The Asylum of Horror

In this chilling October episode of The Grim, host Kristin guides listeners through the forgotten cemetery of Danvers State Hospital, once known as the “Palace on the Hill.” Located in Danvers, Massachusetts, this infamous asylum was built in 1878 on land tied to Judge John Hathorne of the Salem Witch Trials, a curse many believe doomed it from the start.

The hospital became a symbol of overcrowding, neglect, and experimental treatments—earning notoriety as the birthplace of the lobotomy. Though most of the complex was demolished in 2006, the asylum’s ghosts linger in its tunnels, ruins, and overgrown burial ground. Nearly 800 patients lie in numbered graves, their names erased by stigma, their voices silenced by time.

Kristin explores both the history and the hauntings of Danvers: disembodied voices, phantom footsteps, shadow figures, and chilling EVP recordings captured by paranormal investigators. The asylum’s legacy has seeped into horror culture—from H. P. Lovecraft’s Arkham Sanitarium to films like Session 9.

Through the Danvers State Memorial Committee’s efforts, fragments of identity are being restored to the forgotten dead. But the asylum’s cemetery remains one of New England’s most haunted places—where whispers drift among the stones and sorrow hangs heavy in the air.

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Episode Transcript

Kristin (00:13):
Grim morning and welcome to the Grim.
I'm your host, Kristin.
Today we're not stepping into achurchyard or colonial burying
ground, but walking theforgotten field of Denver State
Hospital Cemetery, located inDanvers, Massachusetts.
Here beneath numbered stonesand tangled weeds lie the
voiceless dead of an asylum thatonce was called the Palace on

(00:35):
the Hill.
Their names erased, theirstories locked away, their
graves forgotten.
The aroma of coffee mingles inthe air.
The gates stand open.
Step carefully.
It's time to descend into thehauntings of history.
It's finally October, theseason of bone-deep chills,
whispered legends, and crispnights by the bonfire.

(00:58):
Halloween is just around thecorner, and New England becomes
a stage for all things haunted.
Tourists flock to Salem, drawnby witch trial lore, colonial
gravestones, and the crackle ofleaves underfoot.
But not far from those bustlingstreets lies a forgotten
chapter, one that rarely makesit onto the ghost tours.
Just a short drive away atop awooded hill in Danvers rose an

(01:22):
imposing structure once known asthe State Lunatic Hospital at
Danvers.
Built with the promise ofhealing, Danvers State Hospital
instead became a monument tobroken minds and silent
suffering.
Though it was later added tothe National Register of
Historic Places, even that honorcould not preserve it.
In 2006, most of the buildingswere torn down.

(01:44):
What remained was soon consumedby a fire.
An inferno so vast it lit thesky and was seen from Boston,
seventeen miles away.
From the ashes, luxuryapartments rose, standing on the
scars of the vanished asylum.
Yet not all was erased.
Fragments of brickwork stillloom, quiet, brooding reminders

(02:04):
of what stood before, and hiddenbeyond chainling fences and
creeping overgrowth lies thehospital cemetery, sunken,
silent, and not touched.
What people find horrifyingabout asylums has always
fascinated me, becauseoriginally they were meant to be
anything but.
They were designed to bebright, airy, in restorative

(02:25):
places, healing environments,even, a palace for the mind.
But that palace quickly turnedgrim.
Many were simply misunderstood,inconvenient, or cast aside.

(02:54):
In those early days, beingoutspoken or even experiencing
something as common as PMS,known as hysteria at the time,
could earn you a bed behindlocked doors.
Families, overwhelmed orashamed, signed their relatives
over for what they called moraltreatment.
What was meant to be a place ofrecovery quickly became a place
of exile.

