Haunted hotels and abandoned insane asylums are high value locations frequently sought after by ghost hunters and anyone looking for evidence of the paranormal. From the Millennium Biltmore Hotel to the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, thrill seekers are seldom let down. But what if there was a hotel that was once an insane asylum? That’s what you’ll find when you visit Buffalo, New York, and stay at the Hotel Henry, formerly the Buffalo State Asylum.
Construction on The Buffalo State Asylum, also known as The State Asylum at Buffalo, started in 1872, and spanned 203 acres of untended farmland in the middle of the city. Its design incorporated the “most-enlightened” and “humane” principles in psychiatric treatment of the nineteenth century, combining the principles of Henry Hobson Richardson, Frederick Law Olmstead, and Dr Thomas Story Kirkbride.
Henry Richardson, the father of the Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style, incorporated the ideas of Thomas Kirkbride into his design. According to Kirkbride, patients should be housed according to the “type” and “level” of their illness. This led Richardson to designing a building with two central towers and five wings flanking the towers on each side.
Frederick Olmstead, who had also landscaped Central Park in New York City, was responsible for the gardens outside.
The asylum opened in 1880, and was considered, for the time, to be a state-of-the-art psychiatric treatment facility. It was advertised as a peaceful retreat for effective mental health care. Photos illustrated the grandeur of the hospital, showing grand pianos, a stocked library, beautiful dining rooms and parlors, and for those interested, a baseball field.
According to Kirkbride, an individual’s physical and social environment could cause, or cure mental illness. So the goal was to provide a healing atmosphere. Patients were encouraged to socialize, meeting for dinner, or joining a baseball team with the other residents in their wing. They could learn a musical instrument, and even perform stage shows for the patients in nearby wings.
In addition to what they could do, they were also expected to work. Working was viewed as therapeutic, and jobs ranged from maintaining the gardens and farm or perhaps something more skilled, like working in a shop where handmade items were sold – items made by patients. These items ranged from rugs to blankets and so on.
Over time, the facility came to boast a woodworking shop, community store, bakery, and sewing room.
But things weren’t exactly as idyllic as they would have you believe. On February 7, 1881, a story appeared in The New York Times, headlining, “BRUTES IN AN INSANE ASYLUM: A story of Cruelty from The State Asylum at Buffalo.” This story would go on to tell the story of the inhumane treatment of John Turney, a patient at the hospital.
One day while bathing, John was being noisy. Annoyed, two men, employees of the hospital, choked him with towels so severely that they had to resuscitate him. John was held under water until he was nearly drowned. At night, the men would go into his room and hit and kick him for even the slightest disturbance.
On one occasion, one of the men pressed both thumbs against his windpipe and jammed him into a chair so hard, the chair left holes in the wall.
Another man, Abraham Vedder, also suffered at their hands. On one occasion, he appeared one day with a black eye, skin peeled off his throat, and his stomach was black and blue with bruising.
If any man was slow to enter the dining room, he would be knocked down, kicked, and cursed at.
Another article, published in May 1894, tells the story of a man named Fred. Fred was a tall, powerfully-built young man when he first arrived at the hospital. It is said that his mind had become unhinged by misfortune. Within days he was confined to his bed, where he remained in a deplorable condition for months.
He was denied visitors for a long while, and when they were finally able to see him, they found him bruised and helpless. “They hung me up with a towel and pounded me,” he told his mother.
After he was released he spoke only a few words, among them complaints of pains in his chest. “They used me hard out there.”
The stories go on and on. An inquiry was requested and in the end, John Ordronaux, State Commissioner in Lunacy found, “…although sufficient proof has not been adduced to justify a conviction, yet suffers in public estimation from the fact alone that the evidence is conflicting. Where such evidence, therefore, leaves the presumptions equally in question the effect nevertheless operates to the public discredit of the parties concerned and their services should, in the Commissioner’s judgment, be dispensed with for prudential reasons.”
Mr. John J. Clifford, an attendant at the hospital was suspended, while Mr. Frank P. Churchill, a keeper, resigned.
The Buffalo State Asylum continued admitting and seeing patients until 1974, when all patients were transferred to the new Buffalo Psychiatric Center, and the asylum was abandoned. As the building fell into disrepair, rumors of ghosts began to spread.
It is unknown just how many patients died while in custody of the asylum, but it is believed that they still roam the grounds, and especially enjoy the tunnels that run below the buildings, connecting them.
Renovations on the Buffalo State Asylum began in 2013 and it was transformed into an elegant, luxury hotel in partnership with Hilton. Spanning approximately ⅓ of the original asylum, Hotel Henry opened in 2017 and boasted 88 guest rooms, 11 meeting rooms and over 25,000 sq. feet of event space, the hotel was open and ready for guests.
In 2018 Hotel Henry was named one of the “World’s Greatest Places” according to TIME Magazine. Guests could expect to find the usual amenities, but also an on-site boutique, restaurant, and business center. What they may not have expected were the permanent residents – the ghosts.
Guests have reported seeing flickering lights, objects moving on their own, as well as cold spots throughout – especially in hallways and staircases that lead directly nowhere. Even more chilling are the voices that can be heard crying for help.
Since the Coronavirus pandemic, the hotel has had to shut its doors, however new ownership may change that going forward.
We think you might enjoy this story about the abandoned Eastern State Penitentiary.