Welcome to the Randolph County Asylum. This site has been known as the Randolph County Poor Farm, the Randolph County Infirmary, and the Randolph County Asylum at various points throughout its long history and has served as poor farm, infirmary, and asylum to the people who lived here. This place was a home for people who had no one to care for them, people who need an “asylum” or a safe place to live where they could get the care they needed. The site functioned as a self-sustaining 350-acre farm through most of its existence.
The history of the Randolph County Asylum stretches back nearly to the very beginning of Indiana itself. Indiana became a state in 1816, and by the early 1820s, the government of Indiana found a need to find a way to help the hundreds of “indigent” people who were setting up camps in the state. “Indigent” refers to people who had no permanent home, who owned no land upon which to make a permanent home, or those who did not have a job to enable them to find a home.
The state’s solution in those early years was to find people who did have homes and extra room that were willing to take in some of these indigent people. In Randolph County, which at that time stretched all the way to Lake Michigan, the state found the Edwards family, a couple who owned land and a two-story log cabin immediately behind where the present Randolph County Asylum now stands. The state offered money to the Edwards to help in providing food and clothing to three people, a married couple and another man.
The Edwards happily accepted the state’s terms and took the three people in, but then, like many others who took in indigent people, went to all their neighbors offering their indigent boarders as cheap laborers and “farmed” them out. For the next nearly two decades until the late 1840s, the practice continued until the state could no longer support this “farming out.” Indiana, as a free state, could not be seen to sanction a practice that was tantamount to slavery and sought a solution.
The solution for Indiana came in the form of the creation of townships and township trustees. Each county was tasked with the building of an asylum to house the indigent people, with the townships trustees determining who should be placed in the asylum as well as providing the funding for their care. Township taxation began as a means to provide the funding needed.
The first asylum in Randolph County was built in 1851. This first asylum was a wooden building situated on a 350-acre farm and housing 19 people, many of whom were either mentally or physically handicapped. At this point in history, there were candles and oil lamps for light and a wood stove for cooking and heat. In 1857, the residents accidentally burned the building to the ground. No one was hurt or killed in the fire.
A second building was then built immediately to the south of that burned out foundation. Within two years, a new brick building was erected to house the indigent people of Randolph County. They were able to construct the building in record time with bricks that were fired on-site, but they failed to fire the bricks long enough to form a glaze. Within a matter of years, the building began to, for all intents and purposes, melt. Records from the 1880s reveal that residents were putting bedclothes and pillows into holes in the walls to keep out the wind and weather and also to hold the windows in place.
The county commissioners of the time, having paid to put the building up, said that maintenance was the responsibility of the townships, while the townships claimed that the county owned the building and needed to fix it. As often happens in government, nothing was done. The commissioners in 1895 had a toilet, a brand-new invention at the time, installed in the basement of the asylum as proof of their concern for the people living there, while the condition of the building continued to deteriorate. The contractor did a fantastic job installing the toilet, running the drain line all the way back to the creek. Our historian grew up near that creek and says, “It’s proper name is Salt Creek, but we didn’t call it that. . .”
By 1897, conditions had gotten to the point that the citizens of Randolph County were finally able to convince the commissioners to go see the building themselves. Upon arriving, they discovered a building with holes in the walls, windows falling out, and eighteen inches of raw sewage in the basement from a broken drainpipe leading from the toilet. Upon seeing the conditions for themselves, the commissioners came to the conclusion that the building was beyond repair and plans for a new building were made.
The third asylum on the grounds, and the one that still stands today, was built partially on the foundation of the original wooden asylum. That foundation was extended and a new 58,000 square foot, four-story asylum was finished in late December of 1899. The residents in the 2nd asylum simply packed up their belongings and moved into the new building.
The Randolph County Asylum, for much of its history, functioned as a working farm. Residents at the asylum who wished to help on the farm were encouraged to do so, but it was in no way a requirement. Residents helped feed the stock raised there, helped with butchering in the slaughterhouse on-site, harvested crops, and worked in the kitchen canning and preserving or cooking meals. A superintendent was hired by the county to manage the farm and lived at the asylum with his family, with his wife serving as a managing housekeeper and matron. Keep in mind that they were not trained psychologists or doctors, just managers who cared about the people here.
From 1899 to 2006 when the asylum closed, there were 1,487 people who called this place home. This includes the residents as well as the superintendents and their families.
Over the years, approximately 500 people died at the asylum from a variety of causes, including age, disease, suicide, and murder. Any resident who passed away here and was not claimed by family was laid to rest here on the grounds in an unmarked cemetery. Because the county was responsible for the burial, the people were not embalmed and given a simple pine box. At the beginning of the 1900s there was still that Victorian fear of being buried alive and with so many diseases, such as diabetes which can mimic death, without embalming there was a chance the person was still alive. Their solution was to have residents who were willing sit in the sitting room to watch the body overnight and make sure they didn’t “wake” up. It’s where we get the term having a funeral or a wake.