USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from the year 1876 to the year 1916 > Part 19
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Mr. Durant offered two hundred dollars to Dr. Todd for the nucleus of a hospital fund, it was seriously estimated that half a million would be needed to erect and maintain a hospital for Pittsfield, then a town of about 10,000 inhabitants.
In 1874, there drifted across the sea from England, to find lodgment in the receptive brains of Pittsfield women, the idea of the cottage hospital for rural communities. It was expressed in a little book by an English physician, who believed that the essentials of a hospital were a roof, a bed, and a nurse, and that philanthropy, working in its ordinary channels, could always be relied upon to provide food and medical care. Considered from this point of view, the hospital problem in Pittsfield was plainly simplified. A massive building, manned by a permanent medical staff and supplied with the paraphernalia of Bellevue or the Massachusetts General, was seen to be unnecessary. Beginning about 1859, England had been dotted with these cottage hos- pitals; the first of them established in the United States was at Pittsfield, and by Pittsfield women; and its first advocates were Mrs. W. E. Vermilye, Miss Sarah D. Todd, Mrs. W. M. Root, and Mrs. Thomas F. Plunkett, who met to talk it over, one June morning, in Mrs. Plunkett's garden.
It was then decided that newspaper notices should announce a meeting of women in the "lecture room" of the First Church, on June twentieth, 1874. Dr. J. F. A. Adams was asked to ad- dress it. Dr. Adams was already an experienced student of hos- pital science, but it appears that he wisely divorced his remarks, at that initial meeting, from technical detail. He presented the hospital question, so far as it concerned Pittsfield, as one of household management and housewifely ability; and his au- dience of New England housewives, who might have been con- fused or discouraged by medical terms and a string of statistical figures, felt sure that here was a field of public service where they would be energetically at home. They determined immediately to form an association of women for the purpose of raising money to found a cottage hospital in Pittsfield.
The method selected, that of holding a "bazar" or over- grown church fair, probably commended itself merely because it was familiar, and it might now be considered neither econom-
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ical nor efficient; but it enlisted the arduous preparatory labor of so many individuals that its reward was not measurable in money. No event of a similar character ever had so stirred the town or promoted, to such a degree, a fraternal relation among its Christian people. In the meantime, sympathy with the undertaking was emphatically quickened by the piteous death, at the village lockup, of the victim of a railroad accident. The wooden police station on School Street, primitive and unclean, was then the town's only emergency hospital and public mor- tuary chapel. Its shameful condition was vividly described in a stinging letter by Rev. John F. Clymer, which a local newspaper published after the fatal accident; and the community was there- by the more forcibly impelled to action.
"The Grand Union Hospital Bazar" was opened on Septem- ber fifteenth, 1874, at the lecture room of the First Church, and was continued for five days. Decorated booths for the sale of useful and ornamental articles were equipped by the women of various churches and social organizations, a restaurant catered to the multitude, a series of concerts was presented, and in an ante- room Col. Walter Cutting regaled spectators with feats of leger- demain. At the close of the bazar, the managers found them- selves in possession of nearly $6,000. A portion of this had come in the form of direct donations of cash. The people of St. Joseph's Church, for example, thus helped generously; their sub- scription was headed by Father Purcell, and of the box which con- tained the contribution of his parishioners, the treasurer of the bazar wrote: "First came the tens, and fives, and twos, and ones in bills, then followed package after package of 'shin-plasters'- the little bills of war times-and finally roll after roll of pennies, carefully counted and marked." Here evidently was a project which had captured the popular heart.
