Founded: October 1, 1840. Name changed to Mount Hope Institution in 1845.
Location: Two-story house on Front Street, adjoining St. Vincent’s Church (1840); Harford Road (1841-1844); property known as Mount Hope College, Baltimore, MD
Additional Information
- Dates: 1840
Notes: Seven years later, in 1840, a misunderstanding arose between the resident physicians [of the Maryland Hospital] and the Sisters [of Charity], and after many useless efforts to adjust matters on the part of the managers, the Sisters withdrew. The Board decided, after mature and careful consideration, “to employ a matron and a corps of competent nurses” in the place of the Sisters. The Board, however, “was fully cognizant of the Sisters’ faithful duty and assistance to the State in its work of charity, and of the excellent services they had rendered to the patients entrusted to their care.”
Several of these patients followed the Sisters when they opened a small, two-story house on Front Street, adjoining St. Vincent’s Church, and was called by the patients their boarding house. It was soon crowded, and in 1841 the Sisters moved to a larger house on Harford Road. Although it was a frame building, it was quite an improvement on the old home, and was pleasantly situated on a site of ten acres. The number of patients was constantly increasing, and the Sisters began to admit those patients, too, who were laboring under general diseases. The name of the institution was changed to Mount St. Vincent’s Hospital, and it was there that Dr. William Hughes Stokes was appointed attending physician in 1842, succeeding Doctor Durkee. Doctor Stokes remained the attending physician for forty-five years, and more will have to be said about his personality and his work in a later chapter. In 1843, he wrote the first annual report….
Source: Jahrreiss, Walter O., History of Mount Hope Retreat : the Growth of a Mental Hospital in Maryland : 1840-1940 Baltimore: Thomsen-Ellis-Hutton Co.: 9
- Dates: 1845
Notes: The second [annual] report, published in 1845, was issued from a new building; the “late Mount St. Vincent’s Hospital” had become the new “Mount Hope Institution.” It seems that the Sisters had not thought of erecting a permanent building on Harford Road. The location — or rather the neighborhood — was objectionable to many, including the Archbishop. However, the number of patients was rapidly increasing, and a two-story wing, room for twenty-five more patients, was added, bringing the total number of beds to about fifty. Despite these efforts, Mount St. Vincent’s became overcrowded within little more than a year after it was opened, and the Sisters thought of purchasing a new building that would provide ample room for at least ten years.
Source: Jahrreiss, Walter O., History of Mount Hope Retreat : the Growth of a Mental Hospital in Maryland : 1840-1940 Baltimore: Thomsen-Ellis-Hutton Co.: 9-10
Medicine in Maryland, 1752-1920 