The population grew rapidly for several reasons. First, some medical personnel and caregivers had a goal of sending all developmentally disabled persons to insititutions.
Also, judges sometimes sent people to the facility because they were poor or orphans with no one to care for them.
In one well-known case, the state removed residents of Malaga Island off Phippsburg from the island in 1912. Many of the residents were mixed race and some, when removed from the island, were sent to the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded.
Graves in the cemetery at Malaga were dug up and reinterred at the Maine School for the Feeble-Minded cemetery.
