Picture Courtesy of Jim Kuntz

Miss Dorothea Dix in her "Memorial to the Senate and House of Representatives of Illinois" urged their serious consideration of the afflicted condition of an increasing class of insane sufferers, whose healthful exercise of their intellectual faculties were withdrawn, incapable of self-government, and self care. As a result the assembly passed a law in 1847 stating "there shall be established, within four miles of the town of Jacksonville, County of Morgan, an institution to be known as the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane." Joseph Morton, James Dunlap, John J. Hardin, John Henry, Samuel D. Lockwood, William G. Thomas, Bezaleel Gillett, Nathaniel English and Owen M. Long constituted a body corporate as trustees. The building, under superintendent Dr. James M. Higgins, was opened to accept the first patient, Sophronia McElhiney, McLean County, 3 November 1851.

The first deceased patient buried on this site, 13 February 1852, was Martha Fisher, Morgan County. This Immanuel North Cemetery has 234 recorded burials from 78 counties, 1852 to 1879 as copied from an old cemetery book uncovered in 1879 at the old administration building. The deceased hereon represent a cross section of various life-styles, friendships, occupations, religions, races and creeds from families of many Nationalities and origins.

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