USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > The town and city of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the aboriginal period to the year eighteen hundred and ninety-five. Volume III > Part 32
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In 1872 he married Charlotte E. Pellet of Deckertown. They have a son, Harry, who is a student at the College of Pharmacy in New York, and a daughter, Emma.
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CHAPTER XLIV.
EARLY PHILANTHROPY-MISSIONS TO THE HEATHEN-SEVERITY TOWARDS PAUPERS-NEGLECT OF THE INSANE-POORHOUSES-OUT-DOOR AID - POORHOUSE KEEPERS - BUREAU OF RELIEF IN 1893 - UNITED CHARITIES- THE HOSPITAL -ORIGIN-GRADUAL GROWTH-CON- TRIBUTIONS BY THE PEOPLE-THE WILSON HOMESTEAD-ADDITIONS TO IT-LIBERAL GIFTS-OFFICERS-ROSEMARY COT-HOSPITAL AID SOCIETY-E. L. DEFOREST -INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL -THE KING'S DAUGHTERS-BOYS' CLUB-YOUNG WOMEN'S FRIENDLY LEAGUE - HEBREW PHILANTHROPHY-HUMANE EFFORT-MISS WELTON-EARLY CLOSING - INDIAN ASSOCIATION - TEMPERANCE BEFORE 1800 - A STATE TEMPERANCE SOCIETY IN 1829-A LOCAL SOCIETY IN 1842 -FLUCTUATIONS-EIGHTEEN YEARS OF PROHIBITION-"NO LICENSE" IN 1876 - CAMPAIGN IN 1893 - " WAYSIDE INN "- - TEMPERANCE REFORM LEAGUE-TEMPERANCE FRATERNITIES-WOMEN'S SOCIETIES - A RESCUE MISSION-H. B. GIBBUD.
I N a discourse of singular simplicity, beauty and historical sug- gestiveness, delivered at the centennial celebration of Litch- field county on August 14, 1851, Horace Bushnell said that "our fathers and mothers of the century past had, in truth, no dejected classes, no disability, only here and there a drone of idle- ness, or a sporadic case of vice and poverty." This is a gracious view of an age which he makes golden even under the unromantic name of the age of Homespun. It is true only by comparison. The times and the people were changing-coming upon the age of emigration, travel, trade, machinery, and of philanthropic effort, when, as Dr. Bushnell said, "so many schemes are on foot to raise the weak, when the friends of the dejected classes of the world are proposing even to reorganize society itself for their benefit, try- ing to humanize punishments, to kindle hope in disability, and nurse depravity into a condition of comfort." But even the age of Homespun had its schemes of philanthropy and charity, its mis- sionary and reformatory works. Out of this very county of Litch- field, whose early history is so closely identified with our own, pro- ceeded the impulses and the beginnings of great beneficent enter- prises, and at this same celebration some of them were commemo- rated.
When we take into account the religious character of the people. and the religious beliefs of the times, it need not surprise us that
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the early philanthropic movements were largely in the direction of foreign missions. It was forty years before this time, in 1810, that four young students at Andover seminary offered themselves to the General association of Massachusetts to be missionaries of Christ to the heathen. It was to carry out the general object to which these men had consecrated themselves that the association instituted the board which organized itself at Farmington, in this state, on September 5, 1810, as the American Board of Commission- ers for Foreign Missions. One of these students was Samuel J. Mills, a native of Torrington, and he served the cause in Africa and afterward was sent out to explore the Mississippi valley, then an unknown country, by the missionary society of Connecticut. He was a son of that Torrington clergyman of the same name, the inspiration of whose voice and labors, together with; those of Por- ter, Bellamy, Backus and Hooker, gave to the region hereabout a leading place in ecclesiastical history and original power in mission and reform endeavors. In his admirable address, delivered at this Litchfield centennial, Samuel Church, LL. D., chief justice of the state, said of Mr. Mills the younger :
The noble cause of foreign missions in this country is deeply indebted to him as ·one of its most zealous and active projectors and friends. Another of the most splendid charities of any age or country-the Colonization society-owes its exist- ·ence to the efforts of this gentleman; and his name will be cherished by the philan- thropists of the world, along with those of Howard and Wilberforce.
