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Archiver > NJHUNTER > 2001-01 > 0980372033


From: "Jan Reuther" <>
Subject: [NJHUNTER] Jaques Quick, 1853
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2001 16:33:53 -0500



Strange Doings In the New Jersey Lunatic Asylum!

from the Warren Journal, published in Belvidere, Warren County, NJ, September 8, 1853

We have just been informed of a startling fact relative to the management of the New Jersey Lunatic Asylum, which is only the more singular because of the ominous silence of the Trenton papers in regard to it.

We learn from a source of the utmost reliability that on Monday, the 29th ult., Mr. Jaques Quick, of Hunterdon County, N.J., was taken from the New Jersey Lunatic Asylum by a writ of habeas corpus, and brought before Hon. Stacy G. Potts, one of the Justices of the Supreme Court, at Trenton. E. W. Scudder, Esq., appeared as his attorney, and Hon. W. L. Dayton was counsel with the Managers of the Institution. Dr. Buttolph, the Superintendent of the Asylum, was called and examined under oath. From the examination, it appeared that the patient, Quick, had been confined to the Asylum by his friends, for about ten months, for alleged insanity, caused by intemperance; but the Superintendent refused to swear that he believed him to be insane, and acknowledged that he had kept him there because his board was paid, and because he would not promise to obtain from intoxicating drinks upon being discharged.

When this statement was made, Mr. Dayton, on the part of the managers, threw up the case, and the Judge very properly discharged the victimized patient.

Mr. Quick is a wealthy farmer, unfortunately somewhat addicted to "potations deep," but the secret of the affair is that, having made a will highly satisfactory to certain parties, he had, while in an angry mood, threatened to change it to their disadvantage. The law, the fear of detection and the prospect of the gibbet restrained them from committing open, violent murder, but they managed to get their victim drunk, and in that state had him confined in the asylum, doubtless expecting the treatment he would there receive would eventually drive him mad, or that the fact of his supposed insanity would vitiate any after will, and leave them to control his property. - N.Y. Nat. Dem.


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