Anna Marsh
Anna Marsh | |
|---|---|
| Born | Anna Hunt c. 1769 Hinsdale, New Hampshire, U.S. |
| Died | October 14, 1834 |
| Known for | Bequest for the establishment of the Vermont Asylum for the Insane (1835) |
| Father | Jonathan Hunt |
| Relatives | Jonathan Hunt (brother) Lewis R. Morris (brother-in-law) |
Anna Hunt Marsh (c. 1769 – October 14, 1834)[1] was an American philanthropist. She left $10,000 in her will to establish the Vermont Asylum for the Insane (now the Brattleboro Retreat) in 1834.[2]
Biography
[edit]Marsh was born in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, the daughter Jonathan Hunt and Lavinia Swan Hunt.[3] Her father was a member of the Vermont Convention of 1791, and served as lieutenant governor of Vermont.[4] Her older sister Ellen (or Eleanor) married Lewis R. Morris. Their younger brother Jonathan Hunt was a Congressman and bank president.[5]
Hunt married physician Perley Marsh in 1793.[2] She expanded her father's mansion in Hinsdale, adding a wing and an elaborate garden.[4] Her husband died in 1807, her father died in 1823, and she died in 1834, at the age of 65.[6]
Marsh's will instructed heirs to build a mental hospital in Brattleboro,[7] and named the trustees she chose to realize her vision of a facility based on a Quaker concept called moral treatment.[8][9] She may have been motivated by the case of Richard Whitney, a local lawyer who died while being mistreated for derangement in 1806.[6] Although she lived in New Hampshire, about four miles from Brattleboro, she chose to give the money for an institution in Vermont, saying she "had already done enough for New Hampshire."[6]
The Vermont Asylum for the Insane was founded with her $10,000 bequest,[2] and the first patients were admitted in December 1836.[1] A new brick building on the asylum grounds, named the Marsh Building, was erected in 1856.[1] In 1887, the remains of Anna Marsh and Perley Marsh were reinterred on the asylum grounds, with a new granite headstone.[1] Its name was changed to Brattleboro Retreat in 1893.[1]
Legacy
[edit]As of 2026, the Brattleboro Retreat is still in operation, serving a wide variety of mental conditions on a 1000-acre campus. Brattleboro Retreat is located on Anna Marsh Lane.[8] Her home, known as the Governor Hunt House, was purchased by Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation in 1968, and restored as a historic site.[5]
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 Hurd, Henry Mills (1916). The Institutional Care of the Insane in the United States and Canada. Johns Hopkins Press. pp. 675–693.
- 1 2 3 "Anna Hunt Marsh". Vermont Historical Society. Retrieved 2012-08-26.
- ↑ Wyman, Thomas Bellows (1863). Genealogy of the name and family of Hunt, etc. p. 182.
- 1 2 Parker, Edward Everett; Whitcher, William Frederick (1908). Genealogical and Family History of the State of New Hampshire: A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Founding of a Nation. Higginson Book Company. p. 1932.
- 1 2 The Governor Hunt House (Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corporation).
- 1 2 3 Vermont Asylum for the Insane (1887). The Vermont Asylum for the Insane: Its Annals for Fifty Years. Hildreth & Fales. pp. 1, 6, 7.
- ↑ Crockett, Walter Hill (1923). Vermont: The Green Mountain State. Century history Company, Incorporated. p. 630.
- 1 2 "About the Brattleboro Retreat". Brattleboro Retreat. Retrieved 2026-05-06.
- ↑ "Former patient: Retreat would cause great pain to Anna Marsh today". Brattleboro Reformer. 2019-09-04. Retrieved 2026-05-06.
External links
[edit]- Description of Retreat Buildings
- "Anna Marsh and the Brattleboro Retreat Origin Story" Brattleboro Historical Society Podcast (February 9, 2017), a podcast episode about Anna Marsh