An outcome of this missionary impulse, to which only a refer- ence can be made, was the establishment in 1813 of a missionary society in Litchfield county, auxiliary to the American Board, which in the first forty years of its existence raised and paid out the sum of $125,000, a large amount measured by the standard of the first half of the century. Add to this work of the Congregational organizations the benevolent offerings of the Episcopalians, Metho- dists and Baptists, and the sum is a noble contribution of a people of small possessions and limited income. It may be added that the philanthrophy and sympathy which had begun to manifest them- selves in such ways as these were centred in due time upon objects nearer home, and the philanthropic and reformatory organizations of a later date were the beautiful result.
THE CARE OF THE POOR.
References in Volume I of this History (on pages 263, 289-291 and 372-379) show that down to the close of the Revolutionary war the care of the poor was largely a matter of duty and necessity and not of
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kindly charity. "Poverty was considered a crime, consequent upon the sin of idleness." . Deacon Judd's transgression of the law in harboring William Stannard and wife "out of pity," after they had been warned to depart from the town, is cited as an act of tender- heartedness rare in the town records. On the contrary, the spirit of those times of justice rather than mercy is exhibited in the act of rewarding the man who did get this pauper out of town with the gift of his town rate for the year. By the beginning of the new century the problem of the poor became serious enough to suggest the need of a better system in their care, and of union with other towns to this end. In April, 1814, "agents to confer with agents of other towns" on the expediency of building a workhouse for their joint use were appointed, and in February, 1815, it was voted to "unite with Watertown and Middlebury in building a poor- house." The cost was limited to $1400, of which Waterbury's share was to be fourteen twenty-ninths, Watertown's ten twenty-ninths and Middlebury's five twenty-ninths. One strong motive for this proposed union, perhaps, was the desire to put an end to irritating controversy and litigation in determining to which of two towns in dispute the care of a pauper belonged. The records show frequent claims for such care by one town upon another, and other claims in return. The establishment of a union poorhouse might be expected to make easier the adjustment of such claims. If also it should have removed the necessity of driving alien paupers out of town, or turn- ing them back upon neighboring towns on which they had a better claim, it would have spared the tender-hearted reader of town records in these kinder years many pangs of pain and indignation over what seems to be the unfeeling severity of our ancestors. Per- haps the floating population had increased in number and declined in character as the result of the war, and the towns were burdened with a class called "transient " half a century before, and "tramps", half a century later .*
The union poorhouse was not realized. Three years after the proposal was made, Waterbury considered the plan of "hiring" a convenient house for one or two years and employing a suitable man to keep it, where the poor of the town should be "boarded." They were to be set to work, in return for food and shelter. This worked so well or so ill that on December I the selectmen were directed to "purchase " a house. On December 14 they were author- ized to spend $750, and on March 11, 1819, authority was given to
* The treatment of a woman, Mercy Minor, in this harsh way, who was warned out of town in 1764 as 'a transient person," would suggest that the word " transient " implied loss of character as well as lack of abode.
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sell lands belonging to the town and apply the avails thereof "in payment of the poorhouse they have purchased for the town." In November, 1822, the contract for taking charge of the poorhouse and of the poor was let out to the highest bidder. A committee was appointed to examine into the condition of the inmates, and, if found to be not comfortably supported, to provide such support as is judged reasonable at the charge of the contractors. One of the earliest, perhaps the first, of the keepers of the town poor under this system, and until the building of the almshouse in 1838-39, was Daniel Scott, first at Waterville and later at his farm on the Watertown road, near the present almshouse. He was paid a fixed price per week for each person. Mr. F. J. Kingsbury's recollections of this period present a plain picture of the system in operation:
There was for some years one idiot at least who was little removed from a brute. He was not kept with the other town poor, but was taken care of, or rather neglected, by another person in another part of the town, under a special contract. There were at times some of the town poor who were slightly insane, but I remember no cases that were violent, and the fashion of those times was to let the insane run until they killed somebody. We had plenty of them. I remem- ber one woman who kept house and took care of her family, after a fashion, but who did all sorts of wild things, and would not now be considered safe to be at large. I remember a man who was very crazy and lived in a hut in the woods (where he was finally found dead), who used to chop wood at people's doors, and the wonder is that he did not kill some one. I have seen him whirl his axe and strike it into the logs in a sort of frenzy for several minutes consecutively, after which the paroxysm would pass off and he would go on chopping in an ordinary way. There were a number of old women slightly off their centre, who used to gather herbs and roots and make a pretence of selling them,-a form of beggary" which deceived no one. I think the theory of those times was that everybody was more or less crazy, and they did not draw the lines very rigidly; besides, there was nothing else to be done. If they got too wild, their friends tied them or shut them up, or gave them an opportunity to drown themselves.
