For posterity, a time capsule was embedded within the cornerstone, where it would lie undisturbed on top of Hospital Hill for 150 years.

The original design specified a maximum of 200 patients, but this limit was raised to 250 by the statewide hospital Commissioners before the asylum opened.

Dr. Earle immediately began to cultivate a strong work therapy program by expanding the farm, constructing a greenhouse as well as other service-oriented buildings.

In it Clifford W. Beers, a former patient of several institutions, argues that contrary to what the public had been led to believe, no one knew how to cure insanity.

Designed to accommodate 1000 patients, in 1925 work began on the largest expansion of Northampton State Hospital: Memorial Complex.

Set apart from the original “Old Main” section of the asylum, Memorial Complex became the focal point for most of the construction, expansions and later operations of Northampton State Hospital, and it allowed the population to swell to more than 2,100 patients in 1935.

On January 6, 1978, the United States District Court approved the Brewster Consent Decree, which made clear a patient's constitutional right to treatment in the least restrictive environment possible.

Ex-patients entered a largely ignorant and sometimes hostile community; for some, poverty and homelessness were as immediate as the citywide controversy.

Operations at Memorial Complex continued until 1993, when the last 12 patients were reassigned, and Northampton State Hospital was officially closed.

Short and long terms solutions were brainstormed, some of which revolved around the hospital: “Keep the pressure on to make sure that low-cost housing is developed at the former Northampton State Hospital.”[9] Despite these efforts and their popularity, city administrators only seriously considered demolition to redevelop the property.

The two-day event titled "The State Hospital: In Memoriam" included an academic symposium, an open forum with former patients, and three art exhibitions.

An open forum took place the morning of the second day, during which former patients shared stories of their experiences inside the hospital.

The art installation was designed by visual artist Anna Schuleit Haber and intended to reference the events of the laying of the hospital cornerstone in 1856.

At noon, bells from surrounding churches rang in unison to invoke a communal moment of silence, followed by “Habeas Corpus,” a sound installation in which J.S.