Over the Hill to the Poor Farm: Allen County, Indiana's Asylum and Its Superintendents, Part 3

 This is Part 3 in a 4-part series on the Allen County Asylum (the Poor Farm) in Indiana. 

John Wilkinson (1880-1893) 

     When Wilkinson was appointed as superintendent of the Allen County Asylum in July 1880 the Fort Wayne Daily Gazette said there was a mistaken impression that he pulled every string to get the job. On the contrary, the newspaper said, “The new man was chosen first for his worth and then on account of his faithful service to his party.” He was an ardent Democrat in a predominantly Democratic town, “thoroughly in sympathy with the party,” and represented the Ninth Ward on the Fort Wayne City Council. Of course he had to resign that position to take the asylum job.

     Wilkinson was born in Washington Township in 1844, the son of Irish Catholic immigrants who were pioneer settlers in 1835. He graduated from the Plymouth schools and taught in Noble County from 1864 to 1871. He moved to Fort Wayne in 1872 and married Nancy Maloney the following year. In 1876 he was elected to the Fort Wayne City Council representing the Ninth Ward, and served three terms. In 1879 he was appointed deputy county clerk, a position he gave up to take on the county poor farm. He and his wife Nancy had seven children: Frank, John, Gertrude, Helen, Kittie, Mary Jerome and William, the last four born at the superintendent’s residence at the asylum. 

Charges of Assault and Battery

     In July 1881, Wilkinson was convicted of the assault and battery of Mr. David N. Foster of the Foster Brothers Department Store. Wilkinson apparently had not paid for items he purchased from Foster Brothers a year earlier. Foster threatened to go before the county commissioners with a complaint if Wilkinson did not settle his bill. Naturally this angered Wilkinson who replied that it was a private matter and did not involve his official business; therefore, it was not a matter for the commissioners.

     Foster responded by writing a letter to the Daily News, which published it, asking, “...can the public reasonably expect an office holder to be governed by any finer sense of honor in his official acts than that which is shown in his private transactions?” This enraged Wilkinson. He found Foster outside the Fruit House one night and demanded an apology. When none was given he attacked Foster. “A good row was in progress but was interrupted by parties who rushed forward and separated the combatants,” the Sentinel wrote. 

     In October Wilkinson filed a $10,000 libel suit against the Fort Wayne Gazette Company. The Daily Gazette responded by saying, “Although the value Mr. Wilkinson places upon his character is more than the Gazette would have estimated it is worth, this point will be elicited in due time.” However, Wilkinson seems to have won his suit, though he did not receive $10,000.

     Today just one assault would be enough to seriously jeopardize a person's job, but Wilkinson’s stayed on. There was a bizarre incident in November 1881 involving him, an insurance agent known as Col. W.T. Royse, and the asylum matron Miss Rose Cook. One Wednesday evening, Royse stopped by the asylum to call on Miss Cook. Mrs. Wilkinson and Miss Cook urged him to stay for dinner, which he did. The superintendent was out, and Royse said he’d stop by again the next day to meet him. 

     But the next day, pressing business obligations prevented him from doing so. He sent a note addressed to Miss Cook explaining why he couldn’t make it. Later that evening, he rode out to the asylum where Miss Cook met Royse and told him Wilkinson was enraged and might get violent with him. Col. Royse insisted on meeting him and said he was received pleasantly. 

     Friday afternoon Wilkinson came into the Tremont House, where Royse was staying, and met him in the lobby. Wilkinson insisted that Royse take a walk with him even though Royse already said he would not be going out due to wet and disagreeable weather. The two men stepped outside where they exchanged words and Royse hurried back inside the hotel. 

     “In the hotel office, Mr. Wilkinson applied some unpleasant epithets to Royse, who insisted that he wanted no trouble,” the newspaper said. Wilkinson drew a revolver and Royse raised a heavy cane and ordered him to desist. Several men who were present wrestled the gun from Wilkinson’s hand. Wilkinson claimed that Royse’s note the day before was “scurrilous and embodied an insult to Mrs. Wilkinson.” Royse claimed it was merely a polite excuse for a non-appearance. 

     Miss Cook, who left the asylum and was also staying at the Tremont House, said Wilkinson assaulted and abused her and another employee, Miss Emma Marker. The two women left the asylum together and Miss Cook filed a charge of assault and battery against Wilkinson. 

