Terrors Of The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

Tucked away in the Appalachian Mountains is the small town of Weston. Looming over this small community is a behemoth of a building. Spanning nearly 1,300 feet in length on a 600-acre lot, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is a testimony to mental health reform—at least, it was at the time.

Peering into its unending hallways with the lenses of modern medicine, the asylum is no less brutal than the institutes that predated it, where the mentally ill were chained to the walls with little to no clothes to cover them.

When the asylum opened in 1864, the Civil War was at its height. On the battlefield, cutting-edge medicine was a bottle of alcohol, a wooden spoon, and a rusty hacksaw. Can you expect mental health to be treated with the same amount of grace?

What remains after all the patients have checked out and the halls are left to decay?

You have one of the most haunted places in West Virginia.

Let us dive into the depths of madness and uncover the sanity of truth in one of America’s most haunted destinations. Are you looking for even more scares? There are even more terrifying things to read and see at U.S. Ghost Adventures.

Why is the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Haunted?

The asylum had been in full service for 130 years, from 1864 to 1994. It was built to hold a capacity of 250 patients. By the 1950s, the population had peaked to nearly 2,400. Understaffed, underfunded, and under disarray, many patients who entered did not leave. Those with no family to lay them to rest were buried in the asylum’s private cemetery.

As the years progressed, patients would endure torture-like treatments by doctors, many of them dying in the process. As the number of patients grew, tighter and tighter living conditions caused many to act out in violence, even going as far as killing one another.

130 years of built-up pain, anger, and neglect have turned the asylum into a hotspot for wandering spirits, some of them as dangerous dead as they were alive.

Table Of Contents

1. A Brief History of Mental Health
2. Construction and Civil War
3. Life At The Asylum
4. Hauntings of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
5. The Asylum Today

Pre-Existing Conditions: A Brief History of Mental Health

Mental illness treatment has never been perfect. Many argue it’s still not perfect, but it has come a long way. Methods 50 years ago would seem archaic. Imagine what it was like 50 years before that. Or even 50 years before that?

It has been a long road to get to where we are today, a road that many probably don’t want to think about. It was not easy to navigate by any stretch of the imagination.

One of the earliest known methods of mental illness treatment was trephination, going back several thousand years. Surgeons would drill or cut a piece of your skull to relieve pressure in your brain. It was a popular way to get rid of headaches, any mental disorder, or even believed demonic possession.

Just don’t ask your insurance about it.

Bloodletting became a popular treatment around the 1600s. The idea was that illnesses were caused by an imbalance in the body, and the best way to fix that imbalance was to drain the body of impurities, such as blood.

However, it was institutions and asylums that were becoming the ideal method of dealing with mental illness around this time. A place where people with mental illness could be housed to receive treatment.

In truth, asylums were a convenient way to isolate the mentally ill from society, like sweeping dirt under a rug. Except these were human beings. As for their treatment, they were chained up, unclothed, and treated like animals.

If it hadn’t been for Dorothea Dix’s reformative acts, we might not have the sort of mental health care we do today.

New Medication

Dorothea Dix was a revolutionary reformer for mental health in the mid-1800s. She traveled the country, documenting the poor treatments and conditions of asylums. With her findings, she was able to get new legislation passed to improve the condition and care of mental institutions.

Because of her efforts, the United States created several of the first institutions and places for the actual care and treatment of mental illness. Among these was the 1849 Trenton State Hospital, which is still used today. It was also the first to use Thomas Kirkbride’s designs for mental institutes, the Kirkbride Plan.

These were massive constructs, a main building with two protruding and linear wings on either side, like bat wings. These plans were designed to allow ample air circulation and sunlight for the patients. The institutes were built to be self-sufficient, with a built-in water reserve and land for farming.

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum just so happens to be a Kirkbride Plan institute.

Construction and Civil War

Construction began on the asylum in 1858, and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. All construction halted in 1861 with the start of the Civil War. Union soldiers occupied the partially built asylum and set up Camp Tyler there. The asylum swapped between Union and Confederate hands throughout the war, and several raids of the asylum severely crippled its resources.

One such raid took place at the very beginning of the war and involved a bank robbery.

Months into the war, Colonel Erastus Bernard Tyler of the Union Army strolled into Weston with a company of armed soldiers. They planned to capture suspected Confederate sympathizers. At least, that’s what they said they were doing.

In truth, it was a distraction from the real plan.

The state of Virginia planned to seize $30,000 in gold coins from the Exchange Bank vault, money that had been set aside to pay the asylum’s construction crew. They wanted it specifically to help fund the Confederacy.

