Episode 16 Transcript- Haunted Rolling Hills Asylum

[Amanda] New York is home to many paranormal happenings. One former government funded institution attracts visitors from far and wide and is said to be one of the most active haunted locations in the world. I'm your host, Amanda, and this is New York's Dark Side.

[Intro Music]

[Amanda] We’re doing a paranormal episode, everybody. In honor of spooky season, today we're going to East Bethany, NY where I will tell you about the history and hauntings of Rolling Hills Asylum. The name sounds peaceful and serene, so I'm sure it was a great place to live, and everybody was happy there… Or maybe not… If you've listened to our episode on Willowbrook, you know that in the past, government funded institutions were not always a great place to end up. And if you haven't listened to that episode, you should, because it's a messed-up story. For the origins of Rolling Hills Asylum, we're going have to go way back to the Colonial days and discuss the evolution of the laws that governed how people who fell on hard times were managed. 

[Amanda] In 1601, Queen Elizabeth I of England's government tried to help fill the gap for impoverished people with the Poor Relief Act, which obligated each parish to collect taxes on their citizens to help support impoverished people who were unable to work. When the English settlers came over to America, they brought with them these practices and would collect taxes from citizens and each town would elect an ‘Overseer of the Poor’ who was tasked to determine if a person was worthy of getting aid. It didn't seem to matter how you ended up in the state you were in, it could have been a medical issue that you didn't have any control over- whether it was illness or maybe a work related injury that made it impossible for you to work, if you're a woman who had an illegitimate child, or if your husband died, or if you struggled with alcoholism, you had to be deemed by this person as worthy of receiving aid. We touched on this a little bit in part one of the Central Park episodes, which I'm going to put a plug for that series of episodes. If you haven't listened to it, check it out. They were a lot of fun to put together and there's a lot of information in there. The overseers of the poor elected in many places where people from middle- and upper-class families who likely had no idea what it was like for the impoverished people that they were elected to be overseeing. The belief of the times was that if you were impoverished and struggling, it wasn't because there weren't enough resources for you or you were working low paying jobs, it was because you had moral issues and basically you placed yourself in the position you are in. If you were a laborer and got injured on the job, you must have done something morally wrong to have obtained that injury, and that's why you can't support your family anymore. A lot of the aid rendered at this time to the impoverished folk was more geared towards education on moral values rather than providing them with funds that might be able to help them secure food and housing while they try to get back on their feet. If you were lucky enough to maybe be a well-known elder or widow that needed some assistance, you might be able to get some small amount of food or fuel to help keep you going for a little bit in your own home. However, most were deemed unworthy of aid. And many times, this was because they looked able-bodied to work in the eyes of the overseer. But these were many times people that had physical or mental disabilities that may have made it difficult for them to obtain or retain work, or women who had children outside of marriage- whatever the circumstances that led to that happening. 

[Amanda] Before the establishment of county poor houses, the unworthy were given a couple of options. They might end up under contract where friends or family of the impoverished persons signed a contract to take care of them for a set price. They might also end up with an option called binding out, where they were contractually given to a person to work as an indentured servant. And this, a lot of times was what the option was for children or single mothers. At the time, boys would serve until they were 21, girls until they were 18. And my research for this episode, I actually found on the Ulster County New York government website some copie of the binding out contracts and they're kind of interesting and really telling again of the time and how it was felt that if you fell on hard times it was really a moral issue. So, this contract I'm looking at now is for Noah Scott, he was a pauper at the age of 16 and he ended up being placed under indentured servitude to a man named Richard, who I can't read his last name. So, he was placed under apprenticeship to Richard to learn the art, trade and mystery of farming, and would serve a five-year term with him. The agreement says that he shall faithfully serve, keep his secrets safe, follow his lawful commands everywhere readily. He shall do no damage to his said master, nor see it done by others, without letting or giving notice thereof to his said master. He shall not waste his master's goods, nor lend unlawfully to any he shall not commit fornication nor contract matrimony with any of the said terms. At cards, dice, or other unlawful game, he shall not play, whereby his said master may have damage with his own goods, or the goods of others without license from his said master. He shall neither buy nor sell, nor shall he absent himself day or night, from his said master service without his leave. Nor haunt ale houses, Taverns, nor playhouses, but in all things behave himself as a faithful apprentice ought to do during the said term, and the said master shall use the utmost of his endeavors to teach or cause to be taught or instructed, the set apprentice in the trade and mystery of farming. And procure for him sufficient meat, drink, apparel, lodging, washing, fitting for an apprentice during the term of five years, and teach the set apprentice to read, write, and give him a suit of new clothes in addition to his old ones, and a new Bible at the expiration of the term. So again- trying to teach them moral duties and also a trade. This agreement was made in 1832. There are a couple others on this website. There's also the order of removal for a Sarah Derbyshire and her son from the county from 1792 because they were unhoused.

