Eastern State Hospital

In 1773, the Virginia House of Burgess passed an act to establish the Publik Hospital for Persons with Insane and Disordered Minds in Williamsburg, Va., the first U.S. hospital built specifically to treat people with mental illness. In 1841, the hospital was renamed the Eastern Lunatic Asylum, and the superintendent, Dr. John Minson Galt II, made sweeping changes in the management and care of patients until his death in May of 1862.

In 1848, Eastern State Hospital became the first hospital to admit nonwhite patients, and eventually the hospital expanded and was moved a short distance from Williamsburg. The Public Hospital (as it is known today) is now an integral part of restored Colonial Williamsburg.