USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 81
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Marshall P. Miller
CHAPTER XIII.
THE CHARITIES OF BOSTON AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE DISTRESSED OF OTHER PARTS.
BY GEORGE SILSBEE HALE.
" There is a City in the World where every House hath a Box hanging in a Chain, on which is Written, Think on the Poor." - Bonifacius, or Essays to do Good, by Cotton Mather, Boston, 1710, p. 145.1
T "HE charities of Boston cannot be adequately described or recorded in the space here allotted to the subject. The beneficence, public and private, which has filled and adorned more than two centuries of municipal existence; which has sent warmth, life, and healing to every quarter of the globe, among strangers and kindred, enemies and friends,-must yield a large part of the space which might be well employed for its story to his- tories of wars with savages, persecutions of fanatics, and resistance to mis- government. It is not possible, indeed, to tell this story with completeness. It is possible to enumerate the societies, institutions, and foundations which have successively sprung up for religious, educational, and charitable pur- poses and to meet varied forms of weakness, want, and suffering in a com- munity constantly increasing in numbers and wealth. It is possible to add up the figures which express part of the wealth which has been freely scattered or liberally accumulated to meet sudden calamities. or constant want. It is possible to describe the means and appliances by which the highest professional skill is bestowed, as freely as light and air, upon the suffering, by which feeble infancy, prostrate manhood, and “ unregarded age " are sought out and protected ; but the purest, the most abundant, and the most effective streams of charity flow through secret channels, and leave no material for history or statistics.
There is, there can be, no record of the work and gifts of generous stewards of the abundance which has rewarded lives of labor; of men whom the living recall, the steady stream of whose annual beneficence was a king's ransom; of those whom the living know, whose annual gifts are an ample
1 " There was also a book of Defoe's, called an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr. Mather's called An Essay to do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on VOL. IV. - 81.
some of the principal future events of my life." - Sparks, Life of Franklin (Autobiography), vol. i. p. 15. Perhaps Boston thus owes, indi- rectly, the Franklin Fund to Cotton Mather.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
fortune; or of the " honorable women," whose lives are full of good deeds and almsgiving. It seems only an injustice to the living and the dead of a community, which has had and still has such men and women among its members, to attempt a record necessarily so imperfect.1
1831 January 1 " The possession of so much property, imposes when me high duties, and great 1-es unsibilities. God in many grant my mind, may ener be clear roperciène That and my heart ready to perform a faithful Steward duty, and That hassessum of these talents, may not pierce me a slachfue servant 4 .
anies Cávience
It is not too much to say that the history of the charities of Boston begins with the earliest period of its organized existence.
It is more than one hundred and fifty years since Increase Mather said : " For charity, he might indeed speak it without flattery, this town hath not many equals on the face of the earth." 2
This charity, indeed, fitly began at the old home in the care of matters of public concern ; for, before leaving England, at " a gen'all court holden at M' Goffs house, on Wensday, the 10th of Febr., 1629-30" -
" FORASMUCH as the furtherance of the plantacon will necessarylie require a great & continuall charge wch cannot wth convenyence bee defrayed out of the ioint stock of the Comp wch is ordained for the maintenance of the trade, without endangering the same to bee wasted & exhausted, it was therfore p'pounded that a coñon stock should bee raysed from such as beare good affecion to the plantacon and the p'pagacon therof, and the same to bee employed only in defraym' of pub- lique charges, as maintenance of ministers, transportacon of poor famylyes, building of churches & ffortyfycacons, and all other publique & necessary occasions of the plantacon." 3
1 " Taking the amount of his property at vari- ous times as noted by himself from the year 1807 to 1829, a period of twenty-two years, with his known habits of liberality and habits of sys- tematic charity, it would be safe to assert that during his life he expended some seven hundred thousand dollars for the benefit of his fellow- men. Many persons have done more; but few, perhaps, have done as much in proportion to the means which they had to bestow." - Diary and Correspondence of Amos Lawrence, etc., P. 312. It is hardly necessary to add that this sum was much greater in value then than now, and that large fortunes are both larger and more numer-
ous ; but it may be added that the living rival this munificence and exceed it in amount. We are forbidden to name the living, and it is impos- sible to name all those who are entitled to honor as examples of charity among the dead. But the names of Perkins and Lawrence, whose auto- graphs adorn our pages, will be recognized as fit representatives of many.
