Canada 150 - Alberta Public Accounts

During our country's 150th anniversary celebration of confederation I will write posts titled Canada 150 with a link to a publication or website I find that may help you tell the story of your Canadian ancestors.
Click on the Canada 150 label on the right or at the bottom to see all the posts.

Today I have for you...

Public Accounts of the Province of Alberta

The public accounts of Alberta revenue section includes fees from insurance, bank and other companies and various licenses. It also includes succession fees from estates, giving names and amounts.

Public Accounts 1921 - Succession fees

The expenditure section includes expenses for the departments of justice, agriculture, dairy, education, public health, public institutions, public works, etc.

The Education Department includes salaries for inspectors, examiners and teachers; normal schools, special summer schools and English schools for foreigners...

Public Accounts 1916, Teachers

The Agriculture Department includes expenses for destruction of wolves and weeds, stock inspectors, brand recorders, game protection, demonstration farms, agriculture schools, prairie fire guardians, and the Women's Institute...

Public Accounts 1916, Women's Institute

The Public Institutes department includes salaries for jail workers, maintenance and transportation of prisoners and committal in the Asylum for the Insane salaries...

Public Accounts 1916, Asylum Salaries

Miscellaneous Expenditures includes return of Big Game licenses purchased by Indians, Patriotic Fund salaries re returned soldiers, and unused marriage licenses... I guess someone(s) got cold feet!

Public Accounts 1916, Refunds

Also under Miscellaneous are salaries for election workers, and in 1906 Indemnity for Losses from the Hail Insurance Ordinance...

Public Accounts of Alberta 1906 - Hail

Public Works Department includes salaries for river ferry workers, road construction (with list of roads), maintenance of public buildings like court houses, gaols, schools and asylum, surveyors and compensation for land for right of way...

Public Accounts 1916, Right of Way Compensation

Relevant Links

Public Accounts of Alberta, Alberta Treasury Department

Amendment of Succession Duties Act 1916

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World!

Protestant Hospital for The Insane, Verdun

My great-grand uncle Horace Melvin Porter was 26 years old, full of life and part of a big loving family, the 6th of 11 children, from Ulverton, Quebec. His parents and some of his siblings moved to the United States 1900 to 1902. Horace took his responsibilities very seriously, and was working as a Motorman for the Montreal Tramway System in 1903 when the employees went on strike against their employer, the Montreal Street Railway Co. Horace didn't know about strikes, he just wanted to do his job and attempted to take his tram out of the barn. There was a rioting crowd throwing stones and bricks, and Horace was hit in the head with a brick.

I didn't find anything in a local newspaper, but the Eau Claire Leader, Wisconsin newspaper wrote an article about the event, saying: "A motorman who attempted to take a car out of the barn was assaulted so badly that in all probability he will die."

Well, Horace did not die for another 45 years, all of which he spent in the Protestant Hospital for the Insane in Verdun, Quebec. My grandmother worked so my mother was looked after during the day by my great grandmother, Mary Jane Porter King.  Mary Jane was Horace's oldest sister, and she would take my mother with her once a week to the hospital to visit Horace.  My mother remembers being made to sit outside on a bench to wait, as she was too young to go in the hospital. Horace died in 1948, and was laid to rest beside his parents in Ulverton.

Causes of Insanity 1890-1910

It seems from what I have read that this was a progressive hospital and they believed in giving the patients work to do to keep them occupied.  They had a farm that was worked by patients, and some patients also did crafts that were sold to get money for the hospital.  I don't know how much Horace was able to do or how aware he was.

Horace was on both the 1911 and 1921 Censuses as an inmate at the Verdun Hospital. If you are missing an ancestor, did you look in the census or registers of the local Insane Asylum?


My step-son's great-grandfather, Dr. William Herbert Wiley was the owner of Blythewood, in Greenwich, CT.

You can do a search at google or Internet Archive keywords "asylum" “insane asylum”, “mental institute”, “lunatic asylum”. Also check censuses and burial grounds of the Insane hospital or asylum.

**Update:  for Scotland search at Scottish Indexes. A search is free, but you have to pay for the record.


Relevant links

Protestant Hospital for the Insane, Verdun (History, read 1885!!)

Records for Deaths at Protestant Hospital for the Insane, $ at Drouin
(Under Quebec / Verdun / (Protestant Hospital) 1891-1941

Verdun Hospital for the Insane - Unclaimed Bodies 

The Institutional care of the insane in the United States and Canada 1916

The St-Jean de Dieu Lunatic Asylum at Longue-Pointe, Quebec 1892

Indiana Genealogy Society - database is members only $, under County Records

The Vermont Asylum for the Insane - it's annals for fifty years

The prisoners' hidden life, or, Insane Asylums unveiled: as demonstrated by the report of the Investigating Committee of the legislature of Illinois, together with Mrs Packard's coadjutor's testimony 1868

Upper Canada (Ontario) Insane Asylum Inmates database (Ontario Genealogy Website)

Blacksheep Ancestors - Insane Asylums, US - Databases for 7 states

US Veterans Hospital Insane Patients, Surnames A-M - 1930 index

US Veterans Hospital Insane Patients, Surnames M-Z - 1930 Index

West Virginia State Hospital for Colored Insane, 1930 index

List of Asylums in UK and Ireland

Inmates of the Willard Asylum for the Insane NY - 1870-1900

Queensland Public Curator Insanity Files

Australia Asylum Records

New Zealand Seacliff Lunatic Asylum

Spencer State Hospital, West Virginia

Find-a-grave for Spencer State Hospital

Report of the Visiting Physician to the Insane Asylum - Salem Oregon 1874

State Institution for the Feebleminded, New York 1920

Causes of Insanity (Protestant Hospital for the Insane)

The Colquitz Archive: An Exhibition of Documents and Images on the Provincial Mental Home, Colquitz, BC 1919-1964 (Look around the site)

How to Trace Ancestors in Lunatic Asylums (WDYTYA Magazine Tutorials) 

Bedlam Burial Ground Register, Liverpool, UK

List of Insane Persons who have received aid from the State during the past year 1845

History of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, from 1844 to 1884

Friends' Asylum for the Insane, 1813-1913 Philadelphia

Alphabetical list of subscribers names to the Glasgow Lunatic Asylum c1858

The Ticehurst House Hospital (south of England) Papers & Records online

Records of the Glasgow Insane Asylum (Gartnavel Royal Hospital) 1811

The Retreat, York, England

St Luke's Hospital, London

The Manor House Asylum, Chiswick, London

Holloway Sanatorium for the Insane, Surrey, England

Camberwell House Asylum, London

Louisiana - New Orleans City Insane Asylum 1882-1884, 1888

Scottish Indexes $