(03:14):
Most people journeyed to Salemfor the witch trial lore and its
ghosts, but the grounds atDanvers State Hospital hold a
darker legacy.
In 1878, the asylum rose onHawthorne Hill, land once tied
to the family of Judge JohnHawthorne, whose name is forever
stained by the trials.
Salem Village, as Danvers wasonce called, was home to not

(03:37):
only the accused, but to theaccusers and the judges.
Hawthorne was remembered forhis ruthless interrogations and
presumption of guilt.
He left behind a legacy thatmany believe cursed the very
soil on this hill.
And it's not hard to see why.
Though the hospital itself isgone, the hill remains, its
earth layered with judgment,suffering, and silence.

(03:59):
To this day, some wonder if thehospital was doomed from the
very beginning, its foundationslaid on ground already tainted
by shame and cruelty.
At the cost of 1.5 million, theasylum rose as a sprawling
complex, two ground centralblocks for the administration,
the radiating wings andflurrying like skeletal arms.

(04:20):
Behind them stood the kitchen,laundry, chapel, and dormitories
for attendance, while MiddletonPond fed water into the
institution's veins.
On one side dwelled the men,the other the women, leaving the
outermost wards reserved forthose deemed most violent and
the most hopeless.
Over time, new buildingssprouted around the original

(04:40):
Kirkbride plan, transforming thegrounds itself into a city.
A gymnasium and auditorium rosewhere old kitchens stood once,
and sunlight solaria weregrafted onto the wards, their
brightness belying the shadowswithin.
Beneath it though ran alabyrinth of tunnels, arteries
connecting the hospital to itspower plant, nurses' homes,
medical buildings, and machineshops.

(05:01):
In the dead of winter, thecomplex could function almost as
its own underground world.
The Kirkbirds design envisioned500 patients with attic space
for perhaps 1,000 more.
By the 1930s and 40s, though,over 2,000 souls were crammed
inside.
Even the basements becameholding cells.
Overcrowding twisted thehospital into a prison where

(05:23):
patients lived in squalor andneglect.
And if that wasn't grim enough,what followed was far worse.
The age of experimentation.
Denver's was never merely aplace of recovery or
confinement.
It was an institution graspingfor a cure, and in that pursuit
it became infamous as thebirthplace for the lobotomy.
Alongside the crude severingsof minds came insulin shock

(05:47):
therapy, electroconvulsivetreatment, physical restraints,
and endless hours of isolation.
The words grew heavy withwhispers of abuse, neglect, and
horror.
Yet despite its reputation,families continued to send their
loved ones through its doors.
Whether driven by fear, stigma,or convenience, they kept
coming, handing them over to theshadows of Danvers.

(06:10):
Through the asylum was foundedto provide residential treatment
for the mentally ill, its rolesoon expanded.
In 1889, it launched a formalnursing program, and by 1895, a
pathological research laboratorywas in operation.
Superintendent Dr.
Charles Page, who oversaw thehospital in the 1890s, even

(06:30):
declared that the mechanicalrestraints were both unnecessary
and harmful to those sufferingfrom mental illness.
By the 1920s, the institutionhad stretched its reach further,
operating school clinics toevaluate children for signs of
mental deficiency.
Yet behind this veneer ofprogress, darker practices
unfolded.
Reports surfaced of shocktherapies, lobotomies, heavy

(06:54):
drugs, and straitjackets usednot as treatment, but as tools
of control within theovercrowded wards.
Controversies followed, but themachinery of the asylum pressed
on.
By the 1960s, the tide began toturn.
New emphasis on alternativetherapies,
deinstitutionalization, andcommunity-based mental health

(07:14):
care reduced the patientpopulation.
At the same time, sweepingbudget cuts gutted the
hospital's ability to function.
Warts began to shutter in 1969,and by 1985, most of the
original Kirkbride stood silentand abandoned.
The administration block itselfclosed in 1989, with patients
shifted to the smaller BonnerMedical Building.

