With such a prominent figure diagnosed with epilepsy, public attention turned to improving care, treatment and research. Traditionally sent to disreputable almshouses, people who suffered from epilepsy were often mixed in with people who were chronically ill or suffering from other diseases. The colony plan, modeled after the Bethel Community in Germany and laid out like a self-containing village, had begun in McKinley’s home state of Ohio, at Gallipolis, in 1893. The campus offered a dairy farm, horse barns, poultry and pigs. 

Meanwhile, in Sonyea, NY, located in rural Livingston County, the United Society of Believer’s in Christ’s Second Appearing had created a rich and fertile agricultural community in 1836. More commonly known as the Shakers, this unusual religious group perpetuated mystery through dances and trances in the midst of faithful fervor. They built the community as a way to live separately from the rest of the world. However, as the United States became more industrialized, the members of the Sonyea Shaker community decreased dramatically—from 148 members in 1836 to only 37 in 1892.

With numbers in the Shaker community dwindling, William Pryor Letchworth, who served on the New York State Board of Charities, suggested that the state consider the Shaker community for an epilepsy asylum similar to the one in Gallipolis. Despite being a successful businessman, Letchworth displayed remarkable sensitivity to the conditions of people who were poor, mentally ill or had epilepsy, as well as orphaned or delinquent children. Through his work with the Board of Charities, he traveled through Europe, visiting workhouses and reformatories while researching and writing about progressive treatment modalities. He also wrote about the education of people who were blind and the care of pauper or dependent children. That research often led him to actively pursue the removal of children who were confined to living with adults in almshouses. Letchworth’s interest in working with the Board of Charities was purely benevolent and everything he did with them was in an attempt to better the situations of those less fortunate. 

In 1892, with their number of followers reaching an all-time low, the Shakers sold some 1,800 acres to New York State for the creation of an asylum for people suffering from epilepsy. Thus, on January 20, 1896, Craig Colony was born—named after the President of the New York State Board of Charities, Dr. Oscar Craig. To house the colony’s residents, the state constructed additional cottages with floral names like Dahlia and Daisy in the “White City” for women, while men lived in the “Green Village” on the north side of Keshequa Gorge in cottages named after trees. The campus was further filled out with a nursing school, hospital and assembly hall, each of which were added over the years. Not only was there medical assistance at Craig Colony, but productive and therapeutic activities were offered to residents as well. The institution had its own post office, bakery and grocery store in addition to its own farm, equipped with dairy, livestock and extensive gardens.

While staying at Craig Colony, residents had the opportunity to work and produce goods from bricks and ceramics to picture frames and baseball bats. Residents also worked in shoe repair, food service or as cleaning people in the homes of employees. Among the recreation options available, which included square dances, roller skating events and movies, the bowling lanes became a popular gathering place. Craig Colony hosted visiting bowling teams from psychiatric hospitals at Willard, Buffalo and Gowanda. The colony had a concert band, a newspaper and a miniature golf course. There were Protestant and Catholic chapels on the premises and Jewish services were performed weekly. One Rafael Gonzales, a licensed practical nurse and Latin American folk singer, was renowned for his serenading of the patients of the Loomis Infirmary Area church, club, scout and school groups. During the holidays, the local Rotary Club sponsored a Christmas dance and students from nearby SUNY Geneseo went to Craig Colony for holiday caroling. High school classes from LeRoy and Dansville took holiday cookies and presents to the children at Craig each year. 

In 1935, Craig Colony began to accept residents who had developmental and physical disabilities, in addition to those with epilepsy. This shift increased the population at the colony as well as the variety of patient needs. Where the population once was fairly independent in the ability to ambulate around the grounds, there were now new wards in which patients were confined to essentially adult cribs. Infants and toddlers were now being sent to the facility as well. With the influx in new patients, the quality of care began to slip through the cracks. In one report, as the result of a formal inspection, the area housing the dairy cows was noted to have been superior to certain places within the institution where residents slept.

Despite the alleged poor living conditions, residents at Craig Colony looked after one another. Patients reportedly became sensitive to each other’s needs and provided first aid if employees were not in the immediate vicinity when crises such as a seizure took place. In fact, patients were also recruited to assist with the care of those who needed to be fed or changed. Due to the independent nature of the facility, it was not uncommon for patients to leave the grounds to travel the rural roads to nearby Mount Morris or the Sonyea State Forest. 

