The county poorhouse that opened on January 1, 1827 in East Bethany, New York was not built for the sick or the criminal — it was built for the inconvenient. The destitute, the disabled, the mentally ill, orphaned children, elderly widows: anyone Genesee County considered a burden was placed here and largely forgotten. By the time the building closed, more than 1,700 people had died inside it.
Among the residents was a man referred to as Roy — born with gigantism, tall enough that his family considered him a source of shame. When Roy was twelve, they drove him to the poorhouse and left him. He spent the next fifty years inside that building, dying there at sixty-two. By all accounts he was gentle, fond of music, remembered warmly by staff — the way people remember someone who has been part of a place longer than anyone else can recall.
Rolling Hills Asylum now operates as a paranormal destination, and the reports are specific. Visitors and investigators consistently describe the same thing: a tall, slow-moving shadow in the hallways — taller than it should be, moving with a deliberate heaviness. It appears in photographs as an elongated silhouette. The corridor known as the Shadow Hallway, which once housed the facility’s most difficult residents, generates the highest concentration of accounts: EMF readings consistently high, temperature drops sudden and localized, and a thermal camera that once captured what appeared to be two human-shaped heat signatures moving independently through an empty room.
Story Source: www.rollinghillsasylum.com
Address: Rolling Hills Asylum, 11001 Bethany Center Road, East Bethany, NY 14054
Google Map
