History
In 1877, the North Carolina General Assembly appointed a committee to recommend the selection of a site for a facility for the black mentally ill which would serve the entire state. On April 11, 1878, 171 acres (0.69 km2) of land two miles (3 km) west of Goldsboro were purchased. The site was described by Governor Zebulon Baird Vance as ideal for a hospital building because of good elevation in a high state of cultivation and central location for the black population.
On August 1, 1880, the first patient was admitted to the then named "Asylum for Colored Insane". Since that time, there have been several name changes including: The Eastern North Carolina Insane Asylum, Eastern Hospital, and State Hospital at Goldsboro. The name was changed to Cherry Hospital in 1959 in honor of Governor R. Gregg Cherry.
The bed capacity for the hospital when established was seventy-six but over one hundred patients were crowded into the facility by Christmas of 1880. These patients were being cared for through a $16,000 appropriation. On March 5, 1881, the Eastern North Carolina Insane Asylum was incorporated and a board of nine directors appointed. The Board of Directors sought more appropriations for treatment of the black mentally ill. A separate building was established for treating tubercular patients. In addition, a building for the criminally insane was opened in 1924.
Tranquilizing medications were widely used by 1955 and helped revolutionize patient treatment. As a result of extensive use of psychotropic drugs, the rate of discharges began to increase and the length of hospitalization decreased. While discharges increased, the admission rate also increased significantly and the resident population remained virtually stable at approximately 3,000 patients between 1950 and 1965. The highest rate of occupancy was approximately 3,500 patients. During its first 100 years of service, Cherry Hospital served 91,045 patients.
For the first eighty-five years of its history, Cherry Hospital served the entire black population for the State of North Carolina. In 1965, the hospital joined other state hospitals in implementing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Cherry began serving patients from the thirty-three counties in the Eastern Region in 1965 by providing services for all races. Black patients at Cherry were transferred to hospitals in their appropriate region while Cherry received white patients from other hospitals in other regions.
Read more about this topic: Cherry Hospital
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