[Amanda] While I do know I didn't live in the 1820s/1830s, I do think it's very telling of the time and how it was very difficult for people in these circumstances where they are unhoused or impoverished to get out of that cycle. Yes, going into an indentured servitude, they likely did learn a skill, you know, like farming, where they could go and work as a farmhand somewhere else and get paid, or work as a housekeeper somewhere else and get paid. Those were very low paying jobs at the time. It was likely very hard, especially for persons of color, to try to become property owners. Again, kind of what we talk about in the Central Park episodes. It just creates this cycle. While it's noble to send them off with some clothes and a Bible, it doesn't fix the root of the problem, and neither does removing them from a county to go somewhere else or sending them to be an inmate in an institution. It was actually surprising to me to see that even though slavery had been abolished in New York in 1827, they were still committing people into indentured servitude after that. While I didn't look into it too much with this episode, I have to wonder how many of these people were sent into horrible circumstances taken advantage of. I would love to think that many of these people taking on indentured servants were noble and truly trying their best to teach them how to read, how to write, how to do trade. This was likely low-cost labor, and while I know I'm very privileged to have been born in the time that I have been. To have had the opportunities that I have had to go to college improve myself… Work a good job… have a roof over my head… There are still very many people that have not had those opportunities and. Part of why I've enjoyed doing this podcast is to learn about the past and bring that knowledge forward and talk about some of the areas where we are still challenged today. And I'd love to kind of grow that voice. I'm glad that as a society, we have evolved and created programs that better help and support people falling on hard times and for unhoused people. There is still such a long way to go in this endeavor. 

[Amanda] OK, I realize I kind of sent us on a little bit of a tangent there, sorry for that, but I'm going to get us back on track and talk about the other couple options before the initiation of poor houses. Another option was public auctioning, where they would auction off the care of the impoverished people to the lowest bidder. The county then paid the person who won the auction an annual fee for their upkeep. The last option was called outdoor relief and that was when the impoverished person was given a small monetary allowance each week to help keep them in their home. In 1824, New York State passed an act in Albany for the establishment of county poor houses as a way to help manage the impoverished and get the unhoused people off the streets. This gave the courts another option so they would start sending the impoverished people to either jai or to the poor house, if they were deemed unworthy for aid to help keep you in your home, or to get you off the street if you were unhoused. Other reasons you might get sent to the poor house included mental illness or disability, blindness or deafness- which I mentioned to my husband Jared the other day. We were talking about glasses. For those of you that don't know me, I actually have pretty significant visual impairment without corrective lenses, my prescription is really high. I'm a -10 and I was joking about how I'd switched eye care providers and when I went in for my appointment, they asked me to bring my glasses with me and I handed them to the doctor and he exclaimed, “Wow, this is a really high prescription. These are thick lenses, you can't see”- which is why I prefer to wear my contacts and I hardly ever wear my glasses. The reason I bring it up is because I was wondering to my husband that day what would have happened to me if I was living before the times of eyeglasses. Since I have such a high prescription, I need bifocals and I have really bad astigmatism. So, thank you Benjamin Franklin for creating the bifocal in the 1760s and George Arie for creating concave cylindrical lenses to help with astigmatism in 1825. Now that we've laid out all the history that is the foundation for Rolling Hills Asylum; Let's talk about the history of the building itself. 