Legal incorporation was soon effected, and on November twenty-seventh, 1874, a charter was granted by the Common- wealth to fourteen women, who had associated themselves, ac- cording to its terms, "for the purpose of establishing and main- taining in Pittsfield, a House of Mercy, for the care of the sick and disabled, whether in indigent circumstances or not". The name, House of Mercy, seemed to carry with it a certain bene-
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diction, for Dr. Jolin Todd, who had suggested it in the Thanks- giving Day sermon already mentioned, had died in 1873. The by-laws provided that the members of the corporation should be the incorporators and "such other persons as shall be chosen members by the Corporation, and shall accept membership therein by signing the by-laws, and by paying annually three dollars." The first officers elected by the corporation were: presi- dent, Mrs. John Todd; vice-presidents, Mrs. C. H. Bigelow, Mrs. W. E. Vermilye, Mrs. T. F. Plunkett, and Miss Sarah D. Todd; clerk, Miss Sarah E. Sandys; treasurer, Mrs. W. M. Root; corresponding secretary, Mrs. E. H. Kellogg; recording secre- tary, Mrs. N. F. Lamberson; directors, Mrs. Owen Coogan, Mrs. H. M. Peirson, Mrs. John Devanny, Mrs. B. F. Fuller, Mrs. John Haeger, Mrs. Albert Tolman, Mrs. A. N. Allen, Mrs. A. D. Francis, Mrs. William Pollock, Mrs. Charles Bailey, Mrs. Edward Learned, Mrs. H. G. Davis, Mrs. O. E. Brewster, Mrs. Joseph Gregory, Mrs. C. N. Emerson, Mrs. F. F. Read, Mrs. L. F. Sperry, and Mrs. C. C. Childs.
It is needful to observe that, in their undertaking, these women had no pattern by which they might be guided; they were obliged to break new ground. They had no adequate financial endowment. Their income was sufficient to pay merely the rent of a small dwelling house. In the press of hard times, they faced the task of almost daily begging, and begging through an or- ganization planned on unsectarian lines then untried in Pittsfield and rare in this country. The practical result at which they aimed, that is, a cottage hospital, was not visible on this side of the Atlantic. Even the profession of trained nursing was still to be imported, for the first training school for nurses in the United States was opened in 1874, at Bellevue, while the founders of the House of Mercy were holding their bazar.
They were fortunate, however, in the possession of skilled, tactful, and enthusiastic counselors. Dr. J. F. A. Adams, Dr. W. E. Vermilye, and Dr. F. K. Paddock were not only able in their vocation; they were men also of alert mind and kindly soul, quick to perceive the wide benefit to the town which the House of Mercy might accomplish, and they freely gave to it from the beginning their untiring assistance. The first legal
JABEZ L. PECK 1826-1895
WILLIAM R. PLUNKETT 1831-1903
REV. EDWARD H. PURCELL 1827-1891
REV. JONATHAN L. JENKINS 1830-1913
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advisers of the directorate were James M. Barker and William R. Plunkett, whose interest in the hospital ended only with their lives. But it was, after all, the humane spirit of the people at large upon which the women of the House of Mercy depended. This did not fail them. The record of voluntary gifts made to the young hospital is impressive-the contents of the toy savings banks, the abatements of the tradesmen's bills, the proceeds of concerts, of amateur theatricals, and of baseball games, the daily contributions of vegetables and housekeeping supplies. It ap- pears that every class of men, women, and children in Pittsfield was included among its supporters.
A cottage, of which the hospital accommodation was eight beds, was rented on Francis Avenue, near Linden Street, and there the House of Mercy opened its door on January first, 1875. In the printed announcement of this progress, the management said to the public: "The House of Mercy, representing no sect, or clique, no overshadowing influential person or family, but that divine spirit of pity for the suffering which dwells in multi- tudes of gentle hearts, is thus placed in your midst.
Hereafter, none need to lie down at night, feeling that any poor sick person is perishing for lack of needed help; and though we incur the title of everlasting beggars, in asking the material aid which shall perpetuate the systematic charity now planted in this community, we will promise to desist, when sickness and suffering and poverty shall cease among the children of men". During its first year the little institution cared for twenty-two inmates. Miss Martha Goodrich, who had served in military hospitals, was its superintendent, housekeeper, and entire nurs- ing staff. The medical director was Dr. J. F. A. Adams; the surgical director was Dr. F. K. Paddock; Dr. O. S. Roberts, Dr. C. D. Mills, and Dr. W. E. Vermilye were attending physi- cians.
In 1876 Mrs. John Todd resigned the presidency, and Mrs. Thomas F. Plunkett was elected to that office. A building fund was already in process of subscription. In 1877 it was sufficient to warrant the purchase of a site and the consideration of archi- tects' plans. 104 subscribers, resident in Pittsfield, Lee, Dalton, Lenox, Great Barrington, and Stockbridge, contributed to the
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fund. A triangular lot was purchased at the intersection of North, Tyler and First Streets, where the corner stone of the new building was hallowed, on September first, 1877, by the venerable and merciful hands of Mrs. Curtis T. Fenn. "What tender prayers rose heavenward on that golden afternoon, when, in the slanting sunshine, the corner stone of the House of Mercy was laid!" So spoke Judge Barker, in his address at the inaugu- ration of the first city government, fourteen years later.
