Hayden and Brown Sanitarium

Found a photo on the internet the other day that was labeled Hayden and Brown Sanitarium.  The image was attributed to the Nashville Public Library. 

The photo that started the search. 1400 Broadway, Nashville Public Library.

The text under the photo said that the sanitarium was originally in East Nashville.  Any reference to East Nashville always piques my interest, so I was off on the hunt.  Drs. E. Forest Hayden and Daniel R. Brown opened a sanitarium in 1906 at the corner of Lischey Avenue at Marshall Avenue in Northeast Nashville.  

 

Southern Practitione, Volume 28. 1906

 They were located in a two story Queen Anne mansion, the former home of Judge John T. Allen.  The purpose of the facility was the "treatment of alcohol and drug addictions and diseases of the nervous systems." 

Hayden and Brown Sanitarium was located in this house on Lischey Avenue in 1906-1907

By September of 1907, the pair had moved the sanitarium to the former home of Dr. W. F. Gray, at 1400 Broadway.  The building had been remodeled and enlarged in 1906, under the guidance of local architect, Thomas S. Marr.  

 

Nashville City Directory, 1908.

 

1400 Broadway, Hayden and Brown Sanitarium.

 In 1909, Dr. M. R. Farrar, of North Carolina, purchased the interest of Dr. Hayden and the sanitarium was renamed Farrar and Brown Sanitarium. In 1910, still located at 1400 Broadway, Farrar and Brown dissolved the partnership. It was stated that Dr. Brown would take over the entire business and continue as before.  A notice in the Tennessean announced a name change to  Cumberland Sanitarium, with Dr. Brown named as medical director.  There did not seem to be any connection to Cumberland Sanitarium in Lebanon, Tennessee.  After 1911, Cumberland Sanitarium and Dr. Daniel Brown, disappear from Nashville.
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A friend, Ronnie Ragan, read this story and picked up the trail of Dr. Brown and Cumberland Sanitarium, where I left off.  Ronnie is a kindred spirit, when it comes to local history.  The information he found is below.

Dr. Brown was enumerated twice on the 1910 census.  Following the dissolution of his partnership with Dr. Farrar, Brown is living at his sanitarium on Broadway in April of 1910.  He, likewise, resides with a Mr. Flavius J. Sanders Jr. of 439 Greenwood in Lebanon, Tennessee, where he is enumerated in May of 1910.  According to the census, Brown and Sanders are partners.

Mr. Sanders was the manager of Cumberland Sanitarium in Lebanon.  His former partner Dr. Power Gribble founded the sanitarium in 1905, under the name Cedarcroft Sanitarium.  Both Farrar and Brown in Nashville and Gribble and Sanders in Lebanon dissolve their partnerships in 1910.  The thirty-five patient facility in Lebanon and the sixteen patient facility in Nashville are then renamed Cumberland Sanitarium.  Dr. D. R. Brown is listed as the medical director of both sanitarium's in Polk?s Medical Register of 1910.    

Just how long Dr. Brown worked in both locations is unknown, but by 1911, he had moved the Nashville sanitarium from 1400 Broadway to 32 Rutledge, near Peabody College.  The new location had rooms for twelve patients.

Although Cumberland Sanitarium and Brown are listed at the Rutledge address in both the 1911 and 1912 city directories, it appears the Nashville sanitarium closed by the end of 1911 and Dr. Brown had moved to Memphis.  An advertisement for boarders, at 32 Rutledge, runs in the Tennessean in January of 1912 and, on November 28, 1912, Dr. Brown marries Miss Margaret Gertrude Townsend of Memphis. 

By 1916, Cumberland Sanitarium and Dr. Daniel R. Brown are in business, once again.  He has opened his sanitarium at 692 Alabama in Memphis.  The former home of James Sanitarium, which had relocated.  Memphis city directories show the sanitarium was in operation from 1916 to 1921, when Cumberland appears to have closed for good.  

The city directory of 1925 lists the 42 year old Dr. Brown as strictly a physician.  In April of that year, his 29 year old wife dies of brain cancer.  Dr. Brown lived another fourteen years, dying in his home state of Alabama on November 24, 1939.  He was 56 years old and left behind a 29 year old widow and two children under the age of ten.  

Cumberland Sanitarium of Lebanon burned to the ground on January 9, 1916.  It?s owner, F. J. Sanders, died November 12, 1960 at the age of 84.

After Dr. Gribble dissolved his partnership with F. J. Sanders in 1910, he moved to Nashville and reopened Cedarcroft Sanitarium on Murfreesboro Road.  Ironically, in June 1917 the following appeared in the Tennessean:  “DR. POWER GRIBBLE Announces the removal of his Sanitarium from the old Nashville Sanitarium property to 1400 Broadway.”  The move was temporary, however, as their final location at 1519 McGavock was ready to move into by November.  Dr. Gribble died there of liver and stomach cancer on October 10, 1927, age 53.

In addition to the above, below are some of the main newspapers searched:

The Tennessean June 24, 1910

The Tennessean January 7, 1912

The Tennessean January 9, 1916

The Tennessean January 10, 1916

The Tennessean October 11, 1927

The Tennessean November 14, 1960