| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Pilgrim State Hospital Farm

Page history last edited by Mary Ann Koferl 13 years, 1 month ago

 Pilgrim State Hospital had farmland on the hospital grounds as did King’s Park and Central Islip State Hospitals. The farm at Pilgrim was about two hundred acres. It was managed by people with farming experience. The farm met two needs of the patients. Patients worked the farm providing produce for the hospital residents and staff. This activity was therapeutic, giving the patients a worthwhile project on which to focus. It distracted them from thinking about their own mental health problems which reduced their symptoms. The agricultural work kept the patients physically fit in addition to giving them good sleep from being tired. There were about seventy-five to one hundred patients who worked on the farm. They had separate housing on the grounds. Their food was plentiful and healthful to sustain them.  The patients were never worked hard. Groups of 10 patients would go out to the fields with an attendant to work for part of the day. In addition to the vegetable gardens and fruit fields the farm maintained farm animals for their food supply. There was a piggery with about eight hundred pigs and two chicken houses with a capacity of three hundred hens. The value of the vegetables, fruit, pork, poultry and eggs was over $83,000.a year. Root cellars provided storage space to hold large quantities of vegetables. Tomatoes and sauerkraut were canned.

 

The farm had good mechanical equipment. In addition to the machinery they also had two teams of horses to plow the fields. Another benefit from the animals was manure to fertilized the fields. Pilgrim state Hospital’s farm was an important part of its community that made the hospital like a town within the town of Brentwood.

 

-A. Bennett, Local History Room Newsletter, August 2009

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.