When Anna Hunt Marsh passed away on this day in 1834, there was no mistaking her intent about how her estate would be used. It would be the seed money for what is now known as the Brattleboro Retreat.

Marsh wrote her will just four months before she died. At the time, there were only ten hospitals for the mentally ill in the entire country.

Conditions within these hospitals were deplorable. The mentally ill were a population America wanted to institutionalize and forget.

Marsh, determined to change that, gave half of her estate to create a hospital that would serve the mentally ill with dignity and respect.

Historic image courtesy Vermont Historical Society, from "The Vermont Asylum for the Insane: Its Annals for 50 Years" published by the asylum circa 1884.