State Asylum - Bryce Hospital - Tuscaloosa, Alabama |
Prior to the Civil War, the Jemison family
settled near Tuscaloosa, Alabama and became one of Alabama’s most successful and
wealthiest families. Robert Jemison Jr. was a business man, owning six plantations
with hundreds of slaves. He also owned foundries, mills, toll roads, and coal
mines. During the Civil War, Mims Jemison (Robert’s brother), was killed and
his family farm and land was then given to the state of Alabama in order to
build an asylum for the mentally ill.
In 1861 the Alabama State Hospital for
the Insane was opened. The first superintendent was Peter Bryce, a 27-year
student of psychology. The asylum was
equip to house 268 patients. An additional one hundred beds for the inpatient
care of elderly men and woman were located at the Mary Starke Harper Geriatric
Hospital, which is now located on the campus at the University of Alabama. The
purpose of the hospital was originally to house mentally ill and physically
handicapped boys. Bryce’s concept of humane treatment for patients required the
staff to treat all patients with dignity and respect. Tortuous and inhumane methods
of treatment were common in mental hospitals all over the United States during
the early parts of the 19th and 20th centuries. The use
of shackles, restraints and straitjackets were common and invasive therapies
like Hydro and Shock therapy made life in early asylums a living hell. Those
methods were prohibited at the Bryce asylum. In 1882, the Bryce hospital used
programs to implement useful skills such as farming, sewing, and machinery
maintenance. Crafts like pottery, painting, and drawing were also encouraged. There
was a bakery, a laundry, and dairy located on the hospital grounds as well,
making the facility almost 100% self-sustaining.
Coffin making was part of the curriculum at Bryce that helped patients through hands-on therapies. |
The humane and decent treatment of
patients was always the intention to maintain at Bryce. However, it didn't stay
that way. In 1967, Lurleen Wallace (the wife of Alabama governor George Wallace)
visited the state hospital and found that people hospitalized at Bryce were
living in appalling and indescribably horrid conditions. Budget cuts to the
state had caused a severe shortage in hospital staff and many state workers
were laid off as a result. Patients slept on the floor, urine soaked and stained
the few mattresses and blankets patients had and death seemed to emanate from
every pore in the building. Treatment of patients had rapidly declined and
horrible abuses and neglect came as a result of trying to make patients more “manageable”.
The deplorable state of the hospital, and its patients, were more like a Nazi
Concentration Camp, according to an article written in the Montgomery
Advertiser.
In 1976, the S.D. Allen Intermediate
Care Facility was built in Northport, Alabama to accommodate the overflow of
geriatric patients from Bryce. The same property was already occupied by a
facility that was an expansion of the Bryce Asylum for black patients during the
segregation era. This is known today as “Old Bryce”. The S.D. Allen nursing
home housed 138 patients when it was opened, but when it closed in 2003, it
only had 36. The neighboring building, Old Bryce, was already abandoned and
dilapidated at that time. Little is known about Old Bryce other than it was a
facility much like the state hospital (Bryce) located on campus. After the
emancipation proclamation, many black men and women could not find work and
living conditions were harsh. Many blacks, living at the Old Bryce facility,
after the Civil War, were not insane at all. They found the conditions at the
hospital accommodating and many stayed on as skilled workers and farmers as a
result.
Even before the S.D. Allen facility
closed, reports of paranormal phenomenon at both hospitals and the nursing home
have been circulating. Decades of ghost stories have made both locations some
of Alabama’s most popular haunt spots. Perhaps the most disturbing report from
the Bryce hospital in Tuscaloosa came from a south Alabama Baptist preacher in
2014. According to his story, his son worked for a funeral home in Tuscaloosa
that picked up the deceased at Bryce for burial. During a routine pick-up, he
was informed by the staff at the facility to stay away from one particular room
which was located down a hall he needed to walk down in order to reach the corpse.
He curiously asked why he needed to
avoid the room since he had picked up the dead often at Bryce and was never
given a warning like this before. He was informed that a woman who was being
housed on that floor was allegedly “possessed” and to avoid her at all cost.
The orderly warned, “I don’t care what you hear, or what you see, stay away
from her room!” The young funeral director wasn’t swayed by the orderly’s
warning. In fact, it only drove the man’s curiosity, but he agreed he’d stay
away from the patient’s room and proceeded down the hall with his associate to
pick up the body.
Inside the Bryce Asylum at Tuscaloosa. |
As he made his way down the hall he
could hear the faint sounds of groans and what he described as animalistic sounds.
The hollow halls seemed to resonate the sounds and they began to grow louder.
His heart began to beat faster, and he quickly made his way down the hallway.
