TWO MENTAL UNFORTUNATES

The Anaconda Standard, Anaconda, 1908-01-08, p.9

Summary

Anaconda Standard's longer companion to the Butte Miner Jan 8 "PAT MURPHY FOUND TO BE SICK AND NOT INSANE." Both papers carried the same Jan 7 hearing the next day. The Standard's account adds important biographical detail and pairs Pat's case with that of another Cork-and-Kildare Irish-Butte commitment: Barney Boyle, native of Kildare, sent to Warm Springs the same day. Both examined by physician commissions on charges of insanity. Doctors here named: Schwartz and Renick (the March commitment used Horst and Turner). KEY NEW BIOGRAPHICAL FACTS on Pat Murphy: - Native of Cork - "Partial paralytic for 11 years" — so paralysis since c. 1897 - "Mrs. Murphy has been supporting him" all that time - Threatened the children with harm AND threatened to burn the house - Formerly a bartender; drank a great deal; "when drunk he had fits" - Drs. Schwartz and Renick concluded he was not a fit subject for the asylum but recommended the poorhouse, "which would relieve the family of his care and burden" This is the most detailed pre-commitment account of Pat in the archive. The "11 years a paralytic" framing places the onset of his decline at 1897.

People

Patrick "Pat" J. Murphy (Cork-born bartender / shoemaker; d. 1912 Warm Springs MT)(as printed: Pat Murphy)
role: subject · family confidence: 10 flag
Ellen Murphy (wife of Pat, 1908 hearings)(as printed: Mrs. Murphy)
role: complainant wife · family confidence: 10 flag
Barney Boyle (Kildare, 1908)(as printed: Barney Boyle)
role: subject secondary · family confidence: 0 not family
Native of Kildare, Ireland. Sent to Warm Springs the same day as Pat Murphy was sent to the poorhouse. Recorded because his case is paired with Pat's in the print and because the pairing tells us something about Butte's Irish-American mental- health landscape in the period.

Also mentioned

Dr. Schwartz · examining_physician
Dr. Renick · examining_physician

Places

Butte, Montana (primary)
Warm Springs, Montana (secondary)
County Cork (context)
County Kildare (context)

Themes

Story threads

Famine to emigration

Source type

news_item, court_report

Related sources

Transcription

transcription: complete · confidence high

# TWO MENTAL UNFORTUNATES *One is sent to the asylum and the other to the county poor-house.* *The Anaconda Standard, Wednesday, January 8, 1908, p. 9.* Pat Murphy, a native of Cork, and Barney Boyle, a native of Kildare, Ireland, were examined by commissions of physicians on charges of insanity yesterday. Murphy was sent to the county poor house and Boyle to the state asylum at Warm Springs. The wife of Murphy made the complaint against him. He has been a partial paralytic for 11 years and Mrs. Murphy has been supporting him. Lately he has been so cross and irritable that she could no longer care for him. She said he had threatened the children with harm and had threatened to burn the house. He was formerly a bartender and drank a great deal. When drunk he had fits. Drs. Schwartz and Renick concluded that Murphy was not a fit subject for the asylum, but recommended that he be sent to the poorhouse, which would relieve the family of his care and burden. *[Article continues with another mental-commitment case on the same page; not in this clip — visible header "'bear fighter' in" is the start of the next item.]*

Open questions

The "11 years a paralytic" datum anchors the onset of his decline at c. 1897. Worth a focused pull at that date for any earlier Pat Murphy / accident / stroke / bartending injury coverage in the 1897 Butte papers.
Barney Boyle of Kildare — does he recur in any later Butte coverage? If so the Cork-and-Kildare-together pairing on the 1908 court calendar is a small but real data point about Butte's Irish-immigrant mental-health pipeline.