2 Snow's History of Boston, p. 362. " To no city has Boston ever been second in its spirit of liberality."- Centennial Address, 1830, by Josiah Quincy, p. 43.
8 Records of the Governor and Company of the Mass. Bay in New England, vol. i. pp. 67, 68.
643
THE CHARITIES OF BOSTON, ETC.
Gifts to George Munnings for the loss of his eye; to Robert Cutler for his lameness; the foundation of a school or college, to be called " Harvard Colledge; " a gratuity to "Mr. Elliot, in respect of his greate pains and charge in instructing ye Indians ;" legacies to the poor ; and the establishment of almshouses and granaries, - help to fill the early records of the orderly foundation of the State which has grown from this "plantation." But neither the city nor the citizen, even in those early years, confined their benevolence within the peninsula. Mr. Peters, who displayed his charity in buying up provisions and distributing them to all the towns; and the gifts of the early colonists to redeem captives in Canada and in the hands of Barbary pirates,- though the first recorded evidences, were not prob- ably the first actual efforts of a charity which did not end at home.
The charities of a nation, a state, or a city, so far as they are openly manifested, are displayed: (1) In the provision it makes by law, or as a municipal organization, for those who need protection and care, to be found in its legal enactments and corporate action ; in the public contributions of its citizens for the special and varied needs of the same classes, - intrusted (2) to public officers or (3) to private organizations, whose action and his- tory are preserved in the records and reports which these modes of action suggest and require for the guidance and instruction of persons who are interested or solicited to aid in the undertaking; and (4) in the occasional contributions of individuals for the relief of persons near them, or "in other parts," who are suffering from sudden and great calamities or strug- gles. Of the latter there is no competent and satisfactory record. They must be sought with patient labor from scattered sources, and mainly from the files of public journals.
I. THE CHARITY OF THE LAW. - The citizens of Boston brought with them from England the system in regard to the care of the poor, begun before and largely developed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, by which parishes or other municipal divisions were charged with their support, and certain officers of those localities with their care.
Within ten years after the settlement of Boston, in 1639, it was ordered, " by this Court and the authority thereof, that any shire court, or any two magistrates out of court, shall have power to determine all differences about lawful settling and providing for poor persons; and shall have power to dispose of all unsettled persons into such towns as they shall judge to be most fit for the maintenance and employment of such persons and families, for the ease of this country." 1
At first, in a small or thinly settled community, no public establishments or special provisions were necessary. Some of the poor received allot- ments for cultivation or pasturage from the common lands. Their out- door relief came from the treasury or property of the town, and their fuel from its wood-lots. Some were maintained and lodged in the houses of
1 Ancient Charters, p. 173.
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
their townsmen. Some were aided by special gifts of food, clothing, or money.1
In 1660, Mr. Henry Webb,2 having " bequeathed £100 to ye Towne to bee improoved for ye use of ye poore according to his will, &c., to be re- served to y' end from time to time; it was ordered y' ye sª £100 bee im- proved by y^ select men for ye end aforesd in some building fitt for yt end &c.," and "y' y' selectmen shall have power to make use of a piece of ground in ye comon for ye erecting an almeshouse upon wth suitable accom- modations, or to exchange a piece of the Towne's Land for a place more convenient." In 1662, "Itt is ordered that Mr. Petter Olliver is to joine with the deacons of the church of Boston in receiving of Cap't Kean's legacye of one hundred and twenty pounds given to the poore; and fur- ther hereby ordered to receive Mr. Webb's legacie of one hundred pounds, with severall other gifts that are given for the erecting of an Allmshouse ;" and the selectmen were authorized to agree for its erection.3
This almshouse was burned; and at a public meeting of the inhabit- ants, Dec. 18, 1682, " to consider of rebuildinge of an Almshouse and a
By the President and Council The order and is agrismt of up Tonone of Bottone relating to the times and worke house, hawing Brone confidrid, the rate in this paper is allowed, and to B2 pc as formerlis, ordered, by the committe and Selectmen, referring liberty of compla- = int, as formerlie to such as ar aproft or agritur, and where any how fibribed on made promile and Life payant, The Troafhur? os his atturny Rath Power to racour the fame. by action before any two fultion of the prawo, of the Subscriptions sucre not fourty shillings or other wife aty County counter
Workehouse," it was "propounded to the Towne " and voted, "That there be a workehouse provided in some convenient place in this towne, with convenience of Lodging such Psons as shall stand in need of Almes, and be sent thither to work." A rate was levied for this building and approved by the President and Council. We find that it was still unfinished in 1686;
1 A quotation in point, from the Bennett man-
uscript, is given in Vol. II. pp. 459, 490.
