MY REMOVAL FROM THE MAIN HOUSE TO THE INCURABLE ONE.
On the morning of the 3d day of July, 1862, the attendant, above described, came into the hall and put an old white hat on my head; taking me by the arm, says, "Come, go up to the other house" (meaning the incurable one) "and stay a few weeks." "I don't want to go," said I. He then left me, and soon returned with George Harrison, who steps up to me and says, "You must go." The attendant again took me by the arm, and I stepped out door for the first time since I entered the institution. He led me on up the hill. By the way we were met by Wm. Anderson, who abruptly said, "You have got him then." (At this time Anderson was cow-boy and common helper.) On I marched, like a prisoner in the hands of a drunken policeman (for I could smell his whisky breath). Presently we came in sight of the old brick small-pox house, which is used as a branch asylum, or incurable house, to stow away poor unfortunate victims like myself. As we came to the south door we were met, not as at Endor by the great whore of Babylon, but by the great maiden Isabel Anderson, who bound me, as seen in the engraving.
The attendant now asks the Magdalene Isabel, "Where shall I put him?" "In the room where there is one man," said she. Up one flight of stairs we went, turning to the right. I was locked up with Ebenezer Scott, who assisted T. Haly to strangle me, when bound by Isabel. (See engraving.)
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.