[Amanda] On December 4th, 1826, the Genesee County Board of Supervisors met in the town of Bethany, NY to discuss the planning of a county poor house, it had initially been exempt from the act that passed in 1824. They selected a building that had previously been a Stagecoach Tavern on the corner of Bethany Center Rd and Raymond Road, as it's the center of the county geographically. Rolling Hills Asylum would open on January 1st, 1827, as the Genesee County Poor Farm. It was a working farm on 200 acres of property, and the goal of Rolling Hills Asylum was to house all the orphans, destitute, elderly, widowed, mentally and physically infirm, morally corrupt and criminal people in the county. Yes, they put criminals in with the orphans and that others that could not work. They did eventually move the criminals out to a different area. By 1871 Rolling Hills Asylum was a self-sufficient working farm. It provided the residents with food and fuel. The cost to the county for care of each person was fairly low at the time at $1.08 per person per week.  

[Amanda] The residents were referred to as inmates and many of them that were able bodied were to work in the farm, the buildings and to make wares to sell to help offset the cost of caring for them. They raised cattle, pigs, draft horses, and poultry. They farmed vegetables and fruit, made jams and jellies, baked bread and built coffins. The current owner, Sharon Coyle, lives in the house that was a workshop for the coffin builds. The county would bury those who died on the property who had no family to claim them. However, while there are records of those who died at Rolling Hills and there was a cemetery on the property that over 1700 people were buried in there's no record of where that is, which is incredibly heartbreaking because these were people. Besides being the poor house, the property was also an infirmary, an orphanage, a tuberculosis hospital and more recently, a nursing home before closing. 

[Amanda] Rolling Hills Asylum is a big draw for the paranormal community, and a place that I would like to visit soon. I was hoping to make that happen before putting out this episode, but through a series of events outside my control, I was not able to make that happen. Maybe you visited, and if so, I'd love to hear your experience. So please feel free to share them with me on any of our social media pages or send me an e-mail with your story. I was able to track down some of the stories of people that have visited, and we're going to talk about some of the spirits of residents that are said to remain in the walls of Rolling Hills Asylum. One of those former residents is Roy Crouse. Roy was born on March 4th, 1890, and was brought to Rolling Hills Asylum at the age of 12 by his prominent banker father because he was born with gigantism. Gigantism is an incredibly rare affliction that causes the body to create too much of the growth hormone which causes the person to grow very rapidly. This condition is so rare that, according to the Cleveland Clinic, there's only been about 100 documented cases of this in the United States. Unfortunately for Roy, this condition, which he had no control over because he was born with it, was an embarrassment for his father and he was dropped off at Rolling Hills to live out the remainder of his days. Roy would grow to be an impressive 7 1/2 feet tall by the time his bones fused, and he reached his final height. He was said to be a gentle giant and loved opera music. Just as a side note, I tried hard to figure out who this mysterious father was that dropped off Roy, but I couldn't find anything other than a very morbid story that I'm going to save for a bonus episode because it has nothing to do with Rolling Hills and I've already gone on enough tangents, I feel. Roy Crouse would end up dying in April of 1942 at the age of 52 from a heart attack. There are photos on the Rolling Hills Asylum web page of a tall shadow figure that is believed to be Roy right near the Infirmary. The current owner of the property, Sharon Coyle, would tell visitors from Weird New Jersey a story about running into a rat in the Infirmary about two months after moving to Rolling Hills. She was terrified, and she screamed and ran away from the area. The next day when she went in, she found the rat dead on the stairs with blood oozing from its mouth as if its neck had been broken and on the wall above the rat was a giant bloody handprint, and Sharon believes that it was the ghost of Roy Crouse, having seen her in such a state, killed the rat for her. And in BuzzFeed Unsolved, they tell the same story and actually see the handprint on the wall.

