The Inn was built in 1863 as a hospital for Civil War soldiers being shipped home from field hospitals with missing limbs, infections, typhoid fever. In the early 1900s, it had served as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients where the afflicted were treated with rest and fresh Vermont air. The grounds were beautifully landscaped. The building itself was on the National Register of Historic Places.
With a holistic, humanistic approach, the Inn helped patients “discover who they truly were, heal all parts of themselves, and realize their true human potential” through a carefully curated program of individual therapy, group therapy, meditation, arts and crafts, exercise, music, and gardening. Patients working in the pottery studio produced pieces （mugs, bowls, plates, and vases） sold in local craft galleries and markets. Pottery bearing the Inn’s signature mossy-green glaze and the Hillside Inn stamp at the bottom can be found in homes all over New England and is prized by collectors.
The Inn treated the wealthy, but also took in those who could not pay, as well as patients deemed “lost causes” at other facilities. Its therapeutic approach, thought of as radical at the time, seemed to work. The majority of patients who stayed at the Inn not only improved, but learned skills that helped them thrive in the outside world.
Doctors and directors from other facilities all over the country visited the Hillside Inn to see it for themselves. Articles were written on the Inn’s innovative approach and rate of success.
To outsiders, the staff at the Inn were pioneers. It was a place of miracles, giving hope to those who had long ago lost it.
The woman behind these miracles was the Inn’s director, Dr. Helen Hildreth. Dr. Hildreth had been at the Inn for nearly thirty years and had been director for fifteen. Short in stature and well past the age of traditional retirement by the late 1970s, she was a true pioneer in the field of psychiatry.
“We must always remember,” she wrote in an article for the American Journal of Psychiatry, “that we are not treating the illness. We are treating the individual. It is our role, as doctors, to see beyond the symptoms and view our patients holistically. Above all else, we must ask ourselves, ‘What is this individual’s greatest potential, and how can I help him or her achieve it?’？”
Lizzy
August 19, 2019
FOUR A.M. AND I sprang up to a sitting position in bed, the sheets damp with sweat, listening to the noises of the swamp. Something had woken me. I’d caught the tail end of a strange sound—a wailing sort of groan—that jerked me away from sleep, foggy-headed and unsure what was real and what was still dream.
I’d had another nightmare. Another dream about her.
I looked around, orienting myself and taking slow, calming breaths.
I was in my van, in the bed I slept in every night I was on the road, parked at the edge of the swamp. And I was alone.
I checked to see if my little .38 Special Smith & Wesson revolver was there, in its holster on the shelf beside the bed. I touched it, felt myself relax.
I’d spent yesterday out on a little metal boat exploring the swamp with a local named Cyrus, searching for signs of the Honey Island monster—a creature who, according to legend, stood seven feet tall, walked upright on two legs, and was covered in shaggy fur. The color of the fur varied depending on the storyteller—some said brown, some orange, some gray or silver. The tracks showed webbed toes. Some said the creature’s eyes glowed red in the dark.
I’d been at the swamp for the last three days, recording interviews with locals who’d told me stories about the creature, and I’d gotten some good audio of the swamp’s sounds. I’d taken some great pictures of gators, ibis, feral hogs, nutrias, and raccoons. But no sign of the Honey Island monster. Now I was lying awake on the bed in my van, all the windows open, listening to the calls of night birds, splashes, an odd trilling sound.
The air was heavy, humid and thick in my lungs.