Anna Hunt Marsh (c. 1770 – 1834) left $10,000 in her will to establish the Vermont Asylum of the Insane (now the

Brattleboro Retreat The Brattleboro Retreat is a private not-for-profit mental health and addictions hospital that provides comprehensive inpatient, partial hospitalization, and outpatient treatment services for children, adolescents, and adults. Located just north ...

) in 1834.

Life and career

Marsh was born in

Hinsdale, New Hampshire Hinsdale is a town in Cheshire County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 3,948 at the 2020 census. Hinsdale is home to part of Pisgah State Park in the northeast, and part of Wantastiquet Mountain State Forest in the northwest. Th ...

to Jonathan Hunt. She married Perley Marsh in 1793. She is responsible for the creation of the

, originally known as the Vermont Asylum for the Insane. She was the first woman credited with starting a

hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

for the

mentally ill A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...

. She was responsible for selecting the trustees before her death. A bad

healing With physical trauma or disease suffered by an organism, healing involves the repairing of damaged tissue(s), organs and the biological system as a whole and resumption of (normal) functioning. Medicine includes the process by which the cells i ...

experience leading to the death of a member of her family has been suggested as an impetus to her idea of creating a humane care option. Her vision was a facility patterned on a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

concept called

moral treatment Moral treatment was an approach to mental disorder based on humane psychosocial care or moral discipline that emerged in the 18th century and came to the fore for much of the 19th century, deriving partly from psychiatry or psychology and partly fr ...

. Marsh otherwise did not have much to do with

Brattleboro Brattleboro (), originally Brattleborough, is a town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The most populous municipality abutting Vermont's eastern border with New Hampshire, which is the Connecticut River, Brattleboro is located about nor ...

. Upon her death, her will instructed heirs to build a

mental hospital Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociati ...

. This was founded in 1834 with her $10,000 bequest.

Legacy

The Retreat grew in popularity and had success treating people with a combination of fresh air,

exercise Exercise is a body activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness. It is performed for various reasons, to aid growth and improve strength, develop muscles and the cardiovascular system, hone athletic ...

, good food, and other treatments for the "

insane Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to ...

". Large porches on the buildings allowed patients to sit and

read Read Read may refer to: * Reading, human cognitive process of decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meaning * Read (automobile), an American car manufactured from 1913 to 1915 * Read (biology), an inferred sequence of base pairs of ...

relax Relax may refer to: Aviation * Roland Z-120 Relax, a German ultralight aircraft design for the 120 kg class Music Albums * ''Relax'' (Blank & Jones album), 2003 * ''Relax'' (Das Racist album), 2011 Songs * "Relax" (song), a 1983 song by Fran ...

, and recover. As of 2015, the Brattleboro Retreat is still in operation serving a wide variety of mental conditions on a 1000-acre (4 km²) campus.

References

External links

Description of Retreat BuildingsRetreat Healthcare
(formerly Brattleboro Retreat) 1834 deaths People from Brattleboro, Vermont People from Hinsdale, New Hampshire Year of birth uncertain {{US-med-bio-stub