     Nothing seemed to come of this second incident, or of the women’s accusations, and Wilkinson kept his job.

    March 3, 1882 there was a third incident of assault. Wilkinson was found guilty in court this time. He attacked a man named Adam Loebsoch the day before. He was fined one dollar. Newspapers did not give any other information about this latest incident.

     After the libel suit, he Daily Gazette became quite flattering. In July 1882 a reporter visited the asylum and wrote, “The manner in which the place is kept reflects great credit on Superintendent Wilkinson, the floors, walls, and in fact everything in every portion of the institution being as bright as a new pin and sufficiently clean to take a dinner from.” Another time they called him, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, the best superintendent the county had ever had at the asylum. He was reappointed to his position as no one else applied. 

     In October 1882 Wilkinson “argued politics with a fellow on Broadway…and wound up by knocking him down.” Later that month, the Gazette reported he “had a big row with his head man, William Gaines, and [Gaines] has run away from the poor farm.” 

     Even with no one else applying, one wonders how he kept his job. The party spoils system must have been powerful. 

A Visit To The Poor Farm

     In February 1882 a Daily Gazette reporter made a visit to the poor farm. It was then described as two and a half miles out of town, on the banks of the St. Mary’s River, overlooking “a vast scope of country, and from which the city is visible.” It encompassed 200 acres of land, with 160 under cultivation. The asylum was a large two-story brick building with a basement, heated with steam and lighted with gas. A two-story brick laundry adjoined the main building. The first story was supplied with hot and cold water, and the second story was the drying room where clothing was also mended under the supervision of a laundress. 

    Walking into Wilkinson’s office, the reporter said the most noticeable thing were two large medicine cabinets with remedies for any “ordinary” disease. Wilkinson gave him a tour of the building. In the dining room were two long tables with benches. Meals were served “family style,” with bowls of food placed on the tables for each to help himself,  “but are presided over by the warden.” In the basement was the bakery, storage rooms, milk room, meat room and engine room. Twice a week 120 loaves of bread were baked at one time. Fourteen cows supplied the milk. Wilkinson estimated it cost 20 cents a day to feed and cloth each inmate. There were about 90 inmates, 35 of them “idiots or lunatics.”

      The asylum also had a greenhouse with a “fine collection of botanical plants and flowers…all correctly classified,” cared for by a pauper.

     Once again, the newspaper praised Wilkinson and said, “the whole premises are in the best condition and order under Mr. Wilkinson’s superintendency, who is without a doubt, the right man in the right place.”

The Insane

      Dorothea Dix began working on mental health reform in the 1830s. The first asylums funded because of her efforts opened then. Yet fifty years later the mentally ill in Indiana and most of the country were largely untreated and either confined at home by their families or sent to the poor farm. Placement at the state institutions was determined by panels of doctors, judges, and commissioners, and Wilkinson filled out applications to the state institution. But the Fort Wayne newspapers made regular mention of people sent back to the county because they were judged to be incurable. This implies that the institution in Indianapolis only accepted people who were believed to have a chance of cure. 

   A separate building was constructed for the mentally ill at the Allen County poor farm in 1871, but the mentally ill had to be the biggest burden for the poorhouse keeper. In 1881 Wilkinson made a trip to Indianapolis to plea for placement for more of his charges, but was unsuccessful. In January 1882 he and Deputy Sheriff I. DeGroff Nelson traveled to the capital to bring back three women who were discharged from the insane asylum as incurable. This was a common occurrence.

    In the February 1882 reporter’s visit to the asylum, the bulk of the article focused on the mentally ill and disabled residents. It was not the last time one of the newspapers did this, and there seemed to be a fascination with this unfortunate population. Members of the public also made visits and it seems as if the residents were viewed as if they were an exhibit in the zoo. Residents were named along with their country of origin, and their behaviors were described. Reporters would commonly speculate on the source of an individual’s “lunacy,” such as a husband who left them or financial trouble.

     Mentioned in more than this story was a woman named Catherine, or Caroline Rabel who in 1865, at the asylum, lured a small child named Francis Banthall away. She pounced on Francis and killed him by driving sticks through his body. 

     There was a room with iron grates and bars where some were kept on occasion. Otherwise, “nearly all the lunatics are kept in one room together.” The reporter said it was very clean. Wilkinson said it was scrubbed daily and all inmates had to take a bath once a week. 

