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The Ledger of Daily Expences is located on-site.
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This family archive includes numerous letters which shed light on MacDonald's career and the operation of the Sanford Hall asylum: 4 letters from James MacDonald to brother Allan MacDonald concerning the operation of their asylum, 1842-48, including one concerning admission of the widow of John Delmonico, the famous restaurateur, 22 March 1843: "They are respectable folks and want everything done for the comfort and advantage of Ms. D." * 7 letters of introduction and other documents relating to Dr. MacDonald's tour of European asylums, 1831-2 * Letter from Dr. MacDonald to his wife, who was apparently running the Murray Hill asylum briefly in his absence: "I hope you will have a more quiet afternoon than yesterday. Pray do all you can to keep the place quiet, particularly in front of the house." 17 June [1841?] * Letter from James MacDonald to Dr. Ranny of Blackwell's Island, referring a patient, 30 April 1849 (shortly before his death) * 18 letters from Dr. Josiah W. Barstow (superintendent of Sanford Hall) to widow Eliza H. MacDonald, circa 1857-60, most concerning the asylum * One long letter from C.M. Kittredge to Dr. Barstow, 1870, concerning a new Sanford Hall patient, B.B. Colah, a Parsi from India * Letter from Dr. Pliny Earle to widow Eliza MacDonald, 1857, researching Dr. MacDonald's use of restraints in the 1830s, with her draft response * plus more than a hundred family letters and receipts.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); MacDonald Family Correspondence and Ledger; Box and Folder; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
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Purchase, 2009-2010. Swann Auction Gallery.
James MacDonald (1803-1849) was a pioneer in the treatment of the mentally ill in America. He served as physician of the Bloomingdale Lunatic Asylum in New York City from 1825 to 1837. In partnership with his brother Allan, he then operated his own private asylum from 1841 until his death, first in the Murray Hill neighborhood and then after 1845 at Sanford Hall in Flushing, Long Island. The institution remained in family control after his death, and operated through the 1920s.
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Eliza appears to have managed the household as well as the bookkeeping, as she occasionally issues small sums "to myself" in the ledger (e.g., Dec. 28, 1842, "Box for Eliza (myself)". Dr. Macdonald, who also appears in occasional ledger entries, usually for "lent" sums, was a longtime physician for the mentally ill, having worked for 10 years (1825-1830 and 1832-1837) at the Bloomingdale Asylum in New York City and touring European asylums as an observer for the better part of 1831. His Murray Hill asylum was a "long cherished design" ("James Macdonald, M.D.", The American Journal of Insanity, Vols. 5-6, p. 85), and was located in two secluded houses in what were then the suburbs of Manhattan, opening its doors to patients on June 1, 1841. Having outgrown these accommodations within a few short years, it was then relocated to Sanford Hall, in Flushing, Queens, where it stayed in operation at least until its founder's death in May 1849.
The ledger begins with an entry dated only 1841: "This Book cost -- $.75 | Bottle of Ink - 12-1/2 [cents]". The entry immediately following is March 27, 1841 (the purchase of a horse, for $90), and for the next three months, through the beginning of July, Eliza records the numerous purchases necessary to outfit and ready the houses for patients, including everything from carpeting and a carriage to a silver tea set, mirrors, a tin bath, a skillet, tables, hardware, buckles, "lynch-pins" for a wagon, and so on, as well as the hiring and paying (and feeding) of household staff and getting a circular printed. The first patient may have been admitted on July 14: noted here as "Albert Rogers, of Brooklyn, credit, 3 mos. Board of wife". The cost, $110, indicates that the asylum's clientele had to have been upper class. Several other "boarders" are added to the books in subsequent entries, although it is not until September 17, 1841, that one, Timothy Courow(?), is directly noted as being a patient. Naturally, as more and more boarders and/or patients become residents, the amount of food and other sundries needed increases exponentially, with vast quantities of eggs, bread, blackberries, peaches, oysters, and cakes noted in the ledger.