CHAPTER XIV. BENEVOLENT INSTITUTIONS OF GEORGIA. "Not for themselves, but for others" was the motto of the founders of Georgia, who gave their time and money for promoting the welfare of those who needed help, expecting no other reward than that which arises from the consciousness of duty well-performed. It is not strange, then, that the first benevolent institution of Georgia had its birth in the early days of the colony. This was Whitefield's Orphan House at Bethesda, about nine miles from Savannah, founded in 1739. The building was erected by funds collected through the untiring efforts of the distinguished minister in whose honor it was named. Of this noble enterprise Mr. Whitefield said, "Some have thought that the erecting such a building was only the product of my own brain; but they are much mistaken; for it was first proposed to me by my dear friend, the Rev. Mr. Charles Wesley, who, with his excellency General Oglethorpe, had concerted a scheme for carrying on such a design before I had any thoughts of going abroad myself." This giving of due credit to others adds to the honor of the founder and first superintendent of the Orphan House, which he called Bethesda, "because," said Mr. Whitefield, "I hoped it would be a house of mercy to many souls." And such it has been, and is still. It is a home for boys and is conducted under the auspices of the Union Society, which last year (1900) celebrated its 150th anniversary. The State Lunatic Asylum, near Milledgeville, is one of the noblest charities of the "Empire State." In 1837 the Georgia legislature made an appropriation and appointed a commission for the purpose of establishing a lunatic asylum. The commission bought for a small price 40 acres of pine land two miles from Milledgeville, located on a high hill commanding a fine view of the town and the intervening country. In December, 1842, the building was completed and the first patient was admitted. At first the counties had to pay the expenses of their pauper patients, and the friends of patients who were able to pay had to provide for their maintenance in the asylum. This plan was changed to State care of the pauper insane about 1846. Up to 1877 patients were received from other States. At that time, on ac count of the overcrowded condition of the institution, the General Assembly was obliged to pass an act sending all patients not citizens of Georgia to their respective States. During the same year an act was passed making the asylum free to all bona fide citizens of Georgia. By the same act it was provided that friends could deposit with the steward funds for extras to be used by the patients individually, but no part of this was to go to the support of the institution. The first superintendent was Dr. David Cooper, elected in 1843. Three years later Dr. Thomas F. Green, a man of kindly nature, genial manner, and of great enterprise and energy was elected. He succeeded in obtaining appropriations year after year, in making improvements and in securing a suitable corps of attendants. He remained in charge of the asylum until 1879 when in a peaceful old age and still possessed of all his faculties, he suddenly expired. He was succeeded by Dr. T. O. Powell who had been associated with him for nearly twenty years. In 1847 the legislature added another building to the original one, and the female patients were placed in the new building. White attendants were also substituted for negroes, who had formerly discharged this duty. In 1849 plans were approved by the legislature for greatly enlarging the asylum accommodations. The legislature appropriated $10,500, and in 1851 added $24,500 for a large and handsome new building. To this the original buildings were to be wings. Additional appropriations were made as follows: $56,500 in 1853; $110,000 in 1855; $63,500 in 1857, and $30,000 in 1858, in which year the building was completed. The building is supplied with every convenience for the comfort of the patients and of the officers and their families. In 1870 and 1871 another appropriation of $105,855 was voted for enlarging the main building. In 1881, at the urgent solicitation of the board of trustees, the legislature appropriated $165,000 for the erection of two separate buildings for white convalescents, one for males, the other for females. In 1883 an additional appropriation of $92,875 was made, and in 1893 the legislature voted $100,000 more for the erection of additional buildings for white and colored insane. The emancipation of the negro population in 1865 necessitated asylum accommodations for the insane of this race. In 1866 the legislature appropriated $11,000 for an insane asylum for negroes. This building was enlarged in 1870 at an expense of $18,000. In 1879 the legislature appropriated $25,000 more for the same purpose, and in 1881 the sum of $82,166 for a new building and heating apparatus for the insance of the colored race. Of course the erection of all these large buildings required much more land than was embraced in the original |