[INSANITY]. Form of Certificate of Insanity

Branchport or Jerusalem (?), Yates County, New York, 1877. Document (315 x 205), printed on both sides, accomplished on recto only, folded three times, paper slip pasted on at the time of accomplishment written in the hand of the examining doctor, James C. Wightman. RARE AMERICAN CERTIFICATE OF INSANITY; INDEED, NO COPY OF ANY "CERTIFICATE OF INSANITY" -- REGARDLESS OF DATE OR PLACE -- CAN BE FOUND IN WORLDCAT. OUR DOCUMENT NEVER PASSED INTO ANY NEW YORK COUNTY OR STATE AGENCY: IT IS ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE THAT THE PRESENT COPY WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED BY SOMEONE FOR 147 YEARS.

Census records very strongly suggest that the woman here deemed insane, Fanny Evans, was born in 1847 in Dix (Schuyler County), New York. By means of the present Certificate, she was declared "Insane" in 1877. According to U.S. Census records, only two years earlier (in 1875) she was unmarried and still lived with her parents in Jerusalem (Yates County), New York. The doctor who declared Fanny Evans insane in 1877 was one James C. Wightman, of Branchport (likewise Yates County) which was a small hamlet exactly two miles from the Evans family home.

Dr. Wightman states that "I have personally examined Fanny Evans and find her to be of unsound mind, inso much she has upon several occasions attempted suicide, disowning her Father believing him to be an imposter, denying him the comforts and privileges of his home, insisting that he is cruel, quarrelsome and a disturber of the family peace and in every interest that her Father has to do -- she is a confirmed monomaniac." For his medical credentials Wightman declares that he was a graduate of the American Medical College; his credentials are attested by Hon. Andrew Oliver, Yates County Judge.

Census records from 1855 and 1860 are very instructive. Fanny Evans' parents were Thomas Evans (age 60 in 1875), a farmer, and Harriet (age 56), a housekeeper, both of whom immigrated from England. No occupation for Fanny is ever given. She and her brother were born in Schuyler County, New York. It would appear that at some point the family had fallen on hard times: in 1855 the family is recorded as residing in Dix (Schuyler County), New York, and the father's occupation listed as "hardware merchant." The reason for their relocation to Jerusalem -- over 120 miles away -- is unknown.

It is of great interest that on the verso of the present Certificate is an Extract from Chapter 146, Laws of 1874, Commitment of the Insane, which begins: "No person shall be committed to, or confined as a patient in any asylum, public or private, or in any institution, home or retreat for the care and treatment of the insane, except upon the certificate of TWO physicians [emphasis ours], under oath, after a personal examination of the party alleged to be insane, setting forth the insanity of such person." Our Certificate of Insanity was signed by only one physician, James Wightman, and he was the only examining physician. Therefore, if Fanny Evans was actually committed to an Asylum, the present Certificate would not have been the legal instrument of her confinement; a second document would have been required.

But if Fanny Evans was committed, it would have certainly been to the Willard Asylum for the Insane in Willard (Seneca County), New York, which was just across Lake Seneca (and 29 miles from Ithaca). Construction for the Asylum began in 1965; the first patients to be admitted arrived by boat (in chains) in 1869. At that time it was known as the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane and the Insane Poor. By 1877 (the date of the present Certificate) it had become the largest mental asylum in the United States, containing 1,550 patients (SOURCE: Walter Gable, "Willard Asylum for the Insane," p. 10 - online). This once colossal facility was closed and scheduled for demolition in 1974, but destruction was stayed and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Place. It has subsequently fallen into complete disrepair, and some of the buildings were in fact demolished in the 1980s.

Whereas nearly half of the 50,000 patients at Willard Asylum died there, it is not known if Fanny Evans was one of them. She appears in the 1880 U.S. Census with her family in Jerusalem, and still unmarried, and with "no occupation." After this date Fanny Evans disappears from all record completely.

The verso of the present Certificate has always remained blank: it was never accomplished or notarized by any New York governmental agency at the county or state level (or at any level). We are unable to explain why would anyone would save -- for 147 years -- a document certifying the insanity of a forgotten farmer's forgotten daughter.