    At least twice in the 1880s Wilkinson surveyed all the county poor farm superintendents in northeast Indiana, and in the state. He inquired about costs and about the number and treatment of incurably insane in residence at the county facilities. Of course he reported a very favorable comparison for Allen County. He let the Sentinel know that other counties had “very wretched facilities,” for the insane, some keeping these unfortunate people manacled to the floor, “and all the horrible treatment of the old-fashioned “mad house” resorted to.” He advocated for a branch of the state insane asylum to be established in Fort Wayne, and also, that “incurables” would not be dismissed from the state institution in Indianapolis and sent back to their home county.  

     With a little over a third of the population at the Allen County Asylum categorized as insane, and it became clearly the biggest headache for Wilkinson. 

“The Right Man in the Right Place”

     From 1883 to 1888, there was frequent praise of Wilkinson in the newspapers. After that, it seems to have been general consensus that he was doing a good job, but his mentions involved dealing with the insane.

     Examples of praise are many. In May 1883 the Noble County Commissioners visited the poor farm and lauded his efficiency. In March 1884 the Sentinel said the farm “is a model of perfection,” and Wilkinson was  “certainly the best man ever in charge of the premises.” The Indianapolis Sentinel in April 1884 said Allen County “enjoys the distinction of having the best-managed institution of its kind in the state.” Also that April the Daily Gazette said Wilkinson was “probably the most enterprising farmer in the county, at least as far as potato farming is concerned.”

     In March 1885 the  Sentinel described him as “the efficient and gentlemanly manager of the county asylum,” and that month, when Wilkinson filed his half-year report, the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette said he was, “the best superintendent of the county asylum Fort Wayne has ever had.” The expense per day per person was only 17 cents a day, or $1.19 a week, about $38.64 in 2024 value. 

     September 1885 when he filed his annual report the Sentinel said “it showed they have the right man in the right place,” a phrase that would be repeated often. March 1885 he was elected chair of Allen County Democrats and promised “to vote all the paupers early and often.” He was described as a “pleasant and genial gentleman.”

     He was reappointed for a two-year contract in July 1886 at $800 per year by unanimous vote. (The salary changed little since 1860.) The Sentinel said, “Mr. Wilkinson is one of the best democrats in the party and his splendid management of the asylum and farm is without precedent in any state. The unfortunates in his charge have been kindly cared for; the institution is well, but economically cared for, and the farm was never worked to better advantage. The approval of Mr. Wilkinson is a credit to the commissioners and quite a compliment to a deserving gentleman.” 

     In March 1887 the Sentinel, reviewing one of his reports, described him again as, “the right man in the right place.”

Incidents

     There were incidents that made the newspapers that give a glimpse into what managing a county asylum could involve. Three were reported in 1887, the Sentinel reporting the first one on February 21, 1887. 

     A Mr. W.D. Baker of Barr Street wanted the services of two girls from the asylum. This was one way of dealing with the paupers – once in the asylum one was truly an “inmate” and was legally governed by the superintendent. He could place those who were capable out as servants in local homes, and they needed his permission to leave for any other reason. 

     In this instance, six weeks earlier township trustee Hilbrecht sent a pregnant young girl to the asylum who had been employed by Mr. Baker. So Wilkinson, “did not deem it right or proper to send two innocent girls into the Baker household, for fear the same misfortune might befall them. The girls are in the asylum and can be had by any respectable family.” Mr. Baker’s reputation was damaged by having an unwed young woman under his roof become pregnant.

     Later that year Wilkinson had a more serious run-in with a violently mentally ill man named Paul Pettijohn. Pettijohn was a Jefferson Township farmer who was judged to be insane on April 6, 1886 and taken to the Allen County Jail to await transport to the Indianapolis insane asylum. He seemed quiet enough until the next morning when “his malady suddenly changed from quiet dementia to one of active and dangerous madness,” the Daily News said. “He became wild and uncontrollable, and ran screaming about the prison, demanding instant liberty.” He climbed up to one of the windows and tried to wrench the bars apart. The prisoners tried to stop him, and he sprang upon one of them, T.L. Cross, who was described as an old man, biting off part of his left ear before he was pulled away by the other prisoners. He was soon placed in an isolated cell where he gnashed his teeth and tore at his clothing. Another newspaper said he nearly choked the old man to death. 