In 1837 a plan for a change in the system was agitated, and at the town meeting held on the first Monday in October of that year Timothy Porter, Edwin E. Lewis, whose place was taken later by Orrin Hotchkiss, and Bennet Bronson were appointed a committee to inquire into the expediency of establishing a workhouse and to report a plan at the next meeting (see page 682). At the next meet- ing, October 23, and at the next, April 2, 1838, the committee was not ready to report. On April 16, 1838, it was "voted that Stephen Nich- ols's dwelling house in the town of Middlebury be and the same is hereby constituted and established as workhouse or house of correc- tion for the town of Waterbury according to law." This seems to have been a temporary expedient, for on November 12, 1838, the commit- tee made a report, and another committee was appointed "to trans-
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act the business relating to the workhouse as instituted in the above report, namely, Timothy Porter, Elias Cook, William H. Scovill,. Orrin Hotchkiss, William H. Tomlinson." On December 10, 1838, the committee was authorized "to contract with Joseph Bronson, 2d, for his farm on such terms as they shall agree upon, or any other farm and buildings which they shall judge proper for that purpose." The committee was also instructed to put the buildings in suitable condition and erect new buildings and make other necessary improvements and alterations. Part of the money to pay for this expense was borrowed from the agent of the town deposit fund, by authority given by the General Assembly. On July 8, 1839,
RAILROAD
CROSSING
THE ALMSHOUSE OF 1839.
it was "voted that the poorhouse of this town be and the same is hereby constituted and established a workhouse or house of cor- rection for the town of Waterbury according to law."
Thus were purchased the farm and farm buildings which served the town as an almshouse, house of correction and town farm until the present structure was erected. The only material change was made in 1868, when a committee consisting of P. G. Rockwell, Wil- liam Brown and H. V. Welton was appointed to act with the select- men in making alterations and improvements at an expense not to exceed $8000. Their report showed the actual expense to have been $3470.05. On October 1, 1849, the selectmen were authorized to erect a building on the town land for a hospital at a cost not
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exceeding $400. On January 8, 1870, Willard Spencer, Green Ken- drick and Nathan Dikeman were appointed, with authority, to con- vey to the Watertown and Waterbury Railroad company a part of the town farm for the railroad track. On May 10, 1871, the town voted to offer an acre from the farm for a jail, in case the new county then proposed was established. The present almshouse-a large and handsome building of brick-was completed in 1893, at a cost of about $80,000.
During the half century that elapsed between the building of the old almshouse and the new the system of caring for the poor and for minor criminals contin- ued with only slight changes, growing to be one of the most im- portant and most expensive depart- ments of town ad- ministration. Along with it has grown up also an extravagant sys- THE ALMSHOUSE, 1893. tem of poor relief outside of the almshouse. Both of these systems were investigated in 1894 by a committee consisting of Charles G. Root, Thomas D: Wells and Edward G. Kilduff. Its report showed that the cost of the almshouse had increased from $2562.94 in 1869 to $10,529.29 in 1893, and the cost of outside poor from $3986.61 to $20,275.57. On recommendation of this committee a series of votes was passed in town meeting regulating in important particulars the giving of alms outside of the poorhouse. A storeroom was established from which staple articles of food were to be issued in place of orders heretofore given by the selectmen, which the recipients had used as cash at grocery stores. Restrictions were also placed on the amount of help in the form of rent, fuel and food to be given, and on the length of time during which a family could be assisted. Careful investigation and full reports were also required of the selectmen. It was ordered that supplies for the almshouse be pur- chased of the lowest bidder. The placing of the insane and the sick or injured in asylums and hospitals better adapted to their treat- ment was begun in 1880, and this item of expense to the town has increased from $1371.27 in that year to $7147.84 in 1893.