The building was ready for occupancy in January, 1878. It was a two-storied, wooden structure, with accommodations for thirteen patients. The cost of the land and building was $10,600, of which more than $500 was contributed in labor and material. The subscribed capital was thereby exhausted, and the hospital was dependent upon voluntary gifts for its yearly support. During the first three years in the new house, the re- ceipts from pay patients were about one-seventh of the running expenses, despite the fact that many supplies were given. The daily compulsion of minute economies, and the absence of any precedent of conduct and policy, taxed severely the abilities of the pioneer directorates; and from that school of experience was graduated a group of women whose devotion to the House of Mercy was a valuable and unique social force in Pittsfield. Un- deniably, a hospital to be sustained so largely by current gifts required from its officers a sort of consecration, which should carry them through great labors.
It was not long before a few bequests became available, and soon began the endowment of free beds by organizations, indi- viduals, and towns throughout the county. In 1883, Mrs. John H. Coffing gave, in memory of her husband, a mortuary chapel. The list of annual subscribers was gradually lengthened. Never- theless, so urgent was the growing demand upon the hospital that the cares of the managers did not decrease, while upon the faithful shoulders of the doctors, always giving their services without charge, the burden was multiplied.
The important forward step was taken, in 1884, of the estab- lishment of a training school for nurses. This owed its inception to Mrs. Solomon N. Russell and Mrs. James H. Hinsdale, and during the first year there were four pupils. The energetic di-
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rector was Miss Anna G. Clement, who assumed the duties of matron of the House of Mercy in 1884, and remained identified with the institution until 1913.
In 1887, Henry W. Bishop, a Berkshire-born resident of Chi- cago, expressed a desire to endow in Pittsfield a training school for nurses, as a memorial to his son, and proposed that the school, although its property was to be legally vested in a separate cor- poration, should be placed under the practical control of the House of Mercy. This generous offer was gratefully accepted by the latter, which made a conveyance of land north of its buildings for the site of the new institution; and on August twenty- eighth, 1889, was dedicated the Henry W. Bishop 3rd Memorial Training School for Nurses. The graceful, brick building, three stories in height, not only afforded adequate room for the in- struction of nurses, but also nearly doubled the capacity of the hospital building, with which a corridor connected it.
Mr. Bishop's fine gift was effectively employed. The en- rolment of pupil nurses increased from fifteen in 1889 to sixty-five in 1913, when the supervising committee was forced to decide that no larger number could be received. Mrs. Solomon N. Russell served annually as chairman of this committee until her death in 1908; she was then succeeded by Mrs. Edward T. Slo- cum. The number of graduates from 1887 to, and inclusive of, 1915 was 389.
Private nursing, outside the hospital, was undertaken by senior pupils, beginning in 1886, under an arrangement, soon afterward altered, whereby the money paid for their services was turned into the treasury of the House of Mercy; but to the com- munity at large the prime and direct value of the school has been the work performed by the pupils within the hospital walls. That the two institutions were coincident in purpose was recog- nized in 1893, when the trustees of the school corporation voted to assign the property and endowments in their hands to the House of Mercy, the consent of the donors and of the latter insti- tution having been obtained. Thereafter the school assumed its doubly honorable title, "The Henry W. Bishop 3rd Memorial Training School for Nurses, belonging to the House of Mercy Hospital". The spirit inculcated by the school was manifested
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when the graduates, of their own initiative, began the charitable work of district nursing among the homes of the poor, and them- selves maintained it until its support was assumed by the Visiting Nurse Association.
Following the stimulation of Mr. Bishop's gift, the develop- ment of the House of Mercy was rapid. In 1891, the officers were enabled, through the generosity of William F. Milton, to build an isolation pavilion; George H. Laflin erected and equip- ped a surgical building in 1893; and in the previous ycar a build- ing for a men's ward and for domestic purposes was added, largely by means of a bequest from James Brewer Cranc. But the demands upon the hospital had also increased; in 1892, for cxample, it cared for patients from twenty-five towns and vil- lages outside of Pittsfield; and not long afterward it was occa- sionally compelled to decline such applications because of lack of room.
