Photo: "G-1"

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This state hospital opened in 1868 as a partially completed public mental health hospital. It was constructed under the Kirkbride plan with one main building placing administration in the center and patient wings on either side. By the time the hospital was completed in 1874 it was already experiencing overcrowding and though much construction was done over the next few years, the hospital remained overcrowded well into the early 1900's. Noble Hall, the hospital's theatre was designed by William D. Johnson and constructed in 1908 in the Colonial Revival Style. This 830 seat theatre was two stories tall, containted central projector pavillion houses and three arched entrances. 

Photo: "Twilight Wakes"

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Twilight inside the Forst Ward inside the first public run New Jersey Psychiatric Hospital.

During the early 1900's, medical director Henry Cotton believed that mental illness was the cause of infections within the body, leading him to implement the removal of teeth and other organs of patients in an attempt to find a cure. Over the course of his 27 years at Trenton, hundreds of patients became mutilated and even deceased due to his theories.