2 [See Vol. II. p. xv .- ED.]
8 [See Vol. II. p. xlviii. - ED.]
4 Copy of a paper found in possession of the Overseers of the Poor.
645
THE CHARITIES OF BOSTON, ETC.
but a bill against the town for supplies for the almshouse, still preserved by the Overseers of the Poor, shows that it was lighted in 1703 by candles supplied by the father of Benjamin Franklin.1
A system prevailed at an early period of providing grain at the cost of the town, for sale at a small advance to those of its citizens whose con- dition required it. As early as March, 1713-14, it was voted that the town will make provis- ion for laying in a stock of grain. In 1715 the selectmen were directed to provide a storehouse for grain; and in 1721 it was voted that the granary be continued to be hired. Soon after, the erection of a build- ing was considered; and in 1728 it was " voted that a grainery be built on the comon, near the Almshouse, and that the sum of not exceeding 1 100 pounds, to be paid out of the money to be raised in the general town- meeting, be appropriated for this purpose."2
Josiah franklin
In 1692, by a colonial act,3 the care of the poor was committed to " over- seers of the poor ; " or, if no persons were particularly chosen to that office, to the selectmen acting in that capacity.4
" The ordinary functions of overseers of the poor" were "defined by the statute of 1793 (c. 59), which repealed certain former laws . ... and left the general legislation on this subject substantially as it has since remained. This statute begins with declaring that every town and district 'shall be holden to relieve and support all poor and indigent persons lawfully settled therein, whenever they shall stand in need thereof; ' and to that end au- thorizes each town and district to vote and raise moneys therefor, and at its annual meeting to choose not exceeding twelve suitable persons dwelling therein to be Overseers of the Poor, and when such are not chosen, the Selectmen shall be Overseers. The second section further provides, ' That said Overseers shall have the care and oversight of all such poor and indi- gent persons so settled in their respective towns and districts; and shall see that they are suitably relieved, supported, and employed, either in the workhouse or other tenements belonging to such towns or districts, or in such other way and manner as they, at any legal meeting, shall direct, or otherwise at the discretion of said Overseers, at the cost of such town or district.' The act gives the overseers authority to bind out poor children, and also to set to work or to bind out to service, not exceeding one year at a time, such persons, upwards of twenty-one years of age, residing and law- fully settled in the town or district, or who have no settlement in the Com- monwealth, whether married or unmarried, 'as are able of body, but have
1 [See Vol. II. p. 271 .- ED.]
[Ibid., pp. 460, 518. - ED.] 2
3 Ancient Charters, p. 217.
4 "The overseers, subject to the direction of the town, made such provision for the poor as they deemed best; and in small towns the poor
were not unfrequently maintained at private houses by persons who made contracts for this purpose with the towns; and these contracts were sometimes let to the lowest bidder at public auction." - Report on Organization of the Over- seers of the Poor, City Doc. No. 70, 1864, p. 4.
646
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
no visible means of support; who live idly, and use and exercise no ordi- nary or daily lawful trade or business to get their living by; and also all persons who are liable by any law to-be sent to the House of Correction.' They are further authorized to take proceedings against ·houses of ill-fame ; to provide for the immediate comfort and relief of distressed strangers, and, if they die, for their burial; and also for the removal, to their legal settle- ment, of persons likely to become chargeable to the town.
