Taunton State Hospital

This place is on private property. Listing for informational purposes only. Please do not visit without express permission from the land owner. By the 1850′s overcrowding the state’s only mental asylum was becoming a dangerous issue so government officials began looking for a site to build another facility. Taunton was picked and despite a public outcry construction on the hospital was begun in 1851 and the facility opened in 1854. Although now impossible to verify, this facility became known as one of the worst in history. It has been called the concentration camp of mental hospitals. Horrible stories began to circulate that still survive to this day. Stories of torture, medical experiments and murder. The worst patients being hacked to death, boiled alive, frozen to death and limbs being removed and reattached to other patients. It is said the staff were as sick if not sicker than most of the patients.The facility closed down in 1976 and the administrative building housed in the center of the complex burned in 2006 and was torn down. All that remains of this hospital is the wings that used to jut out of the administrative center. The East Wing is now being used as correctional facility for juveniles with a history of mental illness and violent behavior.