    Pettijohn was sent to the state insane asylum in Indianapolis. A year later, he was declared cured and returned to Allen County. Things must not have gone well, for he was back at the Allen County Asylum. In September Pettijohn attacked Wilkinson, and pulled out handfuls of his beard. Wilkinson shaved what was left, and at the Allen County Fair the newspaper said he had “ a lot of fun shaking hands with friends who did not know him with his whiskers off.”

     After the beard incident Pettijohn was returned to the asylum in Indianapolis where he was kept in a cell. The Daily News described him as “very violent and given little or no liberty at his prison home.” A sister, who lived in Fort Wayne, petitioned to have him sent back to their family in Switzerland. The newspaper said this would probably be granted, and that John Wilkinson would accompany him to the docks of New York. But in May 1888 this was still being discussed in the paper. In 1892, he was again declared sane.

      In 1880 a man named Perry Snurr and his brother John assaulted a man named John Myer in a saloon. John “brained” the man with a stick of wood, killing him. He was sentenced to life; Perry served five years of a six-year sentence but was described in the newspapers as an “imbecile” and maniac when released from jail. In August his own brother-in-law had him arrested. William Meeks said he was lying in bed when Perry crept in the room and "struck him a terrific blow in the side of his head with a hard object." The police officer arresting him found Perry in the backyard wildly brandishing an ax. A lunacy hearing was scheduled and September 1st, one newspaper said, a commission declared him to be of sound mind. The Sentinel said they decided he was "not a proper subject for the lunatic asylum" and that, "he must be liberated until another offense comes up." He was kept at the jail on no charges, then taken to the asylum. In December he attacked asylum attendant Tom Clifford and was called "violently insane."

     One September day in 1887, Frank Snurr, Perry’s cousin, and Bert Neper were allowed to visit Perry. After an hour-and-a-half to two-hour visit, the attendant asked them to leave as it was time for the ward to be cleaned. “Snurr and Nepper said they would not go an inch unless Perry Snurr went with them, insisting that he was sane,” the Sentinel reported. The attendant replied that he had no authority in the matter, that it was the court who committed Perry. They persisted in arguing and refusing to leave until Wilkinson was called for. 

     He forcibly removed the men from the building but they “hung about the premises promising dire vengeance until a posse of police arrived and lodged the toughs in jail.”

     Perry Snurr was judged to be insane again in November 1887 and an application was made to place him in the Indianapolis asylum. Wilkinson told the Journal-Gazette that Snurr was his most dangerous patient, that he was never allowed to leave his cell without handcuffs and carefully watched. He had assaulted other inmates and his keepers. He and the sheriff transported Snurr to Indianapolis on November 16.

     In an 1890 list of insane at the county asylum printed in the Sentinel, Perry Snurr was back. It’s unknown if he lived the rest of his life at the asylum. His brother died of a stroke in prison at age 34.  

Problems With the Insane 

     Specific incidents like those above weren’t reported in subsequent years, but the insane population continued to take up a great deal of the beds, time and attention at the asylum. It was less a poor house for the destitute than an insane ward and a place of last resort for the “decrepit” elderly and sick. The occasional “girl” who found herself pregnant, and paupers were much more easily dealt with, and their stays short-term. It began to be referred to as the county infirmary. 

     Wilkinson faced a seemingly unsolvable problem in June 1889 when he was notified that eight inmates at Logansport state asylum would be returned and he said he had no room for them. The Richmond asylum also had no room for them as it was housing the feeble-minded pending construction of facilities for them. The Richmond and Logansport asylums were relatively new and initially gave hope of alleviating county institutions. 

     Wilkinson petitioned the county commissioners for a new building to house the insane, but was turned down. He had 44 insane individuals and accommodations for only 24. “He is at wit’s end to know what he is to do,” the Sentinel  reported, then listed all the names of the insane, as was so often done. In September the commissioners came to the county farm for a tour so Wilkinson could show them the desperately overcrowded conditions for the insane. Forty inmates were then housed in space for 20. A two-story 40 X 160-foot building was decided on, and the commissioners selected a location – but still they did not approve funding for it.