(07:36):
Finally, on June 24, 1992, thegates closed for good.
The last remaining patientswere transferred, some to other
institutions, others releasedinto the community, leaving
behind an empty shell.
The once proud hospital, bornfrom the visions of moral
treatment, was left to decay,its silence haunted by the

(07:56):
echoes of all who had beenconfined within.
The cemetery lies tucked awayon the former hospital grounds,
hidden in the woods behind whatremains of the buildings.
A gravel road leads to a narrowpath, opening to a quiet field
of the forgotten.
Like many institutions of itstime, Danvers had its own burial
ground, set apart, silent, andrarely visited.

(08:19):
Here has nearly 800 souls, mostonce marked by only numbers
instead of names.
For decades, rows of identicalmarkers bore nothing but
anonymity.
Each one a stark reminder ofhow patients were abandoned not
only in life, but in death.
Families seldom came to claimtheir dead at institutions like
Danvers, causing silence tosettle over the field, graves

(08:42):
left unrecognized, and nameserased.
Only in recent years havememorial stones begun to rise,
fragile attempts to restoreidentity to the lost.
Yet still, rows of numberedmarkers remain, mute witnesses
to abandonment, to neglect, tothe uneasy border between memory
and oblivion.
It's the Danver State MemorialCommittee that's labored to

(09:03):
pierce this darkness.
In dust-troked archives andbrittle ledgers, they search for
the truth, matching names tonumbers, the forgotten to their
graves.
Through their work, fragmentsof identity have been carved
back into stone, whispering thelost back into history.
These were lives smothered bystigma, laid to rest in silence,

(09:24):
and their suffering shroudedbeneath the heavy veil of shame.
Even in the grave, the ghost ofDanver stretched beyond that
veil.
Their story is pressing againstthe living.
For the moment the hospitaldoor swung open in 1878,
whispers of unease seeped intoits halls.
At first there were themutterings of patients.
Shadows glimpsed in thecorridors, voices rising from

(09:47):
the rooms that should have beenempty.
But as the decades passed, asthe buildings decayed beneath
the overcrowding and thesuffering, the whispers became
louder.
They transformed into screamsin the night, sobbing that
rippled down hallways, andfootsteps echoing through
corridors long after they hademptied.
When Danverse closed its doorsin 1992, one might think the

(10:10):
voices would finally fallsilent.
Instead, they seemed to growstronger.
In the years of abandonmentthat followed, trespassers and
urban explorers returned withtheir own accounts.
They spoke of slamming doors,of moans that rose from the
walls themselves, and thatparticular dread, the
unmistakable sensation of beingwatched.
Many who entered came out pale,shaken, unable to explain why

(10:33):
the air itself seemed to pressdown on them, thick with sorrow
and accusation.
The catalogue of ghostlyphenomenon attributed Danvers is
long and chilling.
Disembodied voices, sometimesscreaming, sometimes whispering.
Those are the most common.
Others describe phantomssobbing, the sound of patients
crying in rooms left empty fordecades.

(10:54):
Doors are said to slam shutwith a violent force, often the
absence of wind or touch.
In stairwells, investigatorshave reported the steady tread
of footsteps rising behind them,only to turn and find the
stairs deserted.
Shadowy figures haunt nearlyevery retelling.
These are not merely glimpses.
Witnesses describe fullsilhouettes looming in doorways,

(11:17):
darting from one end of thehallway to the other, vanishing
though when approached.
In photographs, strange formsseem to appear, darker than
shadow blotting the air.
Even seasoned investigatorshave admitted they fled the
tunnels after seeing movementflickering at the edges of their
vision, as though someone orsomething kept pace with them in
the dark.
Electronic voice phenomenon, orknown as EVP, has only deepened

(11:42):
the mystery.
Paranormal groups who broughtrecorders into the asylum when
it was around captured faint butchilling words, answers to
questions spoken aloud, whisperstangled in static, sometimes
even a single word, help,sometimes a full phrase, to
clear to be dismissed asinterference.
Many of these recordings camefrom the tunnels and the

(12:04):
hospital cemetery, as if thespirits clung most tightly to
those hidden, forgotten places.
Danvers is not haunted simplybecause it's old.
Its spectral reputation isbored of the immense suffering
it contained.
At its peak, over 2,000patients were crammed into a
building design for half thatnumber.
The overcrowding wasstaggering.

