Haunted Hospitals, Part 4

Welcome back, brave spirits! Here is the fourth in our "Haunted Hospitals" series!

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Bartonville State Asylum, Peoria, Illinois

History

According to Troy Taylor's Ghosts of the Prairie website, the Bartonville State Asylum opened in 1902 under the direction of psychiatrist Dr. George Zeller. With 33 buildings and no bars on any of the windows, the institution was created according to the cottage system, with the goal of creating a home-like atmosphere for mentally ill patients. Four cemeteries were built behind the main building, the oldest of which is the site of the very first ghost sighting.

Old Book

Whenever a patient passed away at Bartonville, capable patients acted as gravediggers. One of them was A. Bookbinder or, as he was called by his peers, "Old Book." At each funeral, Old Book would remove his hat and stand by a nearby elm tree, since named the Graveyard Elm, and cry for his departed peer.

When Old Book himself died, his casket was placed upon two crossbeams over the open grave, to be lowered at the end of the service. As the gravediggers prepared to lift the heavy coffin so the crossbeams could be removed, the coffin, rather than offering resistance from its weight, "bounded into the air like an eggshell, as if it were empty." Everyone, 100 nurses and 300 gatherers, turned to the elm tree from where they heard a loud weeping. There they saw Old Book crying hysterically. Dr. Zeller proceeded to open the casket up, but found Old Book's body still lying in it, lifeless.

Over the next year, the Graveyard Elm slowly withered away and died, and Dr. Zeller ordered it to be burned. However, when the workers set fire to the tree, they heard a loud weeping coming from it and immediately put the fire out.

Bartonville State Asylum closed in 1972. In 1980, all of the buildings were demolished except the main one, which the current owner hopes to turn into office space. Ghost stories have become common. Rob Conover, a local ghost researcher, says, "the place is full of spirits." Perhaps the spirit of Old Book still exists, weeping for his friends and his own departed soul.

See the previous installment, Haunted Hospitals, Part 3, or the next installment, Haunted Hospitals, Part 5.

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