<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This article needs additional citations for verification . Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (October 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) </Td> </Tr> <P> Eastern State Hospital, built in 1773 in colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, was the first public facility in the present - day United States constructed solely for the care and treatment of the mentally ill . The hospital's patients were moved in the 20th century to a new facility outside Williamsburg . The original building had burned but was reconstructed in 1985 . Today it operates as a museum about the treatment of mental illness . </P> <P> Eastern State Hospital traces its foundation to a speech by Francis Fauquier, Royal Governor of the colony of Virginia, on November 6, 1766 . At the House of Burgesses' first meeting since the Stamp Act and Virginia Resolves, Fauquier primarily discussed the relationship between the Mother Country and these colonists, and expressed optimism for their future . His speech also unexpectedly addressed the mentally ill, as follows: "It is expedient I should also recommend to your Consideration and Humanity a poor unhappy set of People who are deprived of their senses and wander about the Country, terrifying the Rest of their fellow creatures . A legal Confinement, and proper Provision, ought to be appointed for these miserable Objects, who cannot help themselves . Every civilized Country has an Hospital for these People, where they are confined, maintained and attended by able Physicians, to endeavor to restore to them their lost reason ." </P>

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