Diary Bottle with raided letters "St. Elizabeth's Hospital"

For nearly 70 years, the land that is now Oxon Cove Park was a hospital farm called Godding Croft Farm. St. Elizabeth's Hospital bought the property in 1891 to produce food for its ever-growing number of patients. The hospital was founded in 1855 to care for the mentally ill people of Washington, D.C. and the U.S. military. Dr. William Gadding, Superintendent of St. Elizabeth's, established Godding Croft Farm for patients with less severe disabilities to receive therapy from farm work. In turn, these patients produced food for the main institution at St. Elizabeth's.

St. Elizabeth's was a bold project for its time. It was originally designed to hold 250 patients in the world's most modem hospital for the mentally ill. But, before the first building was completed, the outbreak of the Civil War forced the government to use much of the new hospital for wounded soldiers.

St. Elizabeth's operated three separate farms. It provided a helpful and instructive occupation for the patients and supplied the hospitals with fresh food. One of the farms called Shepherd Farm or the Home Farm do to its location on the hospital grounds, had the diary, and some crops. Patients who worked at this farm worked the fields, repaired fences, cut weeds, cared for the animals, and were involved in milking process too. The farm also bottled its own milk.