The Ladd School, By Any Other Name

On March 14, 1958, Rhode Island Governor Dennis J. Roberts signed the bill officially naming the Dr. Joseph H. Ladd School in honor of its founder, and then recently retired superintendent, Dr. Joseph Ladd.

Fifty-six years later, and some two decades since the institution was abandoned, Rhode Islanders still call it The Ladd School, even though it was renamed, in 1978, the Dr. Joseph H. Ladd Center. Little is it known, however, that even before it was called The Ladd School, Rhode Island's only public residential institution for people with developmental disabilities was called The Exeter School, with reference to its location in the rural farming town of Exeter, Rhode Island.

Rarer yet is the knowledge that before it was known as The Exeter School, the institution was originally called the Rhode Island School for the Feeble-Minded.

The Cemeteries of our Abandoned Asylums

From Victorian times through the industrial age pestilence and disease were common in the crowded wards of State institutions for the indigent, insane and disabled. But the limits of medical science and inadequate support for these asylums in those dark days were especially detrimental to the institutionalized poor who, even in death, could not be cared for.

Oftentimes their remains were unclaimed by friends or relatives, unable to have supported their loved ones in life and too sick or indigent themselves to bury them in death; and so they were buried by the State instead, in pauper's cemeteries located on or near the grounds of those asylums in which the deceased lived their final days.

The Bones of Gary Hayman

Sixty-one years ago today, on September 23, 1952, Gary Hayman, a nine-year-old boy with autism, vanished from the Ladd School without a trace, never to be found ... almost.

In the afternoon while the children were lined up at the end of class on that fateful day, Gary must have bolted from the school unseen, or so reports suggest. When his teacher realized he was missing, the school's administrators took swiftly to action, rounding up small search parties of attendants and inmates, and blasting three short, sharp blows of the whistle from the smokestack at the power plant on the other side of the campus - a measure taken for all runaways from the institution.

Little did anyone know that this time, however, it would be different. When their search turned up empty-handed that night, so began a long, strange and harrowing story that remains to this day - all but forgotten - one of the most mysterious and tragic events in local history.

An Historic Occasion

Nineteen years ago this week, Rhode Island formally commemorated the closing of the Dr. Joseph H. Ladd Center at one of the State's least known parks; the Ladd School Memorial Park.

Situated at the corner of Main Street and School Land Woods Road in Exeter, the park, designed by Karen Hillman, was established in tribute to the thousands of people who lived and worked at the facility from 1907 to 1994. It stands upon the place where the original Rhode Island School for the Feeble-Minded was founded; the site of the Hoxsie farmhouse where Dr. Ladd and the first eight inmates of the institution settled more than a century ago.

Surrounded by a replica of the stone wall that once surrounded the farmhouse, an engraved plaque is affixed atop a stone podium, which reads:

The Ladd Center
1907-1993

Dr Joseph H. Ladd established the Exeter School for the Feebleminded on this site in 1907. He guided its development with dedication for 48 years. During its86 year history Ladd Center was home for 4,533 disabled men, women, and children who were cared for by skillful and compassionate employees. Ladd Center was closed in 1993 after alternative programs were established throughout Rhode Island. This alternative system of facilities was developed over a 15 year period with funds overwhelmingly approved by Rhode Island voters. Leadership in this major effort was provided by govenors J. Joseph Garrahy, Edward D. Diprete, and Bruce Sundlun; by the directors of the Rhode Island Department of Mental Health, Retardation, and Hospitals, Joseph J. Bevilacqua, Thomas D. Romeo, and A. Kathryn Power, By the department's executive director Robert L. Carl, Jr.; and by The Arc, the Ladd Parents' Association, and MHRH staff.

Superintendents: 1907 - 1956 Dr. Joseph H. Ladd, 1956 - 1978 Dr. John G. Smith, 1979 - 1993 George W. Gunther Jr.

Last person moved to a community based facility on March 25, 1994