[Amanda] Another paranormal hot spot in the asylum is a room known only as Hattie's Room. This room is located on the first floor of the East Wing and EVP's in this room have captured an elderly woman yelling ‘Hello’. This is believed to be the voice of a former patient named Hattie who was blind, and she would yell hello all day and night to try to get the attention of the staff and nurses. 

[Amanda] In 2010, a certain paranormal group from the Travel Channel did an episode on Rolling Hills Asylum. There were allegations made on the show that. Are still on the Travel Channel 's website about a couple of the spirit residents that may not necessarily be true, and I just want to point them out. One is that of Nurse Emma, who they call on the show Nurse Emmie. She's portrayed on the show as being incredibly cruel to the residents and being feared by staff and residents alike. They also alleged that she was performing black magic and satanic rituals on the patients. They allege that down in the underground tunnels of the property, another spirit resident they call Raymond, did terrible things to women of the asylum. Both claims have been refuted by Sharon Coyle, the owner of the property. 

[Amanda] The morgue is another hotbed of activity at Rolling Hills. Many people claim that if they lay down on the autopsy table, they get a heaviness in their chest. There's a suit hung on a string in the morgue that is said to turn in your direction when you ask it questions. [moan] In case anyone is wondering, that was not a disembodied voice that was Willow snoring beside me. Other than the occasional clickety clack of her nails as she's gotten up and repositioned herself, she's been fairly quiet this time. Sharon Coyle would tell Weird New Jersey that the morgue often people report being shoved or knocked off their feet by unseen forces.

[Amanda] On the second floor of the east wing is the old men's dormitory. There is a hallway referred to as shadow hallway. There are tons of people that see shadow figures from all different shapes and sizes coming in and out of the doorways, walking down the halls. On the Rolling Hills Asylum website, you'll find many submissions of EVP's. People claim to hear disembodied screams. So, what are your thoughts on Rolling Hills Asylum? Is this something that you would dare to explore on your own? They do host many different types of events at Rolling Hills Asylum. They have public ghost hunts, private ghost hunts, guided tours, they host horror movie nights, and the money that is made from these events goes toward the upkeep of this important historic building. Rolling Hills Asylum is listed on the Haunted History Trail of New York State. You can check them out. There's numerous ghost hunt videos on YouTube. They've been featured on many, many. Paranormal themed TV shows such as BuzzFeed Unsolved, Destination America's Ghost Asylum, Sci-fi Ghost Hunters, multiple Travel Channel shows and were part of FX's American Horror Story Asylum promotion. You can get more information about this building at RollingHillsasylum.com and hopefully before too long I'll be doing my own paranormal investigation at Rolling Hills Asylum. I'm excited to check it out and just get a real deep dive personal experience in the history. The research for this episode made me look into some things within my own community. I did some digging on where the poor farm was in Broome County where I live and was surprised to find out that it is now where Broome Community College stands and they actually ended up tearing down the building that was the poor farm where the residents lived back in 2010. It would have cost too much to try to repair the building it was in such poor condition, and they tore it down so that they could expand in other ways. So, that was interesting to find out. One thing I would love to see happen, Broome County, if any of you are listening, any of you people up in high places that can make things happen. I would love to see a historical marker there because I don't think there is one, and I think that would be a good way to commemorate the people in Broome County that were housed in that residence. 

[Amanda] And with that, we are going to conclude today's episode. I hope you enjoyed learning about some of the history that was discussed in this episode as well as about Rolling Hills Asylum. I'm hoping to do an update episode where I actually get to talk to you about my experiences there after I get to visit. If you are enjoying the show, please make sure that you are following on your podcast platforms of choice for updates on when more episodes drop. You can also follow us on any of our social medias. We are on Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram. You can send me an e-mail- Please send me an e-mail if you've been to Rolling Hills Asylum and have, or even if you just have other paranormal experiences that you want to share, I'd love to hear it. Maybe we can do a listener submission story. Send me your experiences to NYDarkSidepodcast@gmail.com You can also check out our website for more at www.nydarksidepodcast.com. I'm going to be posting some pictures and I hope you keep listening, I hope you stay curious and tune in next week for another spooky themed episode.