Moral Treatment at the End of the Oregon Trail: Dr. James C. Hawthorne, 1819–1881

Dr. James C. Hawthorne, Oregon’s first psychiatrist, was born the son of a farmer in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, on March 12, 1819. After medical school at the University of Louisville, he moved permanently west first to California in 1850 then to Portland in 1857. In 1859, the year Oregon became a state, the first governor, John Whiteacker, awarded him the contract to care for the state’s insane (1).

The Oregon Hospital for the Insane, built by Dr. Hawthorne, opened in 1862. It was a lovely Greek Revival building with a bell tower and a lagoon in front of it. Dr. Hawthorne, with Dr. A. M. Loreya as his partner, served about 200 patients a year. The hospital received a stipend of $6.00 per person per week from the State of Oregon. But even this meager amount was scrutinized mercilessly by the stingy Oregon Legislature, which was constantly questioning if Dr. Hawthorne was keeping patients too long. Dorothea Dix, the famous mental health reformer who was responsible for starting state hospitals all over the country, visited the Oregon Hospital for the Insane in 1869. Apparently she liked the hospital and advised the state to renew its contract with Dr. Hawthorne. Dr. Hawthorne’s concern for his patients and their follow-up is illustrated in the following excerpt from a report to the Legislature he wrote in 1872:

Amazingly, the Legislature responded to his request by providing $500 for this purpose in 1873.

Dr. Hawthorne was one of the first 176 members of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane. His picture is the second from the left in the top row of the collection of 19th century daguerreotypes that hang in the APA library. Dr. Hawthorne passed away in 1881. The old asylum was razed in the 19th century. Only the bell still exists.