The Birth of the Grand Old Dame
From 1770 to 1858 the land that the Weston State Hospital now occupies was owned by the first person to live in Weston, Henry Flesher, and his son, Henry Flesher Jr. They were farmers, and when the area became the town of Fleshersville in 1787 (later renamed Preston in 1817, and then Weston in 1820, the current name) Virginia had only two state hospitals, Williamsburg and Staunton, which were overcrowded and unclean. Many people with mental illnesses or afflictions ended up in jai, instead of a hospital.
On March 22, 1858, the Virginia Legislature voted to build a new state hospital, somewhere in a "remote section of Virginia." Three men were chosen to find a site, and when the day arrived for them to visit Weston, the town was ready. Everything was cleaned to make the town look good and even a parade with a marching band took place to welcome the visitors. In the end, Weston was not so much chosen because of the warm welcome, but instead, for the location. Located on the west fork of the Monongahela River, it had a close source of water, coal, and rock.
After it was decided that the hospital would be built in Weston, a Board of Directors was appointed to hire an architect and help plan the building. First, they purchased 269 acres of land at $36.47 an acre, a total of $9,809.12. Second, the Board hired Francis T. Striblin and Dr. Thomas Kirkbride as advisors in the building plan, and employed R. Snowden Andrews as architect. They used the Kirkbride plan, which had already been used on many other hospitals in the 1800s. The building was planned to cost $253,000, a number they realized later was way too small.
Construction started in 1858, with Mr. Goulding from Baltimore to be the topographical engineer, and John McGee, to be the superintendent. First, the grounds were cleaned, and prepared for the building. Prisoners, and seven Negro "convicts," were forced to complete this task, collect rocks from the quarry, and make them into bricks. One of the first buildings completed on the grounds was for these workers to live in, and two other buildings, a sawmill and a brick making building with brick ovens. Because of these two buildings, all the materials for the hospital were made on the site.
By June of 1860, the first story south wing had a roof, and the foundation for the rest of the building was under way. A year later, the south wing was almost complete, and it was hoped that the first patients could come in before the end of the Civil War. But when Confederates came and took all the supplies, that idea was lost. Not only did Confederates take the supplies, but also camped on the grounds for a short time. Union soldiers too, used the building and the grounds as a camp.
During this war, construction was halted in April 1861, mainly because Virginia had seceded from the Union and West Virginia succeeded from Virginia, making matters difficult. West Virginians felt different from Virginians, many of them being Appalachian mountain people, without plantations or much use for slaves. Making tensions more difficult was the "liberation" of money from the Virginia Exchange Bank by the 7th Ohio Infantry. On June 30,1861, these men went in and took the money that had been set aside for the hospital and gave it to West Virginia for the hospital. After the war, in 1872, the money was repaid to the state of Virginia, but at the time it caused tension. Work on the building resumed in 1863.
The Weston State Hospital, then called the Trans Allegheny Insane Asylum, was built by mainly Irish, Scottish, and Germen men. Some of these men were skilled stone masons who had come from their home countries to build the hospital. Many of them ended up staying and settling in Weston or the surrounding area.
To build the hospital they used blue sandstone from the West Fork River bend and the hills of Lewis County. Some rock even came from Mt. Claire by wagon. The brick was all hand cut, and the three and a half acre roof was originally made of slate (although now it has been replaced by rubberized roofing and asphalt shingles). The walls were made to be two and half feet thick of sandstone and brick.
In 1864 the first patients were allowed in the hospital, before the main building was complete. Seven years later the two hundred foot clock tower was finished. With a Seth Thomas clock on four sides controlled by weights, the tower was a little too heavy, and later the tower was in need of repairs. Although there is some controversy as to what year it was fully completed, many sources claim in 1880 the entire building was completed, taking twenty- two years to finish. In the first years it had about 717 patients. However, the numbers grew, and in 1956 the number reached 2,325. When it was finished, the total cost was $625,000, which was all paid for by the state of West Virginia.