Word of this looming heist reached the Union, which sent Colonel Tyler and his men to retrieve the gold first. The plan went off without a hitch, and the gold was routed to Wheeling with an armed guard escort.

Instead of funding the Confederacy, the gold ended up funding the Restored Government of Virginia. In 1863, this government created the state of West Virginia. 

Reconstruction and Opening

The final raid in 1864 stripped the institute of all food and clothes originally meant for incoming patients, though you would not imagine they would be keen on opening the asylum during the war.

Well, it seems they were quite keen on it, opening in 1864 as the Weston State Hospital, as it would primarily be known for decades. Funnily enough, it’s known more as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum today than it ever did in its 130 years. 

Construction continued well into the nation’s own Reconstruction. In 1871, a 200-foot clock tower was added to the main building. In 1873, a separate wing for black patients was added. It wouldn’t be until 1881 that the asylum was finally completed, becoming the second-largest hand-cut masonry building in the world.

The largest is the Kremlin.

At this point, well over 700 patients had been admitted into the asylum.

But the max capacity was 250.

The asylum was well over double the amount of patients it could house, a humanitarian plight that all Kirkbride designed would end up facing sooner or later. It would only get worse as the years dragged on. 

However, this brings up a burning question. What was life actually like for the patients?

Reasons Why Patients Were Admitted

Today, most people would seek mental health for depression or trauma. In the yesteryears of medicine, the reasons for being admitted were not as forward. They were anything but.

These are just a few examples of why you might have been admitted to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.

Life At The Asylum

In the beginning, life for the patients was probably pretty good, at least in the context of the mid to late 19th century. The asylum was built for ample room and sunlight and had over 600 acres for patients to roam.

Since the asylum was self-sufficient, patients were able to learn trades during their stay, such as farming and sewing. It was built to be a calming and dignifying existence for the 250 patients housed there.

That was Kirkbride’s dream, at least.

The asylum quickly filled up. By 1881, over 700 patients resided within. By 1938, there were 1,600. By 1949, nearly 1,800. By the 1950s, there were an estimated 2,400 patients, the most the asylum would ever see.

It became overcrowded, resources were scarce, and there wasn’t enough staff to maintain patience. The building’s foundations were deteriorating, and sanitation had become impossible to maintain. It became a literal madhouse.

Worst of all, the patience became violent. Attacking one another, attacking the staff, even going as far as killing one another. 

There’s a story of a nurse being killed by a patient, but she was originally only reported as being missing. They found her body at the bottom of a stairwell months later. Another story depicts two patients hanging another patient by a bed sheet.

Perhaps towards the latter half of the 20th century, the asylum was able to give care to those who needed it with advances in modern medicine and a significantly smaller population of patients.

But the violence and cruelty that took place inside the walls of this once beautiful institute have tainted any good it had once done.

Tortuous Treatments

During the 130 years that the asylum was open, mental health treatment went through several fads. Almost every single one of them was agonizing and inhumane. The first half of the 20th century saw no bounds to the horrible creativity that the so-called scientific mind could conjure up.

Insulin coma therapy was a popular method in the 1930s. It was believed that changing patients’ insulin levels, as in placing them in diabetic comas, could rewire their brains and cure their illness Of course, the side effects included permanent brain damage, prolonged comas, and death.

Metrazol Therapy was another popular treatment with disastrous results. It was believed that inducing seizures in schizophrenic patients would help calm them and lighten their symptoms. The only thing that the patients got out of it was fractured bones and torn muscles.

Arguably, the most popular treatment, and the most dehumanizing, was the lobotomy.

It involved taking a needle-like instrument, almost like an ice pick, and jabbing it into the brain, cutting off prefrontal cortex connections. Believing it was the be-all and end-all cure for mental illness, it was performed nationwide.

At best, patients were left with severe motor function issues, cognitive changes, behavior changes, and personality changes. At worst, they were left in a vegetative state.

These were what the patients looked forward to, day in and day out. For years, sometimes decades. If they lived long enough. Many of those who suffered still suffer in this life and the next.

The Hauntings of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum’s famous patients of the dead are almost household names to those curious enough to go looking for them. It’s believed that about 8 fully fledged spirits roam the asylum to this day.

Each one has its district personality and history. Some are docile, but some are not and are to be avoided at all costs. 

The Good

Probably one of the most well-known spirits in the asylum is that of Lily. She is the spirit of a little girl who used to live there, but she was by no means a patient. Her history is different from others.

The story goes that Lily was born inside the asylum. Her mother was admitted after the Civil War, unaware she was pregnant with Lily. The mother would end up dying from childbirth, leaving the nurses to care for little Lily.

