When Millbrook went psychedelic

MILLBROOK — At the junction of Route 44 and Franklin Avenue, there is a wonderful  stone edifice — a gatehouse that inspires the imagination. 

On Thursday, March 15, the Millbrook Historical Society and New York State Historian, Devin Lander, shared some of the secrets beyond the door. Of course, the period discussed was decades ago, but many of the 106 people who attended the March meeting remembered those times, or knew of people who did.

The Hitchcock Estate is 2,500 acres; it’s set along Route 44, amid farms and homes. The estate was home to some famous faces in the ‘60s, who enjoyed the scenery, but were also heavily enmeshed in the drug culture of the day.

The Hitchcock Estate was owned by Billy, Tommy and Peggy Hitchcock, heirs to the Mellon fortune. It was the early 1960s, and the Hitchcocks were familiar with the work of Timothy Leary. Leary was a psychologist at Harvard who was doing work that at the time was considered radical, advocating for the research and use of psychedelic drugs like LSD.  

The March talk on Leary shared some of that history.

Leary’s colleague, Richard Alpert, was fired from Harvard after  reportedly giving drugs to a graduate student — not in the course of research. Leary had decided to leave Harvard at the end of the same semester. Most of the Harvard faculty didn’t share in the opinions of Leary and Alpert, said Lander, though the Hitchcocks rented the estate to Leary.

Leary used the drug himself, said Lander, believing that it expanded one’s mind and would bring the user his own truths. He coined phrases such as “turn on, tune in, drop out.”  A former West Point cadet, before his time at Harvard, Leary served in the U.S. Army while taking courses in psychology at Georgetown and Ohio State universities.

Leary also married, and upon leaving the service decided to pursue an academic career. He and his wife, Marianne, had two children, but the marriage was unhappy, plagued by infidelity and excessive alcohol consumption. His wife committed suicide in 1955.

From 1957 through 1963, Leary did research in Mexico, discovering psychedelic mushrooms. Taking them transformed his life.

When he and Alpert went to the estate in Millbrook in 1963, they planned to set up a commune. There they hoped to find within themselves their individual divinity. They did this through drugs, yoga, meditation, group therapy sessions and, at times, with LSD group sessions.

During the five years Leary lived in Millbrook, many people, both famous and infamous, passed through. Among them were Tom Wolfe, Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters, Maynard Ferguson, Allen Ginsberg and R.D. Lang.

Leary was raising his daughter, Susan, and his son, Jack, who were in their teens at the time. In 1965, he met Rosemary Woodruff, who also came to live at the estate.

Over that period of years, which have been described as a time of endless parties, breakthroughs and break downs, serious research became less and less. There were raids by local law enforcement as well as the FBI. 

Lander said the village, by accounts from the local press at the time, accepted the situation. There were no confrontations. Originally the group was small, consisting of six adults and seven children. They were mostly confined to the estate, but did have some interactions with local residents. They were highly educated, most having Ph.D. degrees.

Later, however, the Merry Pranksters conducted pranks that weren’t merry at all. They set off firebombs and also had financial problems, because none of them worked. 

The group at the estate brought in tourists, opening the house to guests, and Leary lectured. He also performed, showing psychedelic effects without using psychedelics — remember lava lamps and blacks lights? They also did yoga, played with coloring food and offered macrobiotic meals, which brought the group both money and notoriety.

Leary, his wife and daughter were denied entry into Mexico in 1965. Leary had a small amount of marijuana on him, and he was jailed in Laredo. After that, he went on the attack of the establishment.

Lander said other things conspired against him; several articles were published about the negative effects of LSD. 

In 1966, G. Gordon Liddy and Larry Quinlan raided the estate but only found marijuana. Leary was writing “New Religion; the Sacramental Use of LSD,” at the time, which incorporated his new religion.

In the meantime, The Millbrook Roundtable reported that groups formed, “whipped up hysteria.” By 1966-67, there were 50 to 60 people living at the estate. The traffic was horrendous. There were road blocks due to the traffic and there were raids, and people were searched at traffic stops. What had been a peaceful and accepted beginning for the Leary group turned into mayhem, and the sheriff felt the heat. The Hitchcocks ended up asking Leary and his bunch to leave, and Millbrook soon returned to the peaceful village it had been prior to the Leary invasion.

Today, many scientific advances have been made using new psychedelic drugs. Some scientists blame Leary for the bad publicity psychedelic drugs received, and feel it halted research for years. Now, research is being done on the drugs that got such a bad rap through Leary, but which could possibly become the drugs that can cure many modern day ailments.