The tie between St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Norfolk and Jackson-Feild Behavioral Health Services in Jarratt dates to one of the darkest periods in Virginia history.
It relates to the yellow fever epidemic that began in the summer of 1855 and killed one-third of the population of Norfolk and Portsmouth. While many children survived, their parents did not.
That prompted the rector of St. Paul’s to start a temporary home for children, the roots of what is today a residential mental health recovery and treatment center for youth. The 170-year-old connection between the two will be commemorated during a Sunday, Oct. 26 morning worship service at the church, which is the city’s oldest building, built in 1739.
“The vast majority of the parishioners at St. Paul’s know nothing about our relationship unless they heard about it five years ago when we did a similar worship service,” said Tod Balsbaugh, vice president of advancement for Jackson-Feild.
Balsbaugh is among those who have worked to keep the history alive, documenting as much as he can.
“Continuity gives credibility, and we’re one of the oldest residential programs that has been in continuous operation in the United States,” Balsbaugh said.
The steamer Benjamin Franklin docked in Norfolk and then Portsmouth in June 1855, unaware it was carrying infected mosquitoes from the Caribbean. The mosquitoes transmitted yellow fever to the locals, a virus that raged until the first frost.
Regarded as the most fatal plague in Virginia history, at its height, it took the lives of as many as 80 people a day. Many with means fled. Others, including thousands of African Americans, had no choice but to remain.
The Rev. William Jackson of St. Paul’s found a way to help the children left behind by opening a temporary home—a joint venture with Christ Church—now known as Christ & St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Norfolk. The orphans were originally housed inside its lecture hall.
Jackson died of the virus in October 1855, and a year later, the General Assembly chartered the Jackson Orphan Asylum, named for its founder. Its address changed multiple times in Norfolk over the years, but it endured for the next 70 years.
In 1925, the asylum and Episcopal Home for the Girls in Jarrett, a town 10 miles north of Emporia, pooled resources. The merger created Jackson-Feild Episcopal Home, keeping Jackson’s name and adding the surname of Laura and George Feild. The Feilds lost their daughter as an infant and bequeathed their ancestral home to care for girls in need.
When orphanages gave way to the foster care system, the home underwent several changes, adding buildings and modernizing its mission to help girls and boys in a group home setting. The tie to Hampton Roads remained during summers in the 1960s, when the girls took weeklong, supervised trips to Sandbridge.
Residential treatment became the focus during the 1990s, a period when the home became fully integrated.
“It’s been like a phoenix," said longtime board member Darnley Adamson. "We continue to rise from the ashes.”
Today, Jackson-Feild houses up to 50 girls and boys who need residential psychiatric treatment services. The bulk of its funding comes from Medicaid. Often, Balsbaugh said, the children coming from public agencies have been in multiple facilities because of their mental illness and inability to function in the community.
“It’s difficult to earn their trust,” he said. “When you earn their trust, they start healing.”
Sunday’s 10:30 a.m. service will include a Jackson-Feild alumna, who spent eight months at Jackson-Feild before graduating from high school with a 4.0.
Visit jacksonfeild.org for more information.