January 16th, 2008
Cumberland County Asylum
I found the above image online at the University of Medecine & Dentistry of New Jersey web site. It looks very much like a small Kirkbride Plan asylum located in Hopewell Township, New Jersey. Genealogy Trails lists the institution as being open in 1899. However, Philadelphia Architects & Buildings attributes its design to architect Thomas Edward Ash, born in 1888. Either somebody’s got their data mixed up, or this particular building was added to the asylum much later than 1899.
It’s unusual for a Kirkbride to have been built after the 1890s, but it’s not unheard of—the one in Bangor, Maine was completed in 1904 for example. It’s also out of the ordinary that a county asylum had its own Kirkbride building. The state governments had a sort of monopoly on them because they were the only entities (aside from the federal government) with the necessary funds and capabilities to build such large, expensive buildings. I suppose the reason this one is pretty small is because the county had a comparitively meager budget at its disposal.
I don’t know if this building still exists or not. If anyone from the area has any information on its status, please comment. Thank you.
This building opened up in Hopewell in 1900. It later became the county hospital. It closed in 1982 and burned to the ground in 1992