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The following is a list of keepers of the almshouse from 1839 to the present time:
Isaac B. Castle, Enos Chatfield, Henry Bradley, William M. Livingstone, G. T. Winslow, Willis W. Loveland, Stephen Roberts, Seymour Adams, G. T. Winslow, Edward Hough; Thomas A. Wooster, 1870-1875 ;* Joseph W. Sanford, 1875-1880; John A. Atwood, 1880-1881; Joseph W. Sanford, 1881-1882; Robert Fruin, 1882- 1887; George B. Sedgwick, 1887-1888; E. W. Pinney, 1888-1890; John C. Thomp- son, 1890-1892; Thomas Moran, since 1892.
The business depression which had prevailed with increasing severity since the latter part of 1892 culminated in the winter of 1893-4. In Waterbury there were more people out of employment than ever before in the history of the town, and the ordinary instru- mentalities of charity, private and organized, were insufficient to meet the demands upon them. The community was roused to a deep sense of its responsibility and its practical sympathy found expression in extraordinary effort and generous contributions. Meetings were held to discuss and recommend larger plans of relief and an appeal for official intervention resulted in the appropriation in town meeting of $20,000, in two installments of $10,000 each, from the public funds, to provide work for the needy. This sum was chiefly expended on the town roads, the road to Naugatuck obtain- ing by far the largest share. Although the season was unsuited for this kind of work, the town obtained a considerable return for its money in the improvement of this and other roads, and much want and suffering was relieved in this way. A public bureau was established in November, on Scovill street, to which large dona- tions of clothing and food were made and considerable sums of money were contributed. The proceeds of various entertainments, usually devoted to the special objects in which those who gave them were interested, were added to the funds of this bureau as well as the sums raised by subscription in large and small amounts. The Rev. H. G. Hoadley, who had been for a year and a half superin- tendent of Christian visitation and charity, took charge of the bureau and brought to its management his special knowledge and experience in the investigation and relief of the poor. The bureau was open more than four months and the report published at its closing, March 26, 1894, showed the work it had done to be in brief as follows :
* The year begins on April I. The dates of the earlier superintendents are uncertain. Mr. Castle was superintendent for several years following 1839. Mr. Winslow's two terms of service covered nine years. The above names and their order are obtained from the recollection of old residents, or superintendents who still survive, there being no records, either at the poorhouse or in the selectmen's office, except of times com - paratively recent.
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Amount received in cash, $2938.SI, of which $2182.70 was disbursed directly in charity and the balance paid for the expenses of conducting the bureau. The relief furnished was in the following forms: Cases examined 612, number assisted 488, groceries dispensed $1854.72, fuel $812, clothing and shoes $1948.81, miscel- laneous $91.97, total $4707.50. Donations in kind, as far as valuations were put upon them, amounted to $1658.54.
THE UNITED CHARITIES.
In May, 1894, plans for an organization of the charities of Water- bury were completed on the following basis: An association was to be formed, to be called the United Charities of Waterbury. The membership was to consist of the pastor and one lay representative of each church in the town (including the Roman Catholic churches), and of two delegates from each of the following organizations: The Directors of Christian Visitation and Charity, the Salvation Army, the King's Daughters, the Boys' club, the Hebrew Ladies' Benev- olent society and such other societies engaged in similar work as may hereafter be received by vote of the association. The select- men, the health officers of the town and the city, and the sanitary inspector were also made members ex officiis. A central office was established, the expense of which until January 1, 1896, was assumed by the Directors of Christian Visitation and Charity (see pages 573- 575). E. M. Dickinson was elected secretary for one year and was placed in charge of the central office on Leavenworth street.
THE DAY NURSERY.
At a special meeting of the United Charities on January 8, 1895, a report was presented by a special committee, consisting of Super- intendent E. M. Dickinson and Captain John Yorke of the Salvation Army, on the subject of a day nursery. After some discussion it was decided to open a day nursery as an experiment to be continued for three months. Rooms were fitted up in the building on Leaven- worth street in which the office of the United Charities was situ- ated, and the nursery was opened on February 25. During the eleven weeks following, there were 305 entries on the register, and the largest attendance of children on any one day was thirteen. The experiment was deemed successful; on May 13, at the annual meeting of the United Charities, it was decided to continue the nursery for at least a year, under the charge of a suitable matron, and Mrs. Minna A. Steinmeyer was appointed to the position. During the summer of 1895 the attendance was not large, but in the autumn, as soon as the schools were opened, it rapidly increased.