Just as he neared the end of the hall, he turned his eyes toward a small room
at the corner. He couldn't see through the small glass window in the door but
he could hear the animal-like sounds coming from inside. He thought about what
the patient orderly had just told him but before his better judgment could deter
him from approaching the window to satisfy his curiosity, he saw the woman
inside. As he stared at her in a moment of disbelief, his mouth dropped open
and his lungs began to tighten as he watched her. He observed the young woman
running around the room. Only she wasn’t running on the floor, she was running
along the walls; two feet off the ground and horizontal with the floor. He was petrified
and couldn't believe what he was seeing. Just as he began to close his eyes and
walk away, she suddenly made eye contact with him and immediately thrust
herself to the tiny window in an awkward jerking motion.
Her dark, stringy hair partially
covered her pale, gaunt, face. She was covered in strange markings and scars. Her
dark eyes felt as if they had pierced a hole through the young man’s soul; anchoring
his feet, he was frozen with fear. As she looked at the young man through the
window, she spoke, “I know you.” She said. “I know your father as well.” She
went on. She began to name his family and relatives and she spit and cursed, letting
out a cackling hiss as she spoke. The seconds he stood there listening to her
seemed like an eternity. Just then, his associate came around the corner and
motioned for his friend. He looked at him and then back at the window at the
face of the strange woman. She began to contort and convulse as if something
enormous was about to burst out of her. Somehow the funeral director was jarred
from the evil grip that had previously immobilized him and he screamed for
help. As the orderly’s came rushing down the hallway, the man’s associate
grabbed his shoulders to move him away from the door. The orderlies rushed in
an immediately began to physically restrain the woman who was literally manhandling
the 4 grown men like rag dolls.
After the ordeal was over, the two men
picked up the corpse and went straight to the funeral home. The young
preacher’s son was visibly shaken and haunted for decades by what he had seen. Many
years after the event, the son told his father about his experience at Bryce.
His father, being a man of God and great faith, told him that there are some
forces in this world that are not meant to be here and no man should ever constitute
the evils of the universe. Leaving the identity of the possessed woman at the
Bryce hospital a mystery.
Reports of paranormal phenomenon are
not limited to the campus facilities. They are also widely known as part of the
Old Bryce location and the former S.D. Allen nursing home in Northport,
Alabama. These neighboring buildings, just a few miles off the main highway are
now gated and closed off. For many years’ high school and college students would
venture to the location in search of a thrill or fright, essentially leading to
the arrest of many for trespassing.
The S.D. Allen nursing home is riddled
with debris from the failing structure and it is unstable and dangerous.
However, people who come to this location for paranormal adventures have
reported numerous experiences over the years. The rusty metallic smell of blood
and antiseptic is common in the surgical room. People have been scratched by
unseen forces and even though no power connects to the building what-so-ever, the
sounds of intercom calls to doctors have been recorded by ghost hunters and shifting
energy fields are regularly detected by investigators using EMF detectors.
"Old Bryce" - Northport, Alabama |
Next to the S.D. Allen facility is the
foreboding and impressive “old Bryce”. Approaching the location, ancient Oaks
line the drive way leading to the hospital. In the cooler months, the bare branches
resemble twisted skeletons, and on moonless nights, the light pollution from
Northport outlines the old hospital as if it were meant to be in the dark and
unseen. The sheer scale of the building is intimating but what lurks inside is
even more ominous. Many stories have been told about the Old Bryce building
over the years. Some seem to follow the lines of a common ghost story but a few
are a bit more detailed and are as terrifying as the campus stories. One story
about a small boy’s ghost has been told over and over again. His name may be
forgotten but his manner of death is still part of this urban legend.
According to this story, the boy was a
patient at Bryce in the early years and was given hydro-therapy in order to
calm his hyperactivity. During a routine treatment, which required the boy to be
submerged in freezing water for several minutes, he started to become combative
and fight the nurses who were administering the treatment. As the boy struggled,
one of them held his head under the water until he drown, killing him.
Sightings of his spirit seem to be common on the upper floors. He’s described
as being about 7-8 years old with sandy blonde hair, wearing pants with
suspenders, and a short coat. Often, small toys are left for him on those
floors. A macabre sort of shrine to what is most likely more legend than
truth.
The building resembling Bryce in Northport is known today as "old Bryce" and is widely known for the paranormal activity that occurs here. |
Still, the paranormal activity at old
Bryce continues and has become a part of the supernatural fabric that weaves
the shroud of urban legend in Northport, Alabama. College students, thrill
seekers and paranormal enthusiast venture out to the location today but most
often find an arrest for trespassing instead of a ghostly sighting. The years
of wild and unusual ghost stories from Bryce still circulate among many
Alabamians who have been brave enough to go looking for the spirits. It’s
debatable; the amount of truth that exist in legend, but, what isn't, is the
amount of truth that is legend.