Tales From Fairfield Hills: The First Superintendent

By Nancy K. Crevier

(This is the fifth in a series of Tales of Fairfield Hills, stories shared by local residents who worked and lived there when the property was a functioning psychiatric institution. Now owned by the Town of Newtown and being re-created, the property’s past has been the subject of stories, some of which may be tainted with truth, some which may be purely fabrication. These tales, though, come from the hearts of those who knew it best.)

Joyful memories of his home in Newtown in the mid-1930s include the coming and going of trucks hauling crushed stone from the property to building sites, and a backyard swing set and sand box for entertaining his young playmates. A winter ice skating rink created each winter over the summer’s Victory Garden plot provided cold weather fun. “Our home maybe seemed to be somewhat isolated, but in reality it was not that far from Newtown center…” recalls Douglas Moore in his memoir published in Newtown Remembered: More Stories of the 20th Century, edited by Andrea Zimmermann, Mary Maki, and Daniel Cruson. His home, though, was in the center of Fairfield State Hospital, where his father, Dr Clifford Moore, was the first full-time superintendent.

Unlike other administrators, who lived in Queen Street staff housing, Dr Moore elected to live in one of the ten family houses on the campus dedicated to doctors, in order to be immediately available, should the need arise.

In a recent letter to The Newtown Bee, Margaret Moore Eldredge, the youngest child of Dr and Alfreda Moore, reflected on her father’s time at Fairfield State Hospital (later known as Fairfield Hills Hospital).

Dr Moore was on staff at the hospital from 1935 to 1946, taking a leave of absence to serve in World War II, in the mid-1940s. “Dr Moore was a dedicated professional, husband, and father,” wrote Ms Eldredge, working during the years when the practice of psychiatry and treatment of mental illness was in evolution. “Institutionalization was an acceptable option, indeed one of the few available options. While treatment in those early days may seem rudimentary in today’s standard,” Ms Eldredge noted, “Fairfield Hills was a fine example of progressive treatment at the time.”

Ms Eldredge remembers her father as a man who showed as much compassion and concern for the patients as he did for his own family. “Where was my father on Christmas morning, Thanksgiving, Easter, my birthday, and other occasions of family significance? The answer is simple: he was at Fairfield Hills making sure that the patients and staff were engaged in holiday activities…” As a young child, she did resent this intrusion on family life, but eventually came to appreciate her father’s intense dedication.

“Dr Moore’s service as Superintendent of Fairfield State Hospital was significant to his career path and it brought a sense of pride to our family,” she wrote.

Twelve years her senior, her brother Doug Moore shared in his memoir and letters to Newtown Remembered editor Mary Maki more precise memories of family life at Fairfield Hills, his home from age 4 to age 15. “Employee children from the State Hospital were transported one way [to Hawley School] in the morning on the open-sided wire caged mail truck that picked up and delivered mail to the Newtown post office (Box W) located in Edmond Town Hall… It was only about a mile or so out of the way. We kids had to walk the few miles home along dirt road Queen Street and didn’t mind it a bit.”

Mr Moore recalled that music lessons provided in a small, wooden building behind the school were not so successful for him, but that his high school success as a football player was nurtured while in the ninth grade at Hawley School, playing on a six-position team.

In a letter to Ms Maki dated July 2005, Mr Moore refers to a Newtown Bee photograph of the old administration building (Newtown Hall). “The last two windows on the first floor, left end, was my dad’s Superintendent Office suite, with the board room across the corridor. Also, the front steps of the center entrance was where I waited for the hospital mail truck to take me and the other employees’ kids to school on its regular morning run… Inside the lobby [of Newtown Hall] was the P.O.X. (point of exit) operator/receptionist and to the right was the State Hospital Post Office,” Mr Moore remembered.

Mr Moore lamented the hospital’s name change in later days in a March 2004 letter to Ms Maki: “Sometime after dad left state service in 1945 as superintendent of the institution, under another administration, the name Fairfield Hills was adopted. To me, Fairfield State Hospital is the only name I ever knew for the mental health facility. Is there,” he questioned, “some local disrespectful lore associated with the original name of the hospital?”

By 1936, Dr Moore was in charge of a hospital that had quickly required expansion to care for the 819 patients housed there. The hospital continued to grow, adding a social work department, said Ms Eldredge, and an occupational therapy center. Plymouth Hall was constructed for recreational opportunities and a fully operational farm supported the hospital.

 “Dr Moore provided leadership… by guiding the building program and expanding therapeutic options… He implemented sound hiring practices and pay raises,” Ms Eldredge said in her letter.

Gleaned from Dr Moore’s reports to the Board of Trustees of Fairfield State Hospital, newspaper articles, letters, and other sources, Ms Eldredge learned that Dr Moore was concerned with the problems of psychiatric service for the community from a State Hospital point of view, and in 1938 presented to the Connecticut Society of Psychiatry a paper promoting principles that he described in five points:

“1. Improvement in the standards of hospital care. 2. Better preparation and training of workers… 3. A continuing program of community education… 4. The institution of investigations and researches into the nature and causes of mental disorders… 5. Application of the knowledge of preventive and active treatment techniques….”

The Moores left Fairfield State Hospital in 1946, when Dr Moore resigned to accept a position at Stamford Hall in Stamford, in the private sector.

“Privatization, or deinstitutionalization, of mental health treatment and services during the 1960s and 1970s reduced the need for large state-supported mental hospitals,” Ms Eldredge wrote, and like other state hospitals in the country, Newtown’s hospital “succumbed to budget constraints associated with the high cost of operating underused facilities.”

Closed in 1995 and subsequently purchased by the Town of Newtown, the future of the property remains in flux. Ms Eldredge rues the paranormal stories that have since haunted the abandoned buildings and its maze of tunnels underground. “The lore and occult images that surround what are now obsolete institutions like Fairfield Hills may be entertaining for some,” she added, “but the true story of lives touched by these buildings, the staff, the patients, and the beautiful grounds trump any sensational profile of mental illness, psychiatric practices and the historic structures that housed and treated its residents with respect and dignity.”