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THE ST. VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETY.
The St. Vincent de Paul society is one of the numerous organi -- zations of the parish of the Immaculate Conception. Its object is to relieve the wants of the worthy poor of the parish. It was organ- ized on February 1, 1895, and has about a hundred members. The president is William C. Keenan.
THE CITY HOSPITAL.
The Waterbury hospital was not a gift to the people of Water- bury. It is peculiarly the fruit of their own zeal and labor and philanthropy, and as such it must always be the object of their loving interest. Although its establishment must have been delayed but for a substantial appropriation by the state, a large gift of money by one generous man, a smaller but not less generous bequest by one prudent woman, and several individual contribu- tions to its funds and equipment that are noteworthy, nevertheless every page of its history testifies to its popular character. During six years a group of devoted men and women planned and worked for it, originated and carried out enterprises in its behalf that kindled public interest and touched the springs of sympathy and pecuniary help through all the community. The lists in successive annual reports of the hospital of those who cooperated in the work in various ways are a catalogue of the city's sources of charity and public spirit. The hospital has an admirable and adequate material equipment. Its cost was considerable and it is managed with a large view of human needs, so that the income from its invested funds is not sufficient to support it. It must depend in a measure for the present upon public benevolence, the chief source of which is the annual offering of the churches on Hospital Sunday, which falls on the third Sunday of April of each year.
The first published suggestion in reference to the establishment of a hospital in this city appeared in the Waterbury Republican of September 1, 1882, in an editorial entitled "Waterbury's Pressing Want." The paper was then owned and edited by J. Henry Mor- row, and the appeal in behalf of a hospital came from his pen. It was not long after this that F. J. Kingsbury suggested to C. H. Car- ter-at that time a member of the legislature-the desirableness of securing a charter for a hospital. A charter was obtained, which was approved March 14, 1883.
On December 1, 1884, at the suggestion of Dr. Edmund Rowland after an interview with Mr. Kingsbury, an informal meeting of the
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clergy of the city was called by Dr. Joseph Anderson, to consider how they could best cooperate with the corporators named in the charter of the hospital in securing the actual establishment of such an institution. At that meeting a committee consisting of the Rev. Drs. Anderson and Rowland and the Rev. Father W. A. Harty was appointed "to confer with the corporation and the physicians of the city in respect to the best method of presenting the subject to the people of Waterbury, and to determine on some mode of action." A meeting was called, December 8, at which as a result of discussion a committee on permanent organization was appointed, and a week later they reported a series of by-laws, which were considered one by one and adopted. At the first meeting of the directors the fol- lowing officers were appointed:
President, F. J. Kingsbury. Vice-president, A. S. Chase. Treasurer, A. M. Blakesley. Secretary, J. H. Bronson.
Executive committee, E. L. Frisbie, G. W. Beach, H. C. Griggs.
A medical staff was also appointed, as follows:
Consulting physicians and surgeons, G. L. Platt, Alfred North.
Visiting physicians and surgeons, W. H. Holmes, F. E. Castle, W. L. Barber, E. W. McDonald, C. S. Rodman, E. L. Griggs.
It was also voted that the proposal of the clergymen of the several churches of the city-that they should give their congregations opportunity to contribute to a Waterbury Hospital fund-be accept- - ed with thanks.
On the second Sunday of January, 1885, sermons in reference to the proposed hospital were preached in several of the Waterbury pulpits, and collections were made amounting to nearly $800. This sum was largely increased within a few months by the proceeds of a concert arranged and conducted by A. J. Blakesley, of a fair given by a sewing circle of German ladies, of a fair under the auspices of St. John's guild, and of a charity ball given at the City hall. On March 6 the subject of a suitable site for a hospital building was considered and on May 25 the executive committee reported that they had found the homestead of A. B. Wilson (see page 211) better suited for the purposes of a hospital than any other available site. But further action was postponed for a year, when at a directors' meeting (May 31, 1886) the executive committee "were requested to adopt such measures as they should deem best for securing the money necessary for the purchase of the Wilson property." Con- siderable sums of money had meantime been received from church
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