However, Lily’s life would end up being short-lived. At age nine, Lily contracted pneumonia and died, never to know what life was like outside the asylum. Those who go to visit her room will leave toys for her to play with. Some have even sworn they’ve seen a toy or two move.

There’s even a story of a woman touring the asylum with a group of people, where she began having a conversation with a little girl. The girl seemed lost, so the woman was trying to convince her to join the group. Yet when she turned around a moment later, the girl was gone.

There is another spirit named Elizabeth, who is known to roam the hallways of the asylum. Not much is known about her other than that she was a nurse. Perhaps even in death, she’s still taking care of patients.

There’s a ghost, either named Jesse or James, depending on who asks, who used to reside in the asylum. The story goes that he had a heart attack in the bathtub, and his spirit remains in that bathroom to this day.

The Bad

There are monsters in the asylum. They were monsters when they were alive and continue to be now that they are dead. It seems that no form of treatment or diagnosis could cure them. Perhaps they never wanted to be cured in the first place.

There is a story of two sadistic patients who attempted to hang another patient. They tried several times with little success. They decided to go several steps beyond that. Several bloody, horrifying steps.

They forced the patient’s head underneath a bedpost and proceeded to jump on the bed repeatedly. The patient died and it’s safe to assume how. It’s also safe to say that no more detail is needed, at least detail that any rational person would desire.

The spirits of the two patients have taken the form of black shadows. They’re known to suck the life and energy out of any room they enter. People have been known to feel comfortable and ill around their presence.

There’s another evil spirit known only as “Slewfoot.” Whoever this person used to be remains a mystery. All that is known is that he used to be a horrendous murderer who would kill people in the upstairs bathroom. They say he still roams the upper floors to this day.

You never want to cross paths with Slewfoot.

Eyewitness Account

Some of the best stories to come out of the asylum are those that worked there. Maybe not as staff from years ago, but tour guides showing visitors the history and the hauntings of the institute.

There’s one guide who has worked there for a decade. Some of the things he’s seen are bizarre, but others are downright terrifying.

One night, he and another guide were conducting a conversation with any nearby spirits using a spirit box in one of the many rooms of the asylum. This device gives off radio frequencies that ghosts can allegedly use to form audible words.

For most of the night, he was hearing nothing but static until one word popped out from the rest of the white noise. The spirit box said “Evil”. His coworker then frantically tried to get them out of the room.

The other guide explained that she heard the sound of feet shuffling by the doorway and asked if the spirit making the noise was nice. Immediately after she asked, the spirit box said “Evil”.

Another night, the guide was showing a group around when he began to feel lightheaded and disoriented. Not long after, he began to feel this intense burning sensation on his back. It was getting worse and worse as the night went on.

Finally, he had enough and asked a coworker to check his back for anything. When she lifted his shirt, she found what looked like a large, four-inch red mark. It almost looked like a scratch. It stayed on his back for a week. To this very day, that part of his back feels weird on occasion.

Ghost Hunt

Since becoming a tourist destination for the unexplained and unknown, the asylum has brought in ghost hunters from all over the nation. Shows like Ghost Adventures and Ghost Hunters have created episodes about the hauntings that go on there.

Most recently, the popular YouTube channel Watcher did a ghost hunt, using a variety of devices to either capture footage of or communicate with the wandering spirits.

Placing cameras throughout the asylum, they managed to pick up various unexplained noises like bumps and crashes, whistling, and heavy breathing. A camera in Lily’s room even managed to pick up what sounded like a woman screaming in the distance.

However, perhaps one of the most fascinating things they captured happened to Ryan Bergara, one of the co-creators of Watcher. He felt this pulling sensation on one of the pieces of equipment on his belt as if something was physically pulling it. 

The cameras even managed to capture footage of not only his jacket moving on its own but one of the pieces of equipment on his belt as well.

The Asylum Today

After the asylum closed its doors in 1994, it lay vacant for years. Several efforts were made to either repurpose or restore the building and grounds, but none were successful, and the asylum continued to deteriorate.

The asylum sustained even more damage in 1999 when all four floors were heavily damaged by a paintball tournament held by off-duty police officers. Three offices were dismissed from duty due to this incident.

In 2007, the asylum was finally sold off in an auction to Joe Johnson, who has been working tirelessly to restore the building to what it once was. The restoration efforts are funded through several tours that are given out every year. 

Since its opening as a tourist destination, the asylum has had more than 200,000 visitors from all over the world come and see the once-great hospital.

America’s Most Haunted.

Our nation is teeming with hundreds of more haunted locations than just West Virginia’s haunted asylum, each one with its own unique and terrifying stories to tell. We’re always prepared to let you in on what are America’s Most Haunted Places.

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