Although the deaths of residents at Craig Colony were mostly of natural causes, unnatural deaths were not unheard of in its history. In 1934, an early morning fire swept through the Prior building on the Craig campus. While it appeared that everyone had been safely evacuated, resident Harry Vanek could not immediately be located. His remains were later discovered in the attic with his personal trunk opened. Mr. Vanek may have gone up there to collect or protect his belongings, however, in some media accounts, it was implied that he may have started the inferno himself.

Beginning in the 1960s, however, a series of resident disappearances and deaths brought difficulties to the complex and raised questions about its future. On September 7, 1960, five young men disappeared sometime after lunch. With access to an unlocked sub-basement under Cayuga Cottage, they entered the labyrinth of underground tunnels and landed in a suffocating, unlit space just ten feet wide. With an unusual heat wave beating down on the tunnels from outside, the temperature inside rose to deadly levels. The five boys, ranging in ages from 13 to 15 years old, were found dead a few days later. That same week, 21-year-old Allan Nixon Jr. from Niagara Falls left the Craig Colony campus and was later found to have drowned in a stream. With six deaths in just one week, newspapers from around New York State provided intense coverage of the tragic events. A subsequent lawsuit filed by the families of those who perished in the tunnel resulted in further anguish. The judge awarded the families approximately 6 percent of proposed damages, noting that some of the boys would have remained institutionalized for their entire lives.

The following year tragedy struck again at Craig Colony when John Pieris died of a skull fracture on June 21, 1961, while wrestling with another patient. Four days later, two more teenagers went missing from the colony after attending church services. Their bodies were discovered a week later by a local boy: one of them had drowned in a creek and the other in a shallow drainage pond. Eight years later, in 1969, a similar disappearance involved a 21-year-old Craig resident who was reported missing in early September. Three months later, his decomposed remains were found under a log by two area boys.

The deaths of these residents exposed some of the neglect that was occurring within the colony. In 1965, there were more than 100 children living in the Murphy Building at Craig, the majority of whom were confined to cribs for most of the day. During an inspection of the facility, it was discovered that some of the children had outgrown the cribs but were restrained within them. In 1979, a lawsuit was filed by the Protection and Advocacy System for Developmental Disabilities on behalf of a young man who lived in Cayuga Cottage. It was alleged that he had lived in a shower room for eight years and slept on the floor without a mattress, bedding or sheets. The suit went on to purport that the patient had not received training, habilitation, education or treatment during his stay at Craig Colony. Once removed from the colony, the man was reported to be living successfully.

With the advent of new medications to treat seizures, the population of residents who suffered from epilepsy began to rapidly decline. Their segregation at the institution was, in short, unnecessary. In 1982, Governor Hugh Carey announced that Craig Colony would be closing and converted to a medium security prison. The colony was repurposed as Groveland Correctional Facility and by the end of the year, the first prisoners arrived. 

Many of the original buildings remain in use today at Groveland and are divided into the “Main Compound” and “The Annex.” Gym and activity buildings were added, along with a new infirmary and horticulture center. In the late 1980s, there were some female inmates who were divided by the Keshequa Gorge, just as the Shakers and residents of Craig Colony had lived before Groveland. The co-ed prison, however, was short-lived and today it is an all-male facility.

After a fire to the Letchworth Building in 1988, Groveland inmates helped with the restoration. Today they continue to assist in maintaining the property’s grounds by shoveling snow in the winter and tending to the lawns in the summer. In addition, Groveland prisoners help with local parks, assist at the Rotary Sunshine Camp for children who have disabilities and are on call during local emergencies. Remnants of the Craig Colony community survive at Groveland. Instructors from Genesee Community College regularly teach at the prison, the bowling lanes are still in use and the golf course, now tucked up near the original Shaker buildings, is now open to the public. 

Two of the few tangible reminders of the Craig Colony today are the cemeteries. One is fairly well hidden away in the Sonyea Forest with numbered cast iron markers. On Moyer Road, past the original Shaker buildings and the golf course, a much larger graveyard was constructed. More than 2,000 patients are remembered there with tiny white stones, flat markers and religious statuary bearing their names. Today, the ghosts of what was once a thriving epileptic community remain in the cemetery through the many stones that are broken, chipped or lying flat in the grass. Each contains a story of a life long since passed.