"In the legislation of the seventy [now over eighty-seven] years since this statute was passed, some new powers have been conferred upon the over- seers; but their main duties and their principal powers remained enacted in the General Statutes, c. 70, in the same words as in the Statute of 1793. They still have ' the care and oversight of all such poor and indigent per- sons; ' and it is still their duty to ' see that they are suitably relieved, sup- ported, and employed, either in the workhouse or almshouse, or in such other manner as the city or town directs, or otherwise at the discretion of said overseers.' They have still to provide for the immediate relief of strangers ; for their removal. to their places of settlement; for their burial, if they die; and for binding out poor children. But the power to bind out idle adults has been superseded by provisions more suitable to a populous country ; "1 and in Boston some of these duties and powers are assigned to other officers.
Overseers of the Poor, however, seem to have existed in Boston, before the Act of 1692, since it appears by its records that on March 9, 1690-91, the townsmen voted " that Mr. Nathaniell Williams, Mr. Benjamine Walker, Mr. William Coleman, and Mr. Symeon Stoddard be Overseers of the Poore of this Towne for the year ensueing;" and they with the Treasurer were appointed to present to the General Court proposals for the employment of the poor.
The vote referred to was probably the origin of the Act of 1692. After the passage of that, the number of overseers in Boston varied for some years. In 1736 an act was passed entitled " An Act for employing and providing for the poor of the town of Boston." 2 This act among other things empowered the town of Boston " to chuse twelve Overseers of the Poor . . . for twelve several wards respectively, into which the town is or shall be divided; " authorized the town to erect a workhouse to be under their regulation, and empowered the overseers to send idle and indigent persons to it, to bind out children and warn out intruders.3 This house for setting "to work "
1 Report, etc. pp. 5, 6.
2 Sts. 8 and 9 Geo. IV. c. 3, Mass. Perpetual Laws, 277.
8 The office of an overseer in Boston was one of dignity and importance. The Hon. Josiah Quincy (Municipal History of Boston, pp. 419, 420,) remarks : "Under the town government the members of the board of overseers of the poor were elected by the votes of the whole body
of the inhabitants. They were, consequently, always men of a high general character, known to a majority of the inhabitants, and chosen by them for their integrity, capacity, and adaptation to the service. Among them were always men distinguished for their wealth, their business talents, and charities. . .. There was another element of confidence in the Board of Overseers under the town ; . . . every vacancy in the board
647
THE CHARITIES OF BOSTON, ETC.
the idle and dissolute poor -the earliest provision of this kind in the city exclusively for that class-was erected in 1738 on Centry, or Sentry (now
ted This 8 th March 1707/8.
" Wewrfeed John Boult John Buck Samuel Keeling Eze: Lewis
5000 Ovenfors of the dow
Benja Sumberto
Park) Street and remained there with the almshouse until about the close of the year 1800, when a new almshouse 1 was opened on Leverett Street and occupied till 1823, under the charge of the overseers, who also gave out-door relief to the poor, and administered the eleemosynary gifts and funds more fully described hereafter. In 1821 this building was the re- ceptacle of persons of "all ages and colors, with various vices, misfortunes, and diseases, - subjects of an almshouse, a hospital, a lunatic asylum,
was always, in fact, filled by the nomination of the members of the board themselves. Hence the new members were always well qualified for the office and acceptable to the old members remaining as associates. When a vacancy was about to occur, it was the practice of the board to consult together and to select the individual whose name was to be inserted in the general ticket with those of the members of the board about to remain. This course was known and acceptable to the inhabitants. The individual thus selected being always one whose qualities
were by them well known and approved, he was accordingly uniformly chosen, it is believed, with- out objection or opposition during the whole period of the town government.
" This course of proceeding gave that Board, under the town, a fixed and staid character, in- viting confidence and sustaining it."
See a list of the Overseers from 1691 to 1866 inclusive, in A Manual for the use of the Over- seers of the Poor of the City of Boston, p. 158.
1 [See the view in Snow's Boston, p. 52. - ED.]
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THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
and a prison."1 A committee of the town reported, by Josiah Quincy as chairman, "that the accommodations provided for the poor at the alms- house in Boston are not such as comport with the honor and interest of the town." They recommended the es- tablishment of a new almshouse, to be called the House of Industry. The town adopted their recommendation, in- structed the committee to provide new build- ings, and to inquire and report on the state and treatment of the poor.
