Though the reader may think it strange that I should know Isabel, the
Magdalenish woman, when I entered the incurable house, and know it was
the 3d of July, 1862, having had no almanac, yet, it is, nevertheless,
true. How I knew it was the third, when I was removed from house
to house, because the next day was celebrated as our American
Independence, I saw the little boys with fire-crackers; I heard the
loud cannons roar; I saw the fire-works or sky-rockets ascend high in
the air from Troy and Albany, while looking out of the window in the
evening. How I knew Isabel--saw her at the main house scouring the
oil-cloth in the hall; saw her raking hay in the door-yard; saw her
and Dr. Gregory stand out door looking into my window, when my wife
and I were visiting quietly, alone, in a room near the dining room and
kitchen; this was in the winter of 1860, the same year I entered the
asylum.
Again. In my opinion, when Haly and Isabel bound me, she was a
Magdalenian woman of the Cain family, possessed of seven devils, and,
although the _Troy Daily Whig_ would not publish for me against such
treatment, because they got much gain from the institution on Ida Hill,
still they caused the following to be published in their columns,
namely, Isabel's suicidal and untimely death, which took place March
16, 1873--hanging to the same balusters whose stairs led to my room in
the third story of the incurable house--same stairs she dragged Wm.
Jefferson down.
SUICIDE AT THE MARSHALL INFIRMARY--A FEMALE NURSE HANGS HERSELF TO THE
BALUSTERS--THE CAUSE A MYSTERY.
The inmates of Marshall Infirmary were greatly shocked on arising
yesterday morning to discover that one of the nurses had hanged herself
during the night. The facts are as follows:
Isabel Anderson, aged about fifty-four years, first entered the
employ of the infirmary as a nurse some eight or ten years ago. She
was assigned to take charge of the ward for female insane persons,
but when the small-pox was epidemic, her ward was changed, and
small-pox patients were put under her charge. At the disappearance of
that disease she was again placed in her old position. She had been
suffering from some obscure disease since January last, but within
the last few days she had greatly improved, and when her husband (who
has charge of the male insane ward) left her on Saturday night, she
appeared to feel better and more cheerful than she had in some time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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