     At a reporter’s visit in 1890, here were 82 patients, as they now were often called. There were  31 women, 51 men; 35 insane, 15 idiots, 16 old and decrepit, 5 sick. That is 71 people who were there for other reasons besides strictly “pauperism,” with the greatest number the insane. This was typical of years of reports. 

A Change 

     Reporters continued to say good things about Wilkinson and the way he managed the asylum. In an 1890 visit on a Sunday the reporter noted a very large roast beef in the oven, and the inmates dressed in their Sunday best. (They were given a set of clothing to be worn on Sundays, “to look respectable,” especially those who attended church.) The reporter said that when Wilkinson first arrived at the asylum in 1880 the inmates ate off of tin plates, but he replaced them with stoneware.

     In June the superintendent was able to transfer all of his violent patients to Richmond and did not have to confine anyone to a cell. In September 1890 Wilkinson and the county clerk visited the newly-completed Richmond asylum. The first patient was accepted there on August 4. They learned that Allen County was given a quota of 70 patients. Commissioners still needed to build a new building for the Allen County insane. December’s report noted eight babies were born at the infirmary that year, and twelve inmates transferred to the Richmond asylum. 

      May 1892 featured another Sentinel reporter’s visit. He accompanied the local doctor with the contract to serve the infirmary on his regular rounds. Mrs. Wilkinson poured tall glasses of cold, rich milk from one of the seventeen jersey cows who supplied all the milk and butter at the farm. Wilkinson was putting out his crops and planned 40 acres in corn, 28 in wheat, 17 in rye, and six in potatoes. 

     The iron fence that surrounded the courthouse was moved to the infirmary, as it was increasingly referred to. It was 650 feet in front and 250 feet on the sides. Plans were to paint it green with white tips. Workmen were laying sod in the men’s and women’s groves, where the inmates were allowed to take walks. There were 72 patients, 15 old and helpless and seven sick. 

     It was assumed that Wilkinson would be reappointed to another contract. But in December 1892 the commissioners appointed Herman W. Felts. Wilkinson would vacate the position March 1. There was no comment about why he was being replaced. 

    The Fort Wayne Weekly Journal said, “Mr. Wilkinson leaves the service of the county with a good record. His administration has been clean, honest and capable and the unfortunate inmates committed to his care have been kindly and considerately treated.” His leadership was complemented by the head of the State Board of Charities. There were a dozen applicants for his position, “and the commissioners succumbed to it.” 

     The reporter added, “It is to be hoped that the institution should not suffer for the change.”

     In January 1893 Wilkinson attended the State Board of Charities Conference in Indianapolis where he read a paper on the “impracticability of keeping the insane and idiots in the same rooms with the aged and infirm at the county poor farms.” He supported a bill to enlarge the asylum at Richmond. 

     March 1 his household goods were loaded on the train headed for Plymouth where he was going to work on a farm. 

     

Afterwards

     He didn’t stay in farming for long. For nearly thirteen years Wilkinson was a successful farmer with farm hands he did not have to pay for. Maybe without that help it was far less desirable. The family moved back to Fort Wayne where he was hired as the janitor of the courthouse. Today we think of a janitor as a rather lowly position. Then, it seemed to be quite respected. It was relatively well-paid and was more like being a building manager. He ran for county coroner in 1900 and was described as, “An active man of unusual vigor, of ripe judgment, and sterling qualities of mind and heart…” He lost by one vote. 

     Mrs. Wilkinson died in May 1901 at age 52. Her obituary said she “officiated as matron of the institution, devoting unvarying attention and marked ability in the government of the infirmary.”

     The seven Wilkinson children all grew to adulthood. Two, Kittie and Mary Jerome, joined the Sisters of Providence of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods and became Sister Aloysius Clare and Sister Josephine Cecile. They were sent to Chicago to teach. Gertrude and Nellie never married and kept house for their widowed father for the rest of his long life. Nellie did not work outside the home, but Gertrude worked for decades as a fitter at a dry goods store. John Jr. also never married and died of typhoid fever in 1905 at age 29. 

     Frank and William each married but both died in middle age without having any children. Gertrude was the informant on both of their death certificates, which implies that they were not with their wives at the time of their deaths. John and Nancy raised seven children but had no grandchildren.  

     John Wilkinson Sr. died in 1931. 

Notes:

Paul Pettijohn - The sheriff later said Pettijohn did not bite off T.L. Cross' ear.

Copyright by Andrea Auclair  © 2024