This Undated Postcard Shows the County Poorhouse Which Later Became the Strafford County Asylum

Most people would consider living in an insane asylum to be a sort of hell in and of itself, but when conditions in these institutions were unsanitary, unkind, or unsafe, life took on an especially hellish aspect. Though most asylums were–at least originally–built to be safe, they did not always stay that way and staff were not always as protective as they might have been. Disaster could result.

The Strafford County Asylum in New Hampshire came into being when the county decided to move its pauper insane from its poorhouse into a separate asylum where patients could be better accommodated. All went well for twenty years, until a personality clash of some kind occurred between superintendent Charles E. Demeritt and his assistant manager, William P. Driscoll. Demeritt gave up control of the asylum to Driscoll.

Though the building was not that old, almost all repairs and renovations had been made using pine. This wood had dried over the years and shrunk to the point that patients could see each other between the floors and cells. The windows had bars in them and the patients’ rooms were locked up at night.

Account of Asylum Fire

On February 9, 1893 the night watchman saw a fire in the room of a patient named Mary La Fontaine.  Wilbur Chesley, the watchman, immediately ran into the building and awakened Driscoll, who began to unlock the patients’ doors. The building material was so combustible that Driscoll could only get to some of the first floor rooms before the building was engulfed in flames. He, his family, and only three patients escaped.The rest , some forty or forty-one, were burned alive.

Investigation showed inexcusable ineptness: dangerous conditions had been allowed to exist for years, and the watchman had not even known that a fire hose and fire buckets were available in the building. Even worse, the fire was so small–no bigger than a bushel basket–when Chesley and Driscoll had rushed to the patient’s room, that they could easily have extinguished it. Instead, Chesley ran for help and Driscoll began unlocking rooms. And finally, the matches which probably started the fire, had been given to the patient (who smoked) by Driscoll himself.

Another Dreadful Fire Had Previously Occurred January 7, 1881 at the Strafford County Almshouse

As a result of this disaster the state’s legislature abolished county asylums and placed the care of the insane under the state.