(12:24):
Patients lived in filth, lockedinto wards where disease,
neglect, and despair spreadunchecked.
Treatments too carved tormentinto its walls.
The weight of that sufferingsettled into the bones of the
hospital.
Its Kirkbright design, vastsprawling, intended as a place
for recovery, instead became aprison of anguish.

(12:44):
Stone and iron absorbed it alluntil the very air seemed
charged with memory.
To walk through Danvers, manyclaimed, was to fill the residue
of despair pressing againstyour skin, as though the
building itself carried thecries of those that had failed.
Certain places on the groundsbecame notorious among ghost
hunters and locals alike.

(13:04):
The administration block withits looming clock tower was one
such sight.
Faces had been spotted in itswindows even long after the
wards were gutted.
Visitors reported cold spots,sudden drops in temperature, and
the sound of faint typing asall the clerks still sat at
their desks cataloging patientswho never left.
Beneath the surface lies thetunnels, long narrow corridors

(13:28):
that once allowed staff to moveunseen between the wings.
These tunnels are steeped inlegend.
Paranormal investigatorsdescribe the sensation of being
followed, of whispers brushingagainst their ears in the dark.
Some refuse to enter at all,claiming the atmosphere shifts
the moment one steps belowground.
Heavy and oppressive, as thoughthe tunnels themselves breathe.

(13:50):
The cemetery bears its ownweight of silence.
Visitors tell of whispers thatweave through the trees, of
faint lights drifting like soulsunmoored, of the sorrow that
clings to the air like mist.
Even his memorials havereturned names to stone, an
anemone lingers, as though theearth itself resists forgetting.
It's here in this uneasysilence that the stories of

(14:12):
hauntings linger for Danverstoday.
The legend of Danvers did notremain confined to its grounds.
Its specters seeped outwardinto literary and film.
H.
P.
Lovecraft drew inspiration fromDanvers when he created the
Arkham Sanitarium, which in turngave rise to the Arkham Asylum
in the Batman Methos.
The hospital's image shapedgenerations of fictional

(14:34):
madhouses, cementing it as thearchetype of horror itself.
The film Session 9 in 2001 wasshot within the abandoned
asylum, capturing not only itsphysical decay but the papital
dread that clung to its walls.
In that film, the building wasnot just a setting, it was the
antagonist.
Countless novels, games, andtabletop scenarios have also

(14:57):
drawn directly from Danvers,carrying its haunting aura into
new mediums.
The podcast lore, a grimfavorite, dedicated an entire
episode, echoes, to its hauntedhistory, proof that the hospital
shadow still stretches acrossfiction, myth, and memory alike.
What lingers at Danvers may notbe the ghost in the traditional

(15:19):
sense.
It may be something deeper,more unsettling.
The memory of suffering soprofound it etched itself into a
place.
The asylum was a site of fearand of pain, and those who enter
its grounds or its cemetery,even today, long after its
demolition, often describefeeling that fear as if it were
alive.
Ghosts linger everywhere atDanvers, not as fleeting

(15:42):
apparitions alone, but as achorus of voices pressed into
its walls.
The hauntings are more thanfigures and windows or whispers
and static.
They're the shadows of thosewho lived, suffered, and died
here.
To walk the grounds is to feelthem still, restless, uncleaned,
and unwilling to be forgotten.
Here at the Grim, we hope thateven for a fleeting moment, the

(16:05):
forgotten lives of the patientsin Danvers are remembered by
you, dear listeners.
Beyond the horror lies thetruth of lives hidden away upon
these grounds.
And for now, their stories onceagain slip back into stone, and
maybe one day the dead willfinally rest.
Thank you for walking with usthrough the veil into Danvers
State Hospital Cemetery,descending once more into the

(16:28):
hauntings of history.
The gate is sealed, the veildrawn, yet death keeps no
calendar, and so we shallreturn, as we always do, on the
grim.