The will of Solomon N. Russell had made the corporation owner of a broad tract of unoccupied land on North Street, oppo- site its crowded lot, and at the annual meeting of 1900 Mrs. James H. Hinsdale and Mrs. Solomon N. Russell announced their intention of raising money to construct thereon a new main building. Within a few weeks they procured contributions amounting to $54,680. Mrs. Hinsdale, Mrs. Russell, and Mrs. Slocum were appointed a building committee, and on March sixth, 1902, the result of their faithful labors was opencd for public inspection. It was a brick building of three stories, 200 feet in length and containing sixty patients' apartments, besides many rooms for those purposes required by the most advanced scientific hospital management. The architect was H. Neill Wilson of Pittsfield. The former hospital buildings were moved across North Street and faced with brick, and all were connected with the new building. Land on the south, as far as the inter- section of North and Wahconah Streets, was anonymously given to the House of Mercy, and a substantial iron fence, surrounding its entire plot, was paid for by George H. Laflin. The contri- butions to the new establishment of the hospital finally amounted to nearly $100,000. Much of this was accredited to "unknown donors". After the death of Miss Maria L. Warriner, in 1911,
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it was disclosed that she had been donor of the most considerable single gift to the construction fund, and the central division of the main building received the name of "The Warriner Me- morial".
At the close of 1902, the first year of the enlarged hospital, twenty-five of its beds were supported by endowment, and sixty- seven of the rooms in the three buildings had been furnished by individuals, towns, churches, and other organizations. In- creased opportunity, of course, multiplied current expenses. A regulation provided that "a charge of from $10 to $20 a week will be made to those able to pay". The receipts from this source were, in 1902, $7,766 from 322 patients, most of whom were able only in part to reimburse the hospital for their maintenance and care. The outright charity patients numbered 167, while those listed as "doubtful" and "by endowment" brought the total to more than 500. The running expenses annually exceeded $30,000. There was reported to be a weekly gap between ordi- nary income and outgo, in 1902, of about $350, and this the women of the management, as undaunted as ever, succeeded in bridging by constant appeals to the generosity of the people of central and southern Berkshire. Said the president's report of 1904: "In calculating on the latent spirit of Christian benevo- lence, that we felt sure would respond to the wants of the sick and needy, we were not mistaken. A perpetual procession of gifts has been brought to our doors". It would have been fatu- ous, however, to expect this procession, had not the public first been made to feel confident that its gifts were used with skill and economy, and that the original democratic and non-sectarian lines, upon which the institution was drawn, were rigorously ob- served.
During its forty years of existence, the most valuable gift which the House of Mercy has received has been the daily and nightly services of the many charitable doctors of Pittsfield, who have constituted the medical and surgical board, and of whose careful toil in the hospital gratitude has been the sole compensa- tion. Dr. J. F. A. Adams was medical director until 1883; in 1883, Dr. W. E. Vermilye served the hospital in that capacity; in 1884, Dr. Adams resumed the directorship; and since 1885,
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Dr. Henry Colt has been the chairman of the medical and surgi- cal staff. There were in 1875 five attendant physicians and surgcons on this board; thirteen in 1885; sixtcen, including oculists, in 1895; in 1915 the professional staff at the hospital numbered twenty-four. The first permanent house officer, or interne, was added to the medical staff in 1910.
An out-patient department was initiated in 1882, when Zenas M. Crane of Dalton gave a "Berkshire Fund" to the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston, upon the stipula- tion that experts from that institution should conduct a free clinic, once in three months, at the House of Mercy; an eye and ear clinic under its own supervision was instituted at the Pitts- field hospital in 1895. Medical and surgical cases treated as out-patients were first mentioned in the medical report of 1898, when their number was eighty, and in 1915 this department em- ployed the services daily of two doctors, and cared for 261 new patients. In the same year the number of new patients admitted to the out-patient orthopedic, eye, ear, nose, and throat clinics was 537.
As a memorial to Dr. Franklin K. Paddock, who died in 1901, his friends presented to the hospital a new operating room; and by the John Todd Crane Pathological Fund, given to the House of Mercy in 1910 by Mr. and Mrs. Frederick G. Crane of Dalton, a pathological laboratory was equipped and endowed.
