For more historical background click “History of Dorothea Dix Hospital” and “Biography of Dorothea Dix” on the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services website:

• 1798 Colonel Theophilus Hunter died; buried on his plantation near present Spring Hill House in oldest marked grave in Wake County. Pioneer settler of Wake County; early leader in Wake County and Raleigh. First Judge of the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions in 1771; colonel in Colonial Militia; Representative to House of Commons; first county surveyor; first county tax assessor; one of five commissioners supervising the erection of first State House in 1791; one of seven Raleigh City Commissioners in 1795. Built smaller house just behind where present house stands, on a high knoll overlooking the city; named it “Spring Hill” for a spring which was located at the foot of the hill near several large rocks. Son Theophilus Hunter, Jr. inherited large portion of 2,500 acres plantation, and built the present 2-story frame house about 1816.
• 1848 Dorothea Dix presented “Memorial Soliciting a State Hospital for the Protection and Cure of the Insane, Submitted to the General Assembly of North Carolina. November 1848” The “Asylum” bill passed North Carolina House and Senate in December; act provided only $7,000 for the appointment of six commissioner to select a site and oversee the erection of a hospital: John M. Morehead of Guilford County; Calvin Graves of Caswell County; Thomas W. Cameron of Cumberland County; George W Mordecai and Charles L. Hinton of Wake County; and Josiah O. Watson of Johnston County. Dr. Edmund Strudwick of Hillsborough was temporary “Physician and Superintendent” and oversaw construction. Dix refused to have hospital named for her, but agreed to have the site named “Dix Hill” after her grandfather, Doctor Elijah Dix. Since then the hospital has been known in the Raleigh area as “Dix Hill”. Known officially as the Insane Hospital of North Carolina, it was rendered on some early city maps as the Lunatic Asylum, then subsequently renamed twice: in 1899 to the State Hospital at Raleigh, and in 1959 to Dorothea Dix Hospital.
• 1849 First appropriations of $17,000 for the site were made; bond issues in 1851 and 1855 raised $100,000 and $80,000, respectively, for the construction costs.
• 1850 Maria Hunter – granddaughter of Theophilus Hunter, Sr. – sold 53 acres to the state of North Carolina on September 10, 1850; construction began on first building; Alexander T. Davis of New York City, architect
• 1851 Report to legislature of commissioners for the “Insane Hospital of North Carolina”: “They selected a site for the said building and after carefully examining the whole country in the vicinity of Raleigh, they chose a location west of the city and about one mile distant, on a hill near Rocky Branch to provide a water supply. This location has a commanding view of the city and is believed to be perfectly healthy.”
• 1853 Dr. Edward Fisher was appointed first permanent Superintendent
• 1856 First patient admitted on February 22, 1856
• 1857 From the middle of December 1857 the institution was lighted by gas manufactured in its own plant.
• 1857 Deed recorded May 19, 1857: From Sylvester Smith to the Insane Asylum of North Carolina in consideration of amount of $1,000 for a “certain tract of land near the City of Raleigh on the North of Rocky Branch formally known as the Ice pond or water mark tract bounded as follows to wit: on the north by the Lands belonging to William Boylan Sr. and to the Rise hospital on the Southernmost by the Lands of the said asylum and on the East by the center of the Wood leading by the Lands of Sylvanus Easley said Road leading from the city of Raleigh commonly called the Ramcot Road continuing twelve acres more or less. To have and to hold to the said Insane asylum and its assign . . .[Smith reserved right for himself and his heirs the “right to use the water flowing through said tract in the channel or canal in which it now flows and also doth reserve to himself and his heirs the right to enter on said tract whenever it may be necessary in order to clear out said canal and to remove obstructions therefrom, provided however that the said asylum shall have the Right to dam up said water into ponds for ice purposes and to procure Ice therefrom.” [Deed Bk 21, 574]
• 1858 Deed recorded August 14, 1858: Everard Hall & Maria L. [Hunter] Hall to the Insane Asylum of North Carolina for sum of one dollar: “the right of throwing the sewer water arising from said Asylum on the land of the said Everard Hall and Maria, and the right at all times of emptying all of said water on said land in and by & through the channel through which it has heretofore run to have and to hold the said covenant and privilege to it the said Asylum it successors and assigns forever or appurtenances to the land and house by it now occupied. . . .
• 1859 First body laid to rest in Dorothea Dix Hospital Cemetery [last 1970]; hospital carpenter made the coffins until 1945
• 1863 “As a protection from the capital against possible Federal attack from the coast, Governor Vance in 1863 ordered the construction of earthen breastworks completely encircling Raleigh. The light earthworks were about five feet high, with some dozen batteries for cannon at intervals. . . . The attack never materialized and the fortifications were not used.” [Note: A former St. Mary’s student described that portion of the fortifications that passed ‘through the western part of Saint Mary’s Grove. The Rectory now (1932) stands on the line of the embankment.’ The necessity for felling ‘many of the finest trees’ distressed the students as well as the wife of the rector. Mrs. Smedes, she said, ‘would wring her hands and exclaim: ‘They have killed my two fine boys, and now they are killing our trees.’’ The students would walk, she recalled, from the school grove to Dorothea Dix Hospital on top of the earth-works.. Montgomery, St. Mary’s of Olden Days, 20; Murray, WAKE, 494-96]
