(mysterious instrumental music) - I started coming to the grounds when I was about seven years old.

I found out I had a family member that was buried here on the hilltop.

And the first thing my grandfather told me was this hilltop was for special people.

I thought he meant giants.

(eerie instrumental music) The Peoria State Hospital was an institution put here in Bartonville in 1902.

All of Illinois, the train system would deliver patients here on the hilltop.

Most of our early days, you had to be diagnosed as forever incurable at another institution before you would arrive here.

- On a beautiful June day in 1905, a gentleman came to us on the train system.

His malady, as suggested by his paperwork from the Chicagoland area, caused him to be completely mute.

- When he came off the train, they knew right away that he was a little bit different due to the fact that he couldn't answer any questions.

The head nurse decided just by looking over his paperwork that she would name him Manuel A. Bookbinder.

That's what he does, so that is who he became as a man.

- So Bookbinder being a physically fit individual, he was given a job on the burial court or the grave digging detail.

Being part of the funeral rites was one of the most important jobs at Peoria State Hospital because it was the last opportunity for patients to lay their fellow ones to rest.

While Bookbinder himself was mute, one thing that man could do was show emotion.

He was known for every funeral that he attended.

Every funeral he knew was happening at Peoria State Hospital, he would wail, and he would weep, and he would cry uncontrollably, very particularly at a elm tree that was very close to the center of the lot.

He only was here five short years.

But at that point, it kind of got to be a bit of an urban legend around the institution that if Bookbinder didn't cry at your funeral, you wouldn't cross onto Heaven.

Bookbinder himself ends up passing away.

He dies from tuberculosis here at Peoria State Hospital.

So the field behind Cemetery Two filled with hundreds of individuals ready to send Bookbinder off to his last place as he had sent so many others.

And the coffin was placed above the grave.

Your four strongest members of your burial core lower it down into the grave.

Well, as they do this for Bookbinder, these four men put tension on ropes expecting resistance and suddenly the coffin is lighter than air.

These four men fall on their backs and scramble away from the coffin because it was unnatural.

It was way lighter than it should have been.

They suddenly hear a very familiar wailing coming from a nearby elm tree.

Some people scream, some people run, a few people turn their heads, and at Bookbinder's tree is the visage of that man crying at his own funeral harder than he'd ever cried before.

(eerie instrumental music) - The nurses would tell stories of hearing him cry.

The patients would talk about how on rainy nights you could still hear Old Bookbinder cry.

He became popular in the community to a point where every Halloween they still tell the story of Old Bookbinder.

- So with Bookbinder, he was a patient of ours.

He was a grave digger.

He passed away from tuberculosis, and he was laid to rest in Cemetery Two of the Peoria State Hospital.

All of the ghost story of him crying at his own funeral and whatnot was an absolute fabrication by Dr.

Zeller.

(dramatic instrumental music) While he may have been a superintendent and a man of science, he was also a romantic and a storyteller.

He would take stories of some of our patients that he believed deserved to be told, embellish a few things, and then publish them out.

- Mostly in the 1900s, things began to change.

It was before that people were just locked in basements and basically kept away from the public.

At that point in time, their best ideas for someone who's having a manic fit was to tie down, regulate, chain down, use a bed saddle that kind of thing.

Under the leadership of Dr.

George Zeller, him and his wife Sophie decided that they wanted something new.

They wanted to treat people that had mental illness like their own family.

This institution gave them something that no one else gave them, and that's a home life.

When you have a movie on Friday, and a dance on Saturday, church service on Sunday, and a baseball game afterwards, you have a village more than you have an institution.

(light instrumental music) These restraints were actually shown in Dr.

Zeller's office.

He wanted to make sure he trained everyone.

He did not want straight jackets, straight gowns, or straight pajamas.

A strap cannot forgive, a strap cannot let go, but a human hand, a human hand lets go and then comforts a patient.

He regularly was evaluated by local journalists who would come in and ask him questions about why his institution was non-restraint.

He said the same thing over and over again, "A smile turneth away wrath."

- Usually people will latch onto the ghost story and let it run wild because they believe that a good story is better than the truth that's out there.

- Those old ghost stories is what people remember.

It's unfortunate because this was an amazing institution.

- Most people just don't know the true history of Peoria State Hospital.

They latch on to the word "asylum" and assume horror stories.

Bookbinder was a wonderful representation of what all of the individuals out in this cemetery are.

These were loved ones.

These were family members.

These were people with their own loves, cares, and desires.

- Bookbinder is an amazing story, and there's so much to who he was, and we're proud we can still talk about Old Book because the whispers, the cries, who he was as a man and who this was as an institution, that's still here for people to come and visit.

- [Interviewee] There are still paranormal stories at Peoria State Hospital.

They're all just not horror.

- So when people talk to us about ghost stories, and they regularly ask, "Are we a haunted location?"

Do we hear voices?

Absolutely.

Do the doors open and close on their own?

On the regular.

Most definitely we are haunted, but what we're haunted by is the passion of people that actually felt loved here on the hilltop.

And for whatever reason they remain, we're glad they're here.

(gentle music fading) (insects trilling)