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Showing posts from December, 2004

Myrtles Plantation

The Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana has had a very interesting history. It has been long known as one of the most haunted houses in America. It was built in 1794 by David Bradford, a successful attorney. After fleeing Washington due to the Whiskey Rebellion, Bradford relocated to Bayou Sarah where he lived in a 8-bedroom house known as "Laurel Grove" only until after he received his pardon from President Adams did he move his wife and kids in with him. He tried to sell his home in Pennsylvania but failed after two years. Instead, he traded it for 230 barrels of flour, since there was a shortage on flour in Louisiana, which was never delivered. David Bradford occasionally took in students who wanted to study law, including a young man named Clark Woodrooff. On November 19, 1817, Woodrooff married Bradford's daughter Sarah Mathilda and they had three kids. After Bradford died, Clark took over the duties of "Laurel Grove" for his mother-in-law,

Waverly Hills Sanitorium

Louisville, Kentucky had the highest tuberculosis death rate in country in 1900. Since Louisville was mostly swamplands, it was just a breeding ground for tuberculosis. A wooden two-story hospital with 40 beds opened in Jefferson County in 1910 to help contain the disease, but soon found out that the hospital was too small. With nearly 130 cases, a larger facility would be needed. With donated land and $11 million dollars a bigger hospital, now known as Waverly Hills, was constructed. It opened in 1926 and was considered the most advanced tuberculosis hospital in the country. In those days, treatment for tuberculosis was very primitive and many people, a estimation of tens of thousands, came to Waverly to just die. Many doctors and nurses volunteered their time and life to help find a cure for the disease; Many extreme methods, by our standards, were done to achieve this goal. The lungs were exposed to ultraviolet light and some patients were put on top of the roof or on open porches

Ohio State Reformatory

For those of you who think you've never been or even seen Ohio State Prison, you may have and didn't even know it. It was used as the setting for the movie Shawshank Redemption. It's even listed in the Guinness Book of World Records. 154,000 inmates passed through it's gates during the entire 94 years that it was a working prison. Some never left. There are 215 numbered marked grave sites of prisoners who died from disease, influenza, tuberculosis, and others from violence. The worst occurred in a lonely place, deep in the prison ground known as solitary by some but by everyone else it was called the hole. Near total isolation could crack the toughest cons. One inmate hung himself, another set himself on fire, once two men were left too long in a tomb like cell and only one walked out, leaving his cellmate's body behind stuffed underneath a bunk. The bloodiest incident that occurred at the prison happened outside it's walls in July 1948. The Reformatory's