Montevue Asylum, Diary (1 of 4), 1889-09-06 - 1891-06-07

File — Box: 109, Folder: 8

Identifier: 119_111_2

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Montevue Alms House, Diary (1 of 4)

Scope and Contents

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Diary of missionary work at the Montevue Asylum (a county institution officially titled the Montevue Hospital and often referred to as an Almshouse) performed for one-year terms by tertians (newly-ordained priests) stationed at Frederick. Their entries record their visits to the racially-segregated facilities of Montevue: the first of these was a hospital and workhouse that housed those impoverished because of disability, illness, age, or insanity, and the second provided temporary shelter and relief for the itinerant poor (referred to as "vagrants" and "tramps"). The priests heard confessions, sought conversions to Catholicism, visited the sick, and performed last rites for Catholic residents at Montevue (a small number relative to the Protestant residents). These diaries include observations about the asylum's superintendents, individual residents, and living conditions with advice to the priests who succeeded them at this mission. There are passing references to the provision of Catholic burials, some with notes on the transfer of remains to Catholic cemeteries.

This diary refers to the burials of Kitty Hawkins, a Black woman who died at age 100 in September 1890 (pp. 13-15), and Uncle Isaac, who died in November 1890 (pp. 20-22). Both were given a Catholic burial at cemeteries independent of Montevue: Kitty Hawkins at the St. John's Church Cemetery in Frederick and Uncle Isaac at Methodist cemetery for Black people (with permission).

**Former finding aid locations: 119_111_2; 573:25:1**

Dates

Creation: 1889-09-06 - 1891-06-07

Creator

From the Collection: Jesuits. Maryland Province (Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

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The Maryland Province Archives is on deposit at Georgetown University and is the property of the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus. As stewards of the Archives, the Georgetown University Library’s Booth Family Center for Special Collections is responsible for managing access to the material based on policies set forth by the USA East Province. Researchers may view these materials in the Reading Room of the Booth Family Center for Special Collections. General policies for using Special Collections can be found here.

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Historical Note

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In 1832, Frederick County established the Montevue Asylum on a 94-acre site two miles west of the city of Frederick. In 1872, the county renamed the site Montevue Hospital and opened a newly-constructed five-story building with more than 100 rooms to house individuals. The function of the facility did not change significantly, so it continued to be called an Montevue Asylum or Almshouse. It housed and provided medical care to adults impoverished because of disability (including illness, age, and insanity). The old facility became a residence for itinerants who sought short-term relief. Both facilities were segregated by race. Able-bodied residents worked either on the surrounding farm, raising chicken, livestock and crops, or on hard labor, breaking stones into pavers for construction.

The Montevue Asylum became the subject of public scrutiny beginning in 1877, when the state of Maryland authorized annual inspection of public asylums. At that time, the Montevue Asylum housed 222 residents (96 “indigent insane”), the second largest number in the state. It also provided temporary shelter to an extraordinarily large number of itinerant poor in what became known as the Old House or the “Tramp House.” During a single winter, between 1876 and 1877, 8,800 people sought relief in that facility. Every year, the state reports chronicled in detail the poor living conditions in public asylums, often singling out the residential quarters provided to Black residents at Montevue as especially problematic. In 1897, Frederick County converted Old House into a residential facility for the Black “indigents” at Montevue. Issued in 1909, the 23rd Annual Report of the Lunacy Commission provided a strong case for the elimination of the county asylum system: it featured photographs of rooms without bedding and residents restrained by chains to illustrate the squalor experienced by the Black residents in the Old House. The public outcry impelled the superintendents of Montevue to renovate the Old House. By 1914, Montevue moved all mentally ill residents to separate facilities, white residents to Springfield State Hospital in Sykesville and Black residents to the Crownsville State Hospital for African Americans.

After 1914, with overcrowding alleviated, Montevue Hospital continued its care of the impoverished sick, infirm, and aged patients in racially segregated facilities. Through World War II, Montevue Hospital remained operational but closed in the 1950s. In 1969, after extensive renovations, the county re-opened as a nursing home, the Montevue Home. In 2013, Frederick County sold the government-run nursing home which was operated as the Citizens Care and Rehabilitation Center and Montevue Assisted Living. The Frederick County Health Department, located at the site of the Montevue Hospital (built in 1872 and demolished in 1987), is the only county-administered site on the old Montevue grounds.

Beginning in 1832, Frederick County used the east side of the Montevue Asylum (later called the Old House) as a cemetery, a potter’s field with no marked graves. An archival, architectural and geophysical remote sensing investigation conducted for the Frederick County Division of Public Works in 2002 estimated that 1,240 individuals may have been buried there between 1832 and 1956. These burials included executed individuals and unclaimed itinerants. In 1959, a monument was erected to the people buried there. The cemetery and the monument have survived the redevelopment of the Montevue site.

For the history of the Montevue Asylum, see Cynthia A. Powell, Heroic Work: The Story of Montevue, Yesterday and Today, 2012. In addition, an unnamed novice wrote about his experiences as a missionary at Montevue, “A Mission among Tramps: A Letter from the Novitiate, June 1902” Woodstock Letters 31 (1902) 189-197.