farm, the wife of Al. McDonald, formerly of Bath county, committed suicide by taking poison.  [My grandfather was a Dooley but I have no idea if Obediah is a relative or not.]

Jan. 25th, Delia May Cartmill, second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C.L. Campbell, of tonsilitis. She was born in Feb. 1895 and although not quite 4 years old, weighed 115 pounds. Burial at Cartmill graveyard. Upper Prickly Ash. Also, Bath County Democrat, 02 Feb 1899.

 February 10, 1899: The four-year-old daughter of Charles Cartmill died Thursday, Jan. 26 of pneumonia. She weighed about 125 pounds.  Owingsville Democrat.

Is it any wonder genealogists have such a hard time pinning down information?  More confusion –   Here is Willie listed in the 1940 census.  Seems to be the same person but Willie is listed as male in one and female in the other.

A group called Naming the Forgotten organized to try to identify as many bodies from the State Hospital as possible and on their site is a link to www.kykinfolk.com that has a number of newspaper clippings that dealt with patients who were declared "lunatics" and why they were declared insane.

November 13, 1896:  William Fox, a colored barber, was sent to the insane asylum Wednesday.  Fox's hallucination was that he had been delegated by the Almighty to make speeches for McKinley.

February 11, 1898:  E.H. Ballard, brother-in-law of the late Col. A.M. Swope, and one of the wealthiest and best-known farmers of Madison County, was adjudged insane Wednesday, and ordered to the Lexington Asylum.  He imagined his cattle were starving and his family in want and Tuesday threatened to cut his throat with a razor.  He is seventy-four years old.

February 4, 1898:  Aggie Sydner (sic), an old colored woman who claims to be 105 years of age, and who looks nearly that old, was tried before Judge Evans and a jury Wednesday and sent to the lunatic asylum at Lexington.  She claims to have two husbands, one of whom is John the Baptist.

April 19, 1998:  Superintendent Wiley, of the Easter Kentucky Insane asylum, who recently gave Dr. S.S. Johnson permission to visit his sister in Augusta, Ga., where on Wednesday he tried to commit suicide, had a telegraph from that place Thursday night saying that the doctor will be returned to Lexington as soon as he is able to make the trip.  Dr. Johnson was a prominent dentist in this city until about one year ago, when he lost his mind while at an Ohio summer resort.

I also learned a bit about the history of the state hospital:

Eastern State Hospital

Lexington, Kentucky

The second oldest in the nation.
Location:
627 W 4th St
Lexington, KY 40508
Names (according to annual reports):

1. Fayette Hospital (1817-1822)
2. Lunatic Asylum (1822-1844)
3. The Kentucky Lunatic Asylum (1844-1849)
4. Lunatic Asylum of Kentucky (1850-1852)
5. The Lunatic Asylum (1850-1852)
6. The Eastern Lunatic Asylum (1852-1855)
7. The Eastern Lunatic Asylum of Kentucky (1855-1858)
8. The Kentucky Eastern Lunatic Asylum (1858-1864)
9. Eastern Lunatic Asylum (1864-1867)
10. The Kentucky Eastern Lunatic Asylum (1867-1873)
11. The First Kentucky Lunatic Asylum (1873-1876)
12. Eastern Kentucky Lunatic Asylum (1876-1894)
13. Eastern Kentucky Asylum for the Insane (1894-1912)
14. Eastern State Hospital (since 1912)

The following comes from Wikipedia:
The hospital was overcrowded in 1945 - over 2000 patients. 

Most of the original buildings were demolished in 2013.

Patients that were unknown, that had families unable to pay to have their relative brought home, or patients that went unclaimed were buried on the hospital property from 1824 until 1954. The cemeteries were moved at least 2 times to the current one behind the Hope Center in 1984. The state acknowledges about 4,400 remains in the cemetery but the number might be higher. The number of unmarked graves on the property is not known. As work progresses on the property, any remains found on the property will be re-interred at this cemetery.