Burn Brae Mental Hospital in Clifton Hghts.

The Burn Brae Hospital in Clifton Heights about 1890. Built in 1859 it closed in 1969. It was a private hospital for the mentally insane. It was designed to accommodate forty patients, 20 of each sex.  It actually stood in Upper Darby Twp. Clifton Hgts. postoffice. It was on the southwest corner of  Oak Ave. and Baltimore Pike just east of today's Home Depot. It was torn down in 1971. Below is a description of the hospital from the 1884 Philadelphia Medical Registry. 

"It is a private Hospital for mental disease, and derives it support from the payments made for board and medical care of patients. No patient is received for a less period than three months. A certificate of insanity, signed by two physicians, and acknowledged before a magistrate, is invariably required. A lady, well educated and of unexceptionable manners and deportment, resides in the same apartments, and devotes her time to lady patients, thus securing them on all occasions a pleasant companion and a watchful friend. A limited number of cases of Opium habit can be admitted."

CHESTER TIMES – MAY 20, 1887 

BURN-BRAE ASYLUM 

A Place Where the Afflicted are Tenderly Cared For

                One of the largest and finest buildings of which Clifton Heights boasts is that of the Burn-Brae Asylum, located on the Baltimore Pike, about an equal distance from Clifton and Primos stations and less than ten minutes’ walk from either.

                Burn-Brae was founded in April 1859, by Dr. R. A. Given, as a private establishment for the insane, and in its treatment of cases of this kind has met with satisfactory success.

                The location is well adapted for such an institution, all the surroundings being of the most pleasant character.  The buildings are on very high ground, and command extended and cheerful views.  On the premises is a large artificial lake for boating.  A brilliant fountain is constantly playing and spouting up water in front of the house, flowers and shrubbery and pleasant walks abound, and everything within and without the house conspire to cheer and divert the unfortunate patient and distract his attention from his own morbid ideas.

                An annex has been lately erected on the male side which greatly increases the accommodations of the institution.  The new department is supplied with comfortable bath rooms and water closets, and the entire structure is thoroughly warmed, lighted and ventilated.  A new gas machine for furnishing the gas is in course of construction.

                Burn-Brae asylum, through its successful treatment has gained a high reputation, and patients are sent here from all parts of the Union.  The institution continues to receive the benefit of the long experience, personal care and attention of its founder, Dr. Robert A. Given, and his assistant, Dr. J. Willoughby Phillips.

                The institution is doing a noble work and Dr. Given is in every way worthy of the name and success which he has achieved.  In many ways the asylum is an advantage to Clifton Heights borough.

The McDonald's and Burn Brae

Note: The story below is from Bob McNulty who put it on a Phila. History Facebook Page. Special friend Anita McKelvey bought it to my attention. The story is interesting to say the least and after being committed to Burn Brae by her husband, Mrs. McDonald was rescued by her family. The story made all the local papers. Please read

"Francis J. McDonald was born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, on August 10, 1865. As a young man, he worked as a reporter for the Reading Eagle before moving to Newport News, Virginia, to study ship design. In 1891, he moved to a rooming house in Philadelphia at Third and Spruce Streets, where he met his future wife, Zaida Arnold Lucas, who was six years his senior. Francis and Zaida married on November 9, 1892, at St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church. They lived at 2130 N. Van Pelt Street. The McDonalds had two children, Sommers Taylor Smith McDonald, in 1894, and Francis J. McDonald Jr., in 1902.

Francis worked as a draftsman for the Neafie and Levy Ship and Engine Building Co. at Beach and Palmer Streets. In 1902, he was promoted to company secretary. He left Neafie and Levy in 1905 to become the president and treasurer of the Mifflin Street Wharf, which a year later became the Philadelphia Ship Repair Co. At the same time, he also became the president and treasurer of the Camden Ship Building Co. and the Philadelphia Steamship Co. Other businesses that he became affiliated with were, the Globe Ship Supply Co., the Globe Sheet Metal Works, the Union Machine Works and Iron Foundry, and the Keystone Welding and Engineering Company. Between 1902 and 1907, Francis became a very wealthy man.

Francis and Zaida had an awful marriage. She felt that he was cruel, unfaithful and neglectful to her needs, while he came to despise her extreme jealousy, suspicious nature and erratic behavior. They argued frequently, and, as time went on, his verbal abuse toward her turned physical. Francis left Zaida on September 11, 1905 and took a room at Green’s Hotel at Eighth and Chestnut Streets, which would be his home for the next four years. Zaida and the boys moved to 2238 N. 19th Street.

Francis monetarily supported his estranged family and, in 1908, he bought them a beautiful estate in Ardmore at 116 Montgomery Avenue. Later that year, their eldest boy, Sommers, enrolled at the Central Manual Training School at 17th and Wood Streets and moved in with Francis at Green’s Hotel.

On July 26, 1909, 15-year-old Sommers took ill and was admitted to Jefferson University Hospital. The poor boy had contracted pneumococcal meningitis. Francis didn’t let Zaida know about Sommers’s illness until the evening of July 27, when the lad took a turn for the worse. She planned to take the first train into Philadelphia, but Francis didn’t want the dying boy to be subjected to one of her emotional meltdowns, so he phoned her back early the next morning and told her not to come, that Sommers was doing much better. A few hours later, Zaida received a telegram from Francis informing her that their son died at 10 a.m.

Francis, fearing that Zaida would cause an embarrassing scene, banned her from attending Sommers’s funeral. She saw in the obituary that the service was scheduled at Charles Stewart’s Funeral Home, 104 Cricket Avenue in Ardmore, at 2 p.m on July 31. She defied Francis and called a taxi. When she got to the funeral home, though, it was empty. She learned that, at the last minute, Francis had the service moved about a half-mile away to St. Colman’s Church. The funeral mass was already underway by the time Zaida arrived. Francis anticipated her actions and had the church doors locked. Zaida became hysterical and repeatedly cried aloud the name of her deceased son and begged for him to get up from his casket and come to her. She then unsuccessfully tried to enter the church through an open window. Francis came out and had his driver take her back home.

Francis was furious that Zaida had embarrassed him in front of his friends and business associates. Two days after the funeral, he had two doctors declare his wife insane and had her whisked away against her will to the Burn Brae Asylum for the Insane in Clifton Heights, Delaware County. Francis then moved into her house on Montgomery Avenue and had their surviving son, 7-year-old Francis Jr., sent to Sacred Heart Convent in Lower Merion, Montgomery County, to be raised by nuns.

On September 22, 1909, after seven weeks confined at Burn Brae, Zaida broke free from her nurse and escaped to a waiting car during her daily evening stroll. After a year in hiding, living with friends in Ambler, Zaida filed for divorce and sought custody of Francis Jr. At the end of a very ugly, three-year fight, Zaida was awarded Francis Jr. and $33 weekly support (equal to $813 today)."