Edw Hutchinson Jacob Wendell Hames Bowdon Samt Jewally DanHenchman . Año Divez 3
The House of Indus- try2 was located in South Boston and com- pleted in 1822; and in 1823 an act was passed authorizing the establishment of a Board of Directors of the House of In- dustry with specified powers. A controversy arose between these directors and the overseers as to their respective authority, which was warmly waged for a time, and resulted finally, under the advice of William Prescott, Charles Jackson, and Daniel Webster, in defining and separating their jurisdiction, substantially by assigning the charge of out-door relief to the overseers, and of that administered in the House of Industry to the directors.4 Since the vote of the town in 1821 to change the name of the Almshouse to the House of Industry, Boston has had no institution legally bearing the name of an almshouse, but has maintained a House of Industry for the poor, and for persons sentenced for sundry offences, in different buildings or parts of the same building.
Boston was the second municipality in the United States to make sep- arate provision for juvenile offenders. New York, whose large population probably demanded this at an earlier period, established a separate insti- tution for this class in 1825; and in 18265 the city of Boston was author-
1 Report, etc., p. 7.
2 [See view in Snow's Boston, p. 376, and in the American Magazine, i, 51. - ED.]
8 Signatures attached to the Report of a Committee for the erecting a workhouse at the upper end of the Common, made July 27, 1739- 4 A distinction which has since continued, and under which all out-door relief and the charge of considerable funds given to the over-
seers by charitably disposed persons have been entrusted to the overseers ; and the care of the public institutions of the city, for the poor and criminals of all descriptions, has been given to directors or (in the case of the City Hospital) to trustees. The Temporary Home and the Lodge for Wayfarers belong to the department of out-door relief.
5 Special Laws, vol. vi. p. 404.
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THE CHARITIES OF BOSTON, ETC.
ized to provide a House of Reformation for them under the care of the Directors of the House of Industry, or such other persons as the city council should appoint. They were at first kept at South Boston, in the building erected for a House of Correction, apart from the other inmates. In 1836 a separate building was erected for them not far from the House of Correction, where they remained until July, 1858; and in 1858 they were removed to that used for the House of Industry at Deer Island. In 1860 a separate building on the Island was provided for girls; and in 1868 one for pauper boys and girls, apart from each other. About 1849 a large building was erected on Deer Island designed to accommodate State pau- pers and city poor, at the time when cities and towns were required to maintain the former for a compensation paid by the State. This system was changed in 1852, when provision was made for State almshouses. In 1853 the Boston House of Industry on Deer Island was first occupied, in separate departments, by the poor and by the persons sentenced to that institution or to the House of Reformation. Now, without any change in the legal appellation "House of Industry," that term has come to be understood as designating its penal character, although there is still no institution described in our laws, bearing any other name, for the worthy poor, - a result " wholly incompatible with the original design of the town in authorizing its erection," since "the comfort, the health, the ex- ercise, and the useful employment of the virtuous and respectable poor was the fundamental principle of the design;" and " the House of In- dustry was not constructed, nor had it any strong rooms and iron vaulted cells, for the restraint of sturdy rogues and vagabonds."1 The different classes, however, have been separated and are now kept at a distance from each other. From time to time changes in the locality and number of the buildings and establishments required for these purposes have been made, to meet the increase in the number and the changes in the character of the persons to be provided for.2
The poor and criminals of the city of Boston are now maintained in nine separate institutions under the care of twelve Directors for Public Institu- tions, chosen by the city council: (1) For male paupers at Rainsford Island, and (2) for females at Austin Farm in West Roxbury, and (3) for both sexes in Charlestown; (4 and 5) the schools for boys and girls at Marcella Street, with (6) the House of Industry and (7) the House of Reformation for juvenile offenders at Deer Island, and (8) the Lunatic
1 Quincy's Municipal History, p. 123.
2 In 1839 the Lunatic Hospital at South Bos- ton was opened. In 1872 Rainsford Island was purchased from the State, and the male paupers were removed to that place. The Austin Farm at West Roxbury was purchased in 1873, and opened for adult female paupers in 1877. In 1877 the Marcella Street Home, so called, for poor and neglected children, was opened for boys in a building formerly used as the Rox- VOL. IV. - 82.
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