The northport Psychiatric Center was established in 1885 by Kings County in nearby Suffolk County, adjoining the "Society of St. Johnland" established by William Augustus Muhlenberg, prior to the merger of Kings County with Queens County, New York County, Richmond County, and the Bronx County, to form the modern New York City. The official name of the hospital in its first ten years was the "Kings County Asylum," taken from the name of the county that Brooklyn occupied. The hospital was revolutionary at the time in the sense that it was a departure from the asylums of folklore, which were overcrowded places where gross human-rights abuses often occurred. The asylum, built by Brooklyn to alleviate overcrowding in its own asylums, was a "Farm Colony" asylum, where patients worked in a variety of farm-related activities, such as feeding livestock and growing food, as this was considered to be a form of therapy for the at the time.
