Previous to 1862 no proper provision had been made for the care of the insane. The legislature invested Governor Gibbs with authority to select land for the erection of an asylum at Salem, and to contract for the safe-keeping and care of the patients; but the state not yet being able to appropriate money for suit able buildings, the contract was let to J. C. Hawthorne and A. M. Loryea, who established a private asylum at East Portland, where, until a recent date, all of these unfortunates were treated for their mental ailments.[1] It was not until about 1883 that the state asylum, a fine structure, was completed.
The legislature of 1862 passed an act for the location of the lands donated to the state, amounting in all to nearly 700,000 acres, besides the swamp-lands
donated by congress March 12, 1860, and Governor
Gibbs was appointed commissioner for the state to lo
cate all lands to which the state was entitled, and to
designate for what purposes they should be applied.[2]
A similar act had been passed in 1860, empowering Governor Whiteaker to select the lands and salt springs granted by act of admission, by the donation act of 1850 for university purposes, and by the act of March 12, 1860, donating swamp and overflowed lands to the state, which the failure of the commissioner of the general land-office to send instructions had rendered inoperative. The legislature of 1860 had also provided for the possessory and preemptory rights of the 500,000 acres donated to the state, by which any person,
- ↑ In 1860 the insane in Oregon were twenty-three in number, or a per cent of 0.438; in 1864 there were fifty-one patients in the asylum from a population of 80,000, giving a per cent of 0.638. The percentage of cures was 32.50. Or. Jour. House, 1862, ap. 49; Or. Jour. Home, 1864, ap. 7-8. In Sept. 1870 the asylum contained 122 persons, 87 males and 35 females. Of the whole number admitted in 1870-2, over 42 per cent recovered, and 7 per cent died. The building and grounds there were not of a character or extent to meet the requirements of the continually increasing number of patients. Governor's message, in Portland Oregonian, Sept. 13, 1866; Nash's Or., 149; Or. Insane Asylum Rept, 1872; Portland West Shore, March 1880. The number of patients in 1878 was 233, of whom 166 were males. Rept of C. C. Strong, Visiting Physician, 1878, 6.
- ↑ Or. Code, 1862, 105-7; Zabriskie's Land Law, 659-63.