• 1864 Sheriff William Henderson High purchased Spring Hill and 160 acres
• 1872 Sheriff High sold the Spring Hill house and farm to William Grimes, a wealthy philanthropist who used house as a summer home.
• 1874 Superintendent Eugene Grissom wrote in hospital report: “It was discovered that the insane were not beasts and demons, but men whom disease had left disarmed and wounded in the struggle of life and whom, not unoften, some good Samaritan might lift up, and pour in oil and wine, and set anew on their journey rejoicing.”
• 1899 Insane Law of 1899 changed name to “The State Hospital at Raleigh” 1902 Dorothea Dix School of Nursing opened; reorganized in 1913
• 1907 Greater Raleigh Land Company bought up 180 acres left by William M. Boylan and laid out 280 lots for Boylan Heights
• 1908 Spring Hill House and 160 acres sold to the State Hospital by the widow of William Grimes. The house was used by hospital staff members for several decades, then served as headquarters for the Dorothea Dix Community Relations Department and the Volunteer Service Guild, and later as a museum. It was named a Raleigh historic site in 1978, and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. In 2000, ownership of the house transferred to NC State University [see below].
• 1912 Vineyard was planted with 1,850 grape vines
• 1913 “A City Plan for Raleigh” - Report by Charles Mulford Robinson [67-69; 91] Turning from the Squares – which hardly count in the social and physical ministry of a city’s park system – from the cemeteries, which do not count at all, and from the smaller schoolyards, which as yet appear to have no purpose, to ask ourselves how Raleigh, as a thriving and modern municipality, is situated in regard to large parks and real play-grounds, is to feel a thrill of expectation. For Raleigh is situated in a beautiful rolling country, with pleasantly diversified scenery of wood and clearing, and in the park enthusiasm of recent years to United States has taken the world’s lead in the extent efficiency and beauty of municipal parks. But “Wide-Awake Raleigh” needs some stirring here. There is, to be sure, a park, derived in the best possible way – as the gift of a citizen. But it has only seventy-four acres, and is the only one, and I observed no privately owned quarter-acre garden that was not kept up better.” “[W]e may now ask ourselves what the Raleigh of to-day needs in the way of park and play-ground development, to put it abreast of good modern practice in the cities of its class. A seventy-four acre park, having such natural advantages as Pullen Park, is a very important asset in a city the size of Raleigh. Like Moore Square, it represents an investment which may be, and ought to be, made to pay large returns to the citizens. That it pays them as well as it does, speaks volumes for their park-hunger and for their long-suffering patience.” This Report is no place for a park plan. In fact, I was told that once one had been made but nobody seemed to know where it was. It is enough to say that the park [Pullen] is full of poison ivy and poison oak, that its general aspect is seedy and unkempt, that the few features which have been put in are not kept up – excepting, perhaps, the beautiful Egyptian lotus pond, which maintains itself. One of the proffered excuses is poor soil, but within sight are the handsome grounds of the State Insane Asylum, to show sane people how their park ought to look. In discussing the development of Pullen Park, suggestion was made that the park needs of a city increase with its growth in area and population.
• 1918 Anderson Hall was built to accommodate nursing school offices, classrooms and living quarters for students
• 1926 Fire destroyed the main building and nine wards
• 1949 Last graduating class of nurses; first year medical students were given summer jobs in occupational and recreational therapy departments
• 1953 State bond issue allowed erection of 3 new buildings; main portion of hospital was torn down and replaced; 2 original wings remain
• 1959 Name changed again to Dorothea Dix Hospital to help remove stigma; residency programs for doctors available at Dix and Butner hospitals
• 1974 Hospital had 2,354 acres of land, with 3 lakes and 1,300 acres for the farm; 282 hospital buildings
• 1997 City of Raleigh to provide 18 soccer fields for Capital Area Soccer League with long- term lease of 60 acres of Dorothea Dix Hospital property at Western Boulevard and Hunt Drive
• 1984 Approximately 1000 acres was re-allocated to NCSU for the Centennial Campus and the Farmers Market
• 1998 Historians, historic preservationists and architects from across the state gathered in Raleigh for a symposium on A.J. Davis, a celebrated antebellum-era architect. Davis designed many buildings in the state, including buildings at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Davidson College and Dorothea Dix Hospital. Sponsors included the Gallery of Art & Design at N.C. State University, the N.C. Museum of History, Preservation North Carolina and the state Historic Preservation Office.
• 2000 The Spring Hill House and 52 surrounding acres of land were reallocated from the Department of Health and Human Services to NC State University, and now houses NCSU’s Japan Center. [For more information on the Spring Hill House see www.ncsu.edu/ncjapancenter/spring_hill_house.html]
• 2003 North Carolina legislature passed bill to build a new $110 million 430-bed state psychiatric hospital in Butner to replace Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh and John Umstead Hospital in Butner..

Sources:

Deed Records, Wake County

A City Plan for Raleigh: Being a Report to the Civic Department of the Woman’s Club of Raleigh, N.C. by Charles Mulford Robinson, 1913.

A Lasting Gift of Heritage: A History of the North Carolina Society for the Preservation of Antiquities 1939-1974 by David Lous Sterrett Brook, 1997.

North Carolina’s Capital, Raleigh by Elizabeth Culbertson Waugh, 1967.