To catalogue completely even the more considerable gifts to the House of Mercy is hardly consonant with the function of these pages; but it is right to emphasize again that the existence and the efficiency of the hospital, while a noble monument to the charitable labor of Pittsfield women and Pittsfield doctors, are also a striking testimonial to the philanthropic spirit of all of the people of central Berkshire. Worth noting, too, is the fact that manifestations of this spirit in behalf of the House of Mercy were necessarily perennial and not sporadic. In the maturity as well as in the youth of the hospital, its management was compelled to rely largely upon current gifts to meet current expenses. The president's report thus stated the case, for example, in 1912: "There seems to be a widespread and erroneous impression that because the House of Mercy has received many large gifts of
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money it is a very rich institution, and consequently can take care of itself with no help from the public. . The treasurer's report shows that the income last year from investments was $10,367.42 and the earnings of the hospital $35,301.77, while the expenses were $62,089.51, leaving $16,420.32 to be contributed by its friends".
The officers' reports for 1915 give impressive evidence of the progress achieved in the years since the birth of the House of Mercy in 1874. The number of corporate members had risen from fourteen to 370. During its first year the hospital cared for twenty-two patients; in the year 1915 the number of pa- tients received was 2,213. The sum of $6,000, which was the en- tire working capital of the institution in 1874, had been increased in forty years to an invested fund for all purposes of $345,000. The expense of maintenance for the first fiscal year was $1,400; it was $80,000 for the twelve months ending in November, 1915. The hospital in 1915 contained 150 beds, of which fifty-one were endowed. Eighty-five rooms had been furnished by churches, organizations, and individuals.
Miss Martha Goodrich served as matron and superintendent until 1880. She was followed by Miss Lucy Creemer, and Miss Mary A. Field, each of whom filled the position for two years. Miss Anna G. Clement began her quarter-century of service on May first, 1884. In 1909 Miss Anna G. Hayes was appointed to the position, but illness enforced her resignation in 1910, when she was succeeded by Miss Mary M. Marcy. Miss Clement, Miss Hayes, and Miss Marcy were the superintendents also of the training school for nurses; and in 1910 Miss Clement, to whose ardent and intelligent enthusiasm the House of Mercy was a heavy debtor, returned to the school for a period of three years as instructor.
The successive presidents of the House of Mercy have been Mrs. John Todd, who was clected in 1874, Mrs. Thomas F. Plunkett, chosen in 1876, Mrs. James H. Hinsdale, in 1907, and Mrs. Charles L. Hibbard, in 1911. Mrs. Washington M. Root, Mrs. Charles E. West, Mrs. Frank C. Backus, and Mrs. William H. Hall have been the treasurers.
For scores of other Pittsfield women, in addition to those
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casually named in this chapter, the service of the House of Mercy was almost a life work. The detail of hospital management, the collection and conservation of means of hospital support, the solution of a hospital's large problems practical, problems theoret- ical, and problems diplomatic, were tasks which tested uniquely the women of Pittsfield. The value of their service has been solidly proved and by the community gratefully acknowledged. The quality of their service animated many able women of fol- lowing generations with a noble resolution to carry on the unsel- fish work courageously. The inspiration of their service was clear. Prayer opened the meeting in 1874 at which the House of Mercy was initiated; reading of the Scriptures has been a part of the procedure at every annual meeting of the corporation thereafter.
A typical worker for the House of Mercy was Mrs. Thomas F. Plunkett, who was for thirty years president of the institu- tion. Harriette Merrick Hodge was born at Hadley, Massa- chusetts, February sixth, 1826; and in 1847 she became the second wife of Thomas F. Plunkett of Pittsfield. When the project for a local village hospital assumed definite shape, it found in Mrs. Plunkett a woman peculiarly adapted to assist in its advancement. Not only was she by nature endowed, like many of her associates, with a broad conception of Christian charity, and with that feminine power of accomplishment which in old New England used to be called "faculty", but also she had already learned more than the average layman knew in those days about hygiene and sanitation. She was enabled to bring to the use of the House of Mercy an amount of technical knowl- edge infrequently possessed by an elective officer of such cor- porations. Neither this knowledge, however, nor her executive energy was the chief value of Mrs. Plunkett's service to the hos- pital. She had an eager and fertile mind, which expressed itself by vivacious speech and facile writing. In any field of general or personal appeal, her efficiency was uncommonly productive. Few of her countless petitions in behalf of the hospital failed to excite attention somewhere or to awaken in someone the desire somehow to help; and no aid seems ever to have been so slight as to escape her notice.
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