Exhibit gives glimpse into causes of death and how they were handled at Central State
Published 9:30 am Friday, October 25, 2024
In December of 1842, what was then known as the Georgia Lunatic Asylum accepted its first patient, a 30-year-old Bibb County man named Tilman Barnett.
The next summer, Mr. Barnett died of what was then called “maniacal exhaustion.” He was the first of at least tens of thousands to die while in the state’s care at what would later be called Central State Hospital.
A new exhibit launching this weekend at Georgia’s Old Capital Heritage Center at The Depot titled “Death at the Asylum” examines death and its many facets at the old mental institution that was in operation some 170 years before the shutdown over a decade ago.
“Death at the Asylum” occupies a portion of the ongoing “Fast Fading, A History of Central State Hospital” exhibit housed in the old CSH train depot. It’s open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and by appointment. Admission is $10.
Curator Jessica Whitehead, along with her two Georgia College & State University interns Alex Gray and Evelyn Evans, have ironically used death to liven up the exhibit to bring some folks back and new ones in as Halloween approaches. People do seem to be drawn to the macabre this time of year. But the new “Death at the Asylum” exhibit isn’t meant to be morbid. The aim is to be interesting and educational.
“Because there are so many people that passed away at Central State Hospital, we thought it was important to respectfully note those deaths,” Whitehead said. “There’s some who passed away here we do know a lot about. Some remain nameless. They’re just a number on a stake somewhere.”
The curator refers to the estimated 35,000 graves spread around different cemeteries on the asylum grounds. Many of those individuals were as unwanted by their families in death as they were life. Other families simply did not have the means to retrieve a body or have it sent back to them. Either way, hospital staff were left to come up with ways to put the unclaimed bodies to rest. Caskets were built on the property. Mortuary services were available right on the grounds. In the early 1980s, Williams Funeral Home won the bid to provide those services for patients who passed while institutionalized.
Funeral home owner and state Sen. Rick Williams was tapped as a resource to provide information for the exhibit. He remembers taking his embalming certification test there at Central State, something many others around Georgia did since there was a surplus of bodies on hand.
Whitehead and her intern team also gathered historical documents such as death records and receipts from patients’ bodies being transported home on trains. It’s all neatly and fittingly organized on a table from the former CSH morgue. The wide-ranging causes of death are highlighted in the information as well.
Take Mr. Barnett, for example. According to the exhibit, a more modern definition of his maniacal exhaustion would be the fatigue and insomnia related to manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder caused by excessive dopamine in the brain. Left untreated, it can lead to cardiorespiratory collapse. Mr. Barnett’s 1843 death shows how far the medical field has advanced, especially when it comes to mental health. Today he would be treated with prescription drugs that block dopamine receptors, possibly allowing him to live well past 30.
Recognized as part of the exhibit are three notable individuals who died at Central State.
There was “Blind Willie” McTell, a 12-string guitarist considered to be a pioneer in blues music. Born outside of Thomson, Georgia, McTell was recorded singing and playing in the 1920s and ‘30s. In addition to being blind, he was both a diabetic and an alcoholic. Following his second stroke, he was admitted to the then-named Milledgeville State Hospital Aug. 12, 1959. His stay lasted only a week as he passed from a cerebral hemorrhage while he was a patient in the Ingram Building. He’s buried at Jones Grove Baptist Church near Thomson.
Anjette Lyles was a serial killer who arrived at Milledgeville State Hospital the same year as Mr. McTell. She used poison to murder two husbands, a mother-in-law, and one of her daughters. During her trial, she was accused of “peculiar beliefs” after authorities found items such as roots, powders and voodoo paraphernalia in her home. Initially placed on death row, Lyles was granted a stay of execution by Gov. Earnest Vandiver while a sanity commission examined her. She , was diagnosed with schizophrenia, changing her fate from death row to the local mental health institution. While admitted, she was known among patients as a fortune teller. Lyles remained in Milledgeville for 18 years until her 1977 death due to heart failure. She’s buried in the small Jefferson County town of Wadley, next to her first husband and daughter that she killed.
Mr. Joseph Ingram holds a place in local history as the first Black man to have a building named after him in Baldwin County. He began work at the Georgia State Sanitarium — another CSH moniker — as a kitchen worker in 1898, faithfully serving at the hospital for over 50 years. On Sept. 7, 1953, the building that housed Black patients was named in his honor. At 83 years old and retired, Mr. Ingram was able to attend the naming ceremony.
“Once he became too infirm to care for himself, he came back to the hospital where he spent so many years caring for others,” his portion of the “Death at the Asylum” exhibit reads. He died in the building bearing his name in 1956 and is buried locally at Memory Hill Cemetery.
In creating the exhibit, part of the interns’ jobs was to comb through the asylum’s old 100-plus-page annual reports, which have evidence of the rapid evolution of mental health treatment. Gray and Evans, both history majors from Monroe, Georgia, pointed out that the same causes of death and afflictions were often referred to by different names as years passed, sometimes even within a single annual report. That shows how quickly the mental healthcare field was moving. Professionals, even those working within the same institution, struggled to come up with a uniform vocabulary.
The college interns were asked what they want those who visit “Death at the Asylum” to take with them from the experience.
“A new appreciation of what a mental asylum is,” Gray said. “I came into it with my own thoughts of what a mental asylum is, mostly from the movies. These weren’t crazy people, per se. They were people with health issues. I think seeing information on the deaths personalizes it a bit. I hope people get a new appreciation of that.”
“It puts into perspective about how I or people I know could have been admitted,” Evans added. “I hope it makes people more interested in the history of Milledgeville, especially when it comes to this period of time.”
“Death at the Asylum” is open to the public during the aforementioned Saturday hours. Those who cannot make that window can make appointments to view the exhibit by calling the Old Capital Heritage Center at 478-453-1803 or Whitehead at 478-456-4489. Appointments can also be made via email at thedepotga@gmail.com or seeking.asylum.book@gmail.com. The depot is located at 736 Broad St.