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CHAPTER EIGHT: HOSPITALS & CARE FACILITIES:
FIRST PHYSICIAN
da Middletown's first physician was Dr. David Hanford. Hanford Street, which originally included what is now Crescent Place, was named for him by his son John in 1862. Hanford was born July 16, 1786, graduating from the Yale Medical Department in 1807. He settled in Middletown in 1810 and "for thirty-four years was the leading physician of the place." He was one of the founders of the Wallkill Academy and an early member of the Orange County Medical Society. The record book he kept indicates his principal mode of treatment was "bleeding" his patients. Besides this, he employed "sweating and blistering," and used such prescriptions as bitters, laudanum, castor oil, magnesia, and so on. He also served as the local dentist. Charges were recorded, the first being in the English monetary system of shillings, pounds, and pence; the later in dollars and cents. More often than not, charges were taken in trade, such as geese, apples, bricks, a or for work performed, such as chopping wood, digging a cellar, or hanging window shades. He practiced medicine here until his death October 13, 1844.
MIDDLETOWN PSYCHIATRIC CENTER
In 1869, the State Homeopathic Medical Society sought to establish a private institution for the homeopathic treatment of the insane, the term in use at the time. Dr. George R. Foote, a member of the Society, was requested to select a site and raise funds to establish' such a facility. Dr. Horace M. Paine, a colleague of Foote's, was then interested in a site at Margaretville, New York. Through the efforts of Dr. Frederick W. Seward, Sr., then practicing in Middletown, Dr. Foote attended a public meeting held here in 1869. In January, 1870, Foote wrote Elisha P. Wheeler, who had served as chairman of the public meeting, announcing a Middletown site had been selected, providing $50,000 could be raised.
That month, Senator William M. Graham introduced an appropriation bill which was defeated as the bill proposed to fund a private hospital with public tax money. A revised bill making it a public facility passed April 28, 1870. The first section of the bill provided "There shall be established at Middletown in County of Orange a State Lunatic Asylum for the care and treatment of the insane and inebriate, upon the principles of medicine known as homeopathic; and it shall be known by the name of the State Homeopathic Asylum for the Insane at Middletown."
Fund raising proved difficult, requiring the state to provide more funding than originally intended. The site selected was a 150 acre farm, then about a mile west of Middletown's boundary at