This collection contains 37 business and personal letters that Virgil Cornish received during his time as a steward at the Hartford Retreat for the Insane in the mid-1800s. Family members and other concerned parties contacted the institution from towns in Connecticut and from cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. The majority of the letters concern payments for the treatment and housing of individuals. Many writers noted dollar amounts (for payments originally enclosed with the letters), reflecting the cost of mental health care at the Retreat between 1846 and 1857.
Correspondents often requested news of and favors for patients, and sometimes requested that Cornish forward clothing and other gifts. On one occasion, Hugh Robinson informed Cornish of the death of Gertrude Hudson, the sister of a Hartford Retreat patient (September 2, 1851). A few letters reflect the institution's daily work, including an W. W. Anderson's apology for declining a job at the retreat's dining hall (October 16, 1852). The collection also includes a small number of personal letters (or business letters with personal content), including one by Cornish's friend Henry R. Angus, who offered to deliver letters to Cornish's son in California during a journey to San Francisco (October 29, 1852).
Virgil Cornish was born in Connecticut on July 27, 1798, and worked as a steward at the Hartford Retreat for the Insane in Hartford, Connecticut, in the 1840s and 1850s. Cornish oversaw many of the institution's financial affairs and frequently received bill payments from patients' family members. He and his first wife, Chloe Holcomb, had two children: Virgil Dwight (1822-1857) and Joel (1827-1846). Chloe Holcomb Cornish died on November 23, 1837; Cornish married Miranda Wilcox (née Hillyer) on June 20, 1839, and later lived in New Britain, Connecticut. He died in Tariffville, Connecticut, on October 20, 1884.
The Connecticut Retreat for the Insane was founded in 1822 and began to admit patients the following year; it was renamed the Hartford Retreat for the Insane in 1841. During Cornish's time as steward, the institution's head doctor was a man named Butler. The Hartford Retreat for the Insane later changed its name to the Institute of Living and officially became part of the Hartford Hospital in 1994.