Royal Governor Fauquier introduced policies to provide state supported mental health services in Virginia as early as 1758. He petitioned the Virginia Legislature in 1768 to provide services for citizens with lunacy. "It is expedient that I should also recommend to your Consideration and Humanity a poor, unhappy set of People who are deprived of their senses and wander about the Country, terrifying the Rest of their Fellow Creatures. A legal Confinement, and proper Provision, ought to be appointed for these miserable Objects, who cannot help themselves. Every civilized Country has an Hospital for these People, where they are confined, maintained and attended by able Physicians, to endeavour, to restore to them their lost reason."
After Fauquier's death, the legislature approved funding for the construction of Eastern Lunatic Asylum (the first Public Mental Hospital) in 1770.
John Kolp, Library of Virginia; Richard Wilson, artist 1757
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| File Type | jpg | |
| URL | https://www.apaf.org/getmedia/fd12620f-94a3-48b5-8315-1d8e427c2736/01-Gov-Francis-Fauquier.jpg | |
| Gallery | Central State Hospital Exhibit | |