Fauquier County Health and Medical Records, 1833-1853

Access and use

Location of collection:
Library of Virginia
The Library of Virginia
800 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23219
Contact for questions and access:
POC: Archives Reference Services
Phone: (804) 692-3888
Restrictions:

There are no restrictions.

Terms of access:

There are no restrictions.

Preferred citation:

Fauquier County (Va.) Health and Medical Records, 1833-1850. Local government records collection, Fauquier County Court Records, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Summary

Extent:
1 folder
Creator:
Fauquier County (Va.) Circuit Court
Language:
English
Preferred citation:

Fauquier County (Va.) Health and Medical Records, 1833-1850. Local government records collection, Fauquier County Court Records, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Background

Scope and content:

Fauquier County (Va.) Health and Medical Records, 1833-1850, consist of one folder of Mental Health Records for four individuals, and may include warrants, orders, petitions, depositions, reports, etc. for or by justices of the peace, local sheriffs, and others regarding the mental condition of individuals who were released to the recognizance of a family member or who were committed to a mental hospital. Fiduciary records such as estate inventories of a person judged insane and receipts for services transporting persons to hospitals may also be present.

Jailed for being a lunatic; being cared for in the local jail.

Son in law James Tracey sought to have Porter declared a lunatic since it appeared he could no longer manage his affairs. The committee of commissioners found him to be elderly, not insane, and that if they declared him insane, they would need to declare most of the community insane as most folks had "incurred debts by securityship & otherwise, which have to be discharged in the present fearful crisis, saddled with a fearful amount of costs under the iron grasp of the law."

Document declaring his sanity and discharging him from Eastern Asylum in Williamsburg and that his property be restored.

Summons for Thompson's committee Henry Hathaway.

Biographical / historical:

Mental Health Records may consist of a variety of documents that historically were referred to as lunacy papers in the courthouses of Virginia localities and municipalities.

See also: Fiduciary Records. A fiduciary is an individual who enters into a confidential and legal relationship which binds them to act on behalf of another. Guardians are legally invested to take care of another person, and of the property and rights of that person. Thus, some records referred to as insanity papers are housed with fiduciary records and not with mental health records.

During its session begun in November 1769, the House of Burgesses passed an act establishing a hospital in Williamsburg for the mentally ill. The Eastern Lunatic Asylum (now Eastern State Hospital) was the first institution in America constructed as a mental hospital. The first patients were admitted in October 1773.

Fauquier County was formed in 1759 from Prince William County. It was named for Francis Fauquier, royal lieutenant governor of Virginia from 1758 to 1768.

Acquisition information:
This collection came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court papers from Fauquier County Circuit Court.
Arrangement:

Chronological by year.