Finley
Soloman’s Insanity Trial
by EM
On July
23, 1877 my great-grandfather, Finley Soloman, was declared legally
insane by a jury of his peers
and committed to the Central Illinois State Hospital for the Insane.
The jury decided that “for his benefit and the safety of the
community he ought to be committed.”
In their verdict he was found to be 42 or 43 years old and free
from vermin. Further, Finley had been insane for 1 ½ years, and his
insanity was most likely the result of head injuries he sustained
after several falls.
The
circumstances of his insanity hearing and subsequent commitment are a
matter of public record in Schuyler County in the state of Illinois.
The record includes a “Warrant for Arrest”, a “Subpoena
for Jury in Finley Soloman Insanity Trial”, the testimony of his
wife Catherine, the “Verdict of Jury” and directions for
his commitment.
From the court
documents I learned that his wife, my great-grandmother, applied for a
warrant to be issued for Finley’s arrest so he could be held safely
until his court appearance. The application filed by Catherine Soloman under the Insane
Hospital Act resulted in a summons for six jurors to determine
Finley’s insanity before the Schuyler County Court on July 23 at 3
p.m. At least one of the
jurors was required to be a physician.
The others had to be freeholders and heads of families
Catherine’s
petition to have the court declare Finley insane was a last resort.
She testified that his condition first became apparent about
the same time he suffered falls that she believed injured his brain.
Catherine described how he could no longer control his arms and
legs, developed “the palsy”, could not walk a straight line, lost
his balance, had trouble with his memory and for days on end was
depressed and lethargic. Finley
was no longer able to work or to support Catharine and their eight
children. With no such
thing as Social Security Disability at that time Finley was also
declared a pauper.
All the facts
of my grandfather’s case are contained in these documents.
Or are they?
Was my
grandfather insane? Or
did he have Parkinson’s disease?
What if the falls he sustained were not the CAUSE of his
illness, but the RESULT of the disease’s progression?
I believe that
today his symptoms would likely be diagnosed as Parkinson’s.
But in 1877 the cause and treatment of these symptoms was still
a mystery to the medical community.
In 1817 Dr. James Parkinson included many of the same symptoms
Finley exhibited in his “Essay on the Shaking Palsy”.
Sixty years later they were still being associated with
insanity rather than neurological disease.
Thus Finley’s jury acted in accordance with the laws of the
time.
Born in 1834 in
Tennessee, Finley made the rugged journey westward to Illinois with a
wife and baby daughter, established himself in Rushville and fathered
five more daughters and two sons.
He served in the Illinois Infantry in the Civil War and
returned to Rushville when he was discharged from active service in
1866.
Was Finley
insane or did he have a neurological disease?
We may never know for sure. But
the historical record does tell us that in 1877 my great-grandfather
was locked up to suffer until his death.
I was diagnosed
with Parkinson’s disease over 100 years after my great-grandfather,
with the same symptoms, was declared insane
Today my
suffering has been greatly reduced through the development of modern
medicines – miracles that Finley could not have even dreamed about.
Sadly, he was not alone in his suffering.
Asylum beds in the late 19th and early 20th
century were often occupied
by Parkinson’s patients who had been misdiagnosed.
The horrors of these asylums have been well documented by
social scientists.
Greg Wasson,
another PLWP, wrote an essay “The Two Ends of the Telescope” which
gives a brief history of Parkinson’s.
It is a wonderfully hopeful history that shows why we have
abundant reason to believe in a cure.
His conclusion, and that of a great majority in the scientific
and medical communities, gives us all hope for our futures.
They believe that almost certainly in a few years Parkinson’s
will either be completely curable or at least we will be the
beneficiaries of advances that will make our lives pretty much the way
they once were.
How thankful I
am that I live in this age of hope and modern medicines.
How very sorry I am that my ancestor Finley Soloman, had
neither medicines nor hope.
EM
About
the writer
Emily is a
founding member of PLWP, and was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 1990.
Currently living in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, Emily was
born in Northville, Michigan and received degrees in Sociology,
English and History from Michigan State University in 1969.
To fulfill her dreams of visiting the many historic places she
had studied about, Em became a United Airlines flight attendant after
graduation, moved to Chicago and traveled extensively for the next ten
years.
She has been
married for 28 years to Greg, who works for the Advocate General’s
office of the Treasury Department. They have a 24 year-old daughter, Amanda and a 22 year-old
son, Jaron.
In 1981 Em
changed careers and went to work in Advertising and Marketing for the
Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper.
Although she went out on medical LTD in 1998, this month will
mark her 20th year as an employee there.
Em has been searching out her family’s roots by studying
genealogy, which is how she happened upon her grandfather Finley
Soloman’s story.