Sometimes of Good and Sound Memory and Understanding and Sometimes Not

You’ve probably been told that not all records are available online, and because of whatever reasons, you’re not going beyond what you can find at the popular websites. For this story, I needed original records.

First, I needed a copy of George Wesley Corp’s death record from the Town of Ballston Spa, New York. The New York law requires that I prove I’m a relative but for genealogical death records, most clerks accept my word (plus a copy of my driver’s license). The Ballston Spa clerk was more letter-of-the-law. It took twelve pages (she wanted copies of government-issued documents) to prove that George Wesley Corp Jr. was my 2nd great-granduncle.

But hey, I’m a professional genealogist so it didn’t take long to put together.

The next thing I needed, I didn’t know existed. Alicia posted images on Ancestry of court documents related to George Wesley Corp Sr.’s estate. She had gotten them from Nancy who had gone to the County Courthouse in Ballston Spa and photographed them. And those documents helped me understand why Wesley had been a patient at the State Hospital in Utica.

State Hospital, Utica New York (Detroit Publishing Co., 1905[?]), photograph; imaged, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/2016805447/ : accessed 15 August 2024).

George Wesley Corp Sr. was a farmer in Greenfield, Saratoga, New York, married to Charlotte Dean.¹ His namesake George Wesley Corp was born on 2 September 1857.² But George’s farm was not prospering.³ By 1865, George’s family had increased by two daughters, and while George may have been one of the poorer men in Greenfield, he did own his farm.⁴

In 1870, George Sr. seemed to be doing better. Two more children had been added to the family, and the farm had increased in value. But while George Sr. could read, he could not write.⁵ Ten years later, George Sr. had still not learned to write. Wesley (George Wesley Corp Jr.) was now an adult and was helping his father work the farm.⁶

The family moved to Milton and Wesley, still a bachelor, worked this farm as late as 1892 but was not there in 1900 helping his 78-year-old father.⁷ In his mother’s 1901 obituary, he was listed as living in Utica, Oneida, New York, and in the 1900 census, he was listed as a patient at the State Hospital in Utica.⁸ Wesley was suffering from mental illness and had been involuntarily committed.⁹ In a court filing, his sister Leila Elizabeth (Corp) Barnes described him as a lunatic.¹⁰ The Surrogate Court agreed he was incompetent and assigned a Special Guardian to take care of Wesley’s interest in his father’s estate.¹¹

The term lunatic was not meant to be insulting. At the time, it meant “sometimes of good and sound memory and understanding and sometimes not.”¹² Wesley had probably been sent there because his parents were not able to care for him during his “fits of madness,” and since it was publically funded, his stay would not be a financial burden on the family.¹³

In 1903, George Sr. had been “ailing with the grip” and was staying at the Maple Grove Hotel owned by his daughter Elizabeth Barnes.¹⁴ With his wife deceased and his son at the hospital, the eighty-year-old George Sr. probably could not take care of himself and his home during his illness and had gone to stay near his daughter. After two weeks, he passed away and the coroner attributed his death to “exhaustion and old age.”¹⁵

Sometime between 1905 and 1910, Wesley left the State Hospital and moved in with his sister Elizabeth and her husband John William Barnes where he helped out on their farm.¹⁶ Their daughter, Mabel Cyrena (Barnes) Gledhill, and her young family also lived in the house, but James Gledhill worked in the papermill, not on the farm.¹⁷ After Wesley’s sister and brother-in-law passed away, James and Mabel Gledhill inherited Wesley and he lived with them in Milton, Saratoga, New York, and then in Ballston Spa, Saratoga, New York until his death on 9 April 1928.¹⁸