History of the Genesee County Home

Rolling Hills Asylum at Bethany in the state of New York used to be a hospital for poor and psychiatric patients in the nineteenth century. From mid-twentieth century onwards however, it was used solely as a nursing home. It closed down in 1974. However since 2004 the asylum opened its doors to those interested in paranormal phenomenon. In 2005 there was an episode on Ghost Hunters in which the asylum was explored by paranormal investigators from Rhode Island.

The Rolling hills asylum is located at Bethany in New York. Historical records show that the property was bought by the county in 1826 and the poor house was opened in 1827. Throughout the nineteenth century, the place served as an asylum for the insane as well as an orphanage. During this time it was also used as the county’s poor house to accommodate those destitute individuals without a home and on the streets.

By the 1940s, the Rolling hills asylum had become a nursing home. It finally closed down in 1974. Apparently around a thousand people died in the asylum over a period of a century and a half. The county has a record of those people who died in the asylum from 1827 to 1974. The woman who currently owns it is named Lori Carlson.

The Rolling hills asylum opened itself to ghost hunts from 2004. On August 5, 2005 the asylum was explored by a ghost hunting team. Apparently several electronic voice phenomena were captured on digital voice recorders and camcorders. Many legends of ghosts and spirits of the past survive from the time when the place was used as an asylum and an orphanage. Rumors of figures in windows, strange noises and eerie stories have circulated among the residents of the neighboring area for a century and a half.

The building of the Rolling hills asylum has a long, torturous history of a former poor house, insane asylum, orphanage and nursing home. It took in the paupers, the insane, the orphans, unwed mothers, transients, elderly and all those who were unable to care for themselves. Interestingly the asylum was completely self sufficient as the inmates farmed on the hundreds of acres of land belonging to the county.

After the asylum closed down in 1974, the residents were shifted to the new facility in Batavia. The building was empty for nearly twenty years. In 1992, it reopened as Carriage Village, a mall of unique shops. In January 2003 it was renamed Rolling Hills County Mall and became a co-operative in January 2004. That same year ghost hunting was allowed on the site and thus Rolling hills asylum became the first historical site in the state of New York to be opened to the public for overnight ghost hunts.

Source Cited: ParanormalNews and EncycloCentral