I have been prompted by my friends and urged by a sense of duty to write the history of the _Ten Years_ I spent in _Lunatic Asylums_, and give it to the public. This I proposed to do as soon as I came out, but I dreaded to expose my family to the scorn and reproach that would be cast upon them by my telling the _whole truth_, and when I did conclude to give it to the public, my feeble health prevented me, for a long time, from doing any thing. I commenced during the last summer to write a full account of _all_ the _terrible acts_ that I experienced, saw and heard during those eventful years of sorrow and affliction, hoping that at some future day I might be able to give it to the public. N. B.--I have prefixed an original engraving to the title page of this little history, descriptive of an act that took place in one of the back halls of the Marshall Infirmary or Lunatic Asylum, Ida Hill, Troy, N. Y. _This certifies that I was a patient in the above-named institution from March 29, 1860, to October 13, 1870._ There are several reasons why the author offers to the reader and public in the present form, ten years, ten months and thirteen days of his life while he was unjustly held in lunatic asylums in different States; and there are many reasons that prompt him to write upon the _cruel_ treatment he received from beings with unfeeling hearts and cruel hands, and there are good reasons why he has cause to write upon the treatment of other poor creatures which came under his observation who were confined within those walls up to October 13, 1870. I herewith give to the public and reader a true statement of facts relative to some of my former life, and ten years, ten months and thirteen days while held in lunatic asylums by bars and bolts. Early in the year of 1859, I found I had overdone and become unable to labor as heretofore. My nervous system had become unstrung; I became somewhat disheartened, and I grew weak in body. My spirits drooped, and I verily thought I should be lost eternally. I became melancholy; the sun, the moon and the stars lost their brilliancy to me, and the sweet music and singing of the birds had lost their charm to me as heretofore; all nature seemed dark and dreary, and, like Job, I said "O, that I had not been." Things that were appeared as though they were not, and things that were not as though they were. At length I closed my business matters as far as in me lay. During the spring and summer of 1859 I was under medical treatment up to August 29. All seemed unavailing. The 29th of August I was persuaded in part and compelled to go to Brattleborough, Vt., Lunatic Asylum to undergo a course of medical treatment. I was brought home by Brother B. the last of November, nothing better; staid home through the winter with my little family.