CAMBRIDGE
May 17, 1965

Dr. Tuerk, Dr. Whitehorn, Mr. Mester, Dr. Williams, Dr. Dyrud, Dr.
English, Mr. Grobler, Reverend Mr. Reed and friends:

It is truly a stimulating and heart-warming experience to be here
today. I always like to come home to the Eastern Shore. It is a particular
pleasure to come here for the golden anniversary celebration of the
Eastern Shore State Hospital.

It is meaningful, and worthy of note, I think, that this hospital which
for a half-century has been devoted to the better health of the people of
this region, was created during the term of office of one of our illustrious
Eastern Shore Governors, the Honorable Phillips Lee Goldsborough, of
Dorchester County. The Eastern Shore State Hospital figures promi-
nently in the history of Maryland's effort to improve the lot of its men-
tally ill. I should like to review for you some of the highlights of this
history.

Maryland began its plan of caring for its mentally handicapped when
it opened in 1797 the Public Hospital of Baltimore, which later became
Spring Grove State Hospital. It was the third hospital in the United
States to accept mental patients. It was 118 years later that the hospital
on the Eastern Shore opened. Eastern Shore State Hospital was created
by an act of the Legislature in 1912, the same year, incidentally, that the
great Phipps Clinic of the Johns Hopkins Hospital started with Dr.
Adolph Meyer as its first director. It was the last of the State hospitals
created under the old State Lunacy Commission which was established
in 1886 and functioned until 1922, when the Board of Mental Hygiene
was set up with a Commissioner and six associate members.

During this period, each hospital operated under its own board of
managers, and the Act setting up the Eastern Shore Hospital specified
that its board should be comprised of the Governor, the State Treasurer,
the Comptroller of the Treasury (temporarily) and one representative,
each, of the nine Eastern Shore counties. As its first task, the Board,
after considering many others, selected this site. The total appropria-
tion, for land and buildings, was $200, 000. Original plans called for the
construction of eleven buildings with a capacity of 1, 000 beds. The first
buildings completed were the mess hall, laundry and power house. They

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