Oliver Porter McCuistion Committed

Oliver Porter McCuistion - Committed

In a Stockton Daily Argus newspaper we find:

>>Friday, 3 May 1861<<

DIED -- at Insane Asylum, April 26, O.P. McCUISTON, from San Francisco, aged 34 years. www.newspaperabstracts.com/link.php?id=31731

Information about the Stockton Insane Asylum:

The Stockton Developmental Center began in 1853 as the Insane Asylum of California at Stockton. It was founded on 100 acres with ready access to the goldfields on land donated by Captain Charles Weber, founder of Stockton. California's Legislature was convinced that the turbulence of the Gold Rush had caused many to suffer from mental problems, and that the existing hospitals were inadequate to cope with large numbers of people with mental and emotional conditions. Consequently it authorized the establishment of the Stockton Hospital, the first public hospital in California to serve the mentally ill. California's mental hospital is one of the oldest in the west, and early on was recognized for its progressive forms of treatment.

www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/stockton_ca/index.html

Apparently, mercury was used in the extraction of gold by the Gold Miners.

A gold pan from the 1850s that has a copper bottom to be used with mercury, but so many died or got ill from the fumes it was only sold for a short while. They boiled off the mercury over a fire and Wa La, just the gold was left.