Stroll through the ruins of Medfield State Hospital and the creaks of aged wood, taps inside the buildings from small animals and the rustle of leaves make it one of the spookiest places to visit in October or really any time of year.
Currently at 495 acres, the asylum opened in May 1896, accepting its first 120 patients from Taunton, Danvers, Northampton, Westborough and Boston, according to the Medfield Historical Society. One year later, around 1,000 patients were hospitalized, with four people dying each week.
“It was the kind of place — as was the norm for the time — where if your child had a developmental disability, you dropped them off and never saw them again,” said Johnny Dalton, the lead audio engineer for one of the hospital’s current attractions and an expert on the hospital’s history. “But if that was your lot in life, the Medfield State Hospital was the place to be. It was a fully self-functional community. I think at the height of it, the town of Medfield housed 4,000 people and a good chunk of them lived at the hospital.”
After over a century of abuse, torment and sadness resulting from changing medical practices at the hospital, Bellforge Arts Center is now in the position of engaging with a sense of historical healing, Dalton said. Through the arts, it aims to soothe hearts and minds in its own way.
One of those is through its outdoor concerts.
“You tell every band, ‘Hey, we have a show ready for you at an abandoned mental asylum,’ and they’re super excited about it,” Dalton said. “They get here and we have an awesome sound system to play through, if I don’t say so myself.”
History of abuse
By 1913, the hospital’s population reached 1,700, according to the historical society. Over the next several years, beatings, the formation of a prison camp housing Charlestown jail inmates and the outbreak of the Spanish flu in 1918 throttled the hospital. Prosecutions of assaulters were swift. Electroshock treatments were used on patients in 1938, the historical society noted. Dalton added that lobotomies were a common practice at the hospital.
Between 1940 and the start of the 1950s, reports of overcrowding and a staff decline due to World War II placed strain on the hospital, the historical society said. The introduction of new drugs and practices, under the leadership of Dr. Harold Lee, put the hospital on track to becoming a renowned hospital as more patients were rehabilitated and discharged.
Low population numbers by the 1970s led to the first talks of closing the hospital, but it stayed open until the turn of the 21st century, the historical society said. Signs of deterioration, along with concern from Medfield residents over patients declared criminally insane from Bridgewater State Hospital led to the hospital’s closure on April 13, 2003.
For the next 20 years, grass and weeds have grown over the grounds. Signs on the doors of buildings warn of asbestos exposure. Now and again, ghost hunters and sightseers come to the grounds in search of something haunted, Dalton said. Similar to Salem, it especially draws visitors in the fall. One walks the grounds typically seeing joggers or people walking their dogs off-leash despite signs urging otherwise.
“I’m sure the architecture lends itself to that feeling, this late Victorian style you don’t really see in the area,” Dalton said of the spooky nature to the campus. “These imposing, brick façades and beautiful architecture.”
Moving forward
Preservation efforts by historians, Medfield’s Board of Selectmen and Boston’s Trinity Financial, as of January 2022, have put residents and creatives on the path to making use of the deserted space while maintaining the integrity of the ruins.
This is where Dalton and the Bellforge Arts Center enter the picture. Established in 2018, the arts center’s founders secured in 2020 a 99-year lease with the town to use Lee Chapel and its neighboring infirmity building as a way “for the next generation of families who seek to fulfill their need for the arts, outdoor activity, reflection and learning,” the art center’s website said.
In an odd echo to the present, the hospital previously formed an orchestra for performances, all while the Great Depression impacted the hospital’s staff size, the historical society said.
Prior to Bellforge’s founding and Trinity’s involvement in restoring the area, Dalton said the “other option was do nothing and it crumbles to dust.” The quad outside Lee Chapel, the largest building on the campus, serves as the performance space for live shows at the hospital in what’s mostly a quiet town.
“To have a fun night out and see a cool show, or do any number of very fun activities, you’ve got to go an hour-ish north to Boston, an hour-ish south to Rhode Island or an hour west to Worcester,” Dalton said. “The end result is there isn’t going to be a bad seat in the house, which is really exciting.”
Outdoor shows in the grassy space next to the chapel began in 2022, and “was well received,” Dalton said. Shows that include “Fun at the Forge,” “Endless Summer of Endless Colors,” Oktoberfests, Pride and Juneteenth celebrations and various Shakespeare performances, among others, draw crowds in a safe outdoor space.
While the first renovation to the chapel has been completed, by carefully removing lead-painted plaster and asbestos installations, a gallery space will bridge the chapel and the infirmary. The chapel is set to host a performance hall, with the infirmary serving as a space for visual arts, practice rooms and a music studio.
The summer and fall seasons were met with one ongoing challenge: rainy weekends have resulted in some shows being postponed or canceled.
“Yeah, that’s the only bummer so far,” Dalton said. “As successful as this year has been, for everybody it has been an insanely wet outdoor season. Environmentally, it’s great after last year’s drought but it’s really pushed things out.”
With one more show lined up for Oct. 28 before going on break until Spring 2024, Bellforge’s board is hopeful that the full renovation of the chapel and infirmary space will be open to future artists by 2026. Until then, Dalton’s thrilled by what they have accomplished.
“This second year of programming has been really awesome,” he continued. “Every show, everything that we’ve done has had more people, a bigger attendance. We recognize faces every week. Lately, we haven’t been recognizing the faces, so